Yet Another Answer to that Famous Zen Question

In How Emotions are Made, Lisa Barrett asks the famous Zen question:

“If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”

As mentioned in an earlier blog, her book is about the “theory of constructed emotion”:

“Emotions are not reactions to the world. You are not a passive receiver of sensory input but an active constructor of your emotions.”

Barrett answers the Zen question in the context of the theory of constructed emotion:

“A tree falling itself makes no sound. Its descent merely creates vibrations in the air and the ground.”

It becomes a sound only if “something special is present to receive and translate them: say, a ear connected to a brain”.

 

Here’s the connection she draws to the constructed-emotion theory:

“A sound, therefore, is not an event that is detected in the world. It is an experience constructed when the world interacts with a body that detects changes in air pressure, and a brain that can make those changes meaningful.”

The same goes for emotion, she says. It’s not just a reaction to something in the world; it’s a creation of the human body influenced not just by the external signal but also the internal signals within the body itself.

 

That Zen question is profound in oh-so-many ways!