I was looking at the sky,
With my cloudy gloomy eyes
Thought to myself what I want to be next.
I choose to be a tree and have no eyes or ears.
to look yet exist
Exist without knowing my Existence.
Like a rock
Capture by @mephisto2102101
I am going to take you down the memory lane in mind into the past. Imagine a classroom. A classroom of fifth graders. Imagine our teacher gives us an assignment to write about a talking tree. I have done that before, in my fifth grade, why should I do it now again? you may ask me. Trust me, you have done it before as a fifth grader, not with your current knowledge whatever Grade you are in now!
And This is my essay. Comment me yours.
I am a tree. I have never been anything else since I was born from a seed. I do not have eyes or ears to see or hear the world. So, I do not know any colors or sounds. I do not have a nose to smell aroma. Yet I feel the warmth of the sun, I know the dampness of the ground where I bury my roots, so deep, fine filaments until I find water. I do not have a brain to know what is going in my roots. I do not know whether it is osmosis, or bulk transport which carries through my trunk. I do not have fine sensory organs to know who eats my bark or rub on it.
Capture by @pipapipia
I have no idea how my leaves, create food inside using photosynthesis, oxygen and sunlight with water. I have no idea how to integrate this information to send the excess food back through my branches, down to my roots to grow them, to my trunk to repair its new coat for next winter and to make beautiful colorful flowers with wonderful smell that carries over hundreds of feet to attract pollinators. I do not know other plants exist because I don't see them hear them or feel them. Yet I know they do. And I do not know how I know it, because I have no brain to think about it.
Each year I make hundreds of fruits carry hundreds of seeds. Teeny tiny, microscopic seeds which carry the information necessary to bring out a tree as same species as myself. And this tiny seed has potential to exist grow and die without consciousness as myself now. I never ask questions about my existence, I don't ask questions about my future, I do not have the troubles from my past. I am just a combination of information packed in a special package which is called a seed. Which is complex enough to use colors even I do not know what they are.
I exist and do not exist at the same time. I am a tree. Who are you?
Thank you for reading. A talking tree - thought experiment.
You may also like to read Are we prisoners of our minds?
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