on idealism.

When a tree falls in a forest and there’s no one around to perceive it, it doesn’t make a sound. Neither are its fruit sweet, its sap fragrant, and its leaves green.   At least, this is what “science says”.  Fair enough, I say.  But even still—the tree per se is such that I’m to perceive it such. That is, what it means to be a tree—what a tree is—in part, is to be such a thing for me to perceive it such, and this is true of the tree which falls in the forest even when I’m not around to perceive it.

It’s weird to think that, at least for some things, what they are isn’t distinct from what it’s like for us to perceive them.  But then again, in a world full of His Glory, this is exactly what one should expect.