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Trees Have Their Own Songs

Sunday, April 9, 2017 0:17
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by Ed Yong

Just as birders can identify birds by their melodious calls, David George Haskell can distinguish trees by their sounds. The task is especially easy when it rains, as it so often does in the Ecuadorian rainforest. Depending on the shapes and sizes of their leaves, the different plants react to falling drops by producing “a splatter of metallic sparks” or “a low, clean, woody thump” or “a speed-typist’s clatter.” Every species has its own song. Train your ears (and abandon the distracting echoes of a plastic rain jacket) and you can carry out a botanical census through sound alone.

“I’ve taught ornithology to students for many years,” says Haskell, a natural history writer and professor of biology at Sewanee. “And I challenge my students: Okay, now that you’ve learned the songs of 100 birds, your task is to learn the sounds of 20 trees. Can you tell an oak from a maple by ear? I have them go out, pour their attention into their ears, and harvest sounds. It’s am almost meditative experience. And from that, you realize that trees sound different, and they have amazing sounds coming from them. Our unaided ears can hear how a maple tree changes its voice as a soft leaves of early spring change into the dying one of autumn.”

This acoustic world is open to everyone, but most of us never enter it. It just seems so counter-intuitive—not to mention a little hokey—to listen to trees. But Haskell does listen, and he describes his experiences with sensuous prose in his enchanting new book The Songs of Trees. A kind of naturalist-poet, Haskell makes a habit of returning to the same places and paying “repeated sensory attention” to them. “I like to sit down and listen, and turn off the apps that come pre-installed in my body,” he says. Humans may be a visual species, but “sounds reveals things that are hidden from our eyes because the vibratory energy of the world comes around barriers and through the ground. Through sound, we come to know the place.”

In his first book, The Forest Unseen, Haskell trekked to the same patch of Tennessee forest and described how a single square meter changed over a year. His keen observations and achingly beautiful narration earned him a spot on the Pulitzer finalist list in 2012. Now, he brings the same sensibility to his sophomore effort. In The Song of Trees, he visits a dozen specially chosen trees, including: a pear tree in the heart of Manhattan; an olive tree in Jerusalem; a sabal palm, roughing the salt and sun of a Georgian beach; a towering, rain-drenched ceibo in Ecuador; and a bonsai pine that survived the Hiroshima bombing and now lives in Washington, D.C. Each of these protagonists is a focal point for stories about the natural world.

But Haskell doesn’t treat the trees as individuals. He sees them as “nature’s great connectors,” living symbols of the book’s great theme—that life is about relationships.

Roots draw nutrients from symbiotic fungi and communicate with neighboring bacteria. Leaves sniff the air to detect the health of neighbors, while releasing alarm chemicals that summon caterpillar-destroying parasites. Seeds are dispersed by far-flying birds. Photosynthetic cells harness the power of sunlight using structures evolved from free-living microbes. And these kinds of relationships are ancient: A balsam fir that Haskell encounters in Ontario exemplifies this idea; it grows on rocks that contain the corpses of bacterial colonies that lived 1.9 to 2.3 billion years ago.

“The fundamental nature of life may be not atomistic but relational,” Haskell says. “Life is not just networked; it is network.”

Haskell sees life, as exemplified by trees, as less about the stories of individuals and more as “temporary aggregations of relationships.” And death, then, is the de-centering of those relationships, as the “self degenerates into the network. “There’s an ash log here in Tennessee, which is close to where I teach. I had been waiting for years in the forest to be there exactly when a big tree falls, and that particular log blew me away with how many cool creatures came in and used it. It even put out a few buds in the years after it fell. Compared to humans, the difference between life and death seems a lot less clear to me for a tree, and you could argue that its afterlife was more life-giving to the forest than its life.”

A forest’s networks also provide it with something that Haskell likens to intelligence—and he asserts that this isn’t anthropomorphism. Plants sense and respond to their surroundings. They store information—memories—about the threat of grazing mouths or past climatic conditions. They integrate information both within their tissues and beyond. When such processes happen in a nervous system, we talk of minds, thought, and behavior. So it is with plants, Haskell argues.

“I’m very comfortable using words like intelligence, but I need to emphasize that this is a very other kind of intelligence,” he says. It’s slow, diffuse, other. “We’re not putting elves in the forest or imagining one big super-organism that thinks in a human-like way. The forest’s intelligence is so decentralized compared to ours. To me, the closer analogy is of human culture. Ideas and human culture happens between points of consciousness in our brains. It’s very decentralized, but it has memory and contributes to our understanding and our ability to solve problems.”

[more…]

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Source: http://www.philosophers-stone.co.uk/?p=19022

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  • 123’s of true Christianity v popular & damnable heresies
    (simply because you “confess” it does not mean you actually are, the devil has deceived many of his own children to believe they are Christians 2Tim 3:5)
    #1 “ONE” not triune: THE ANTI CHRIST….WHERE? WHERE?….EVERYWHERE!!! …..IT”S YOU O TRINITARIAN!

    “WHO” it was (what person) that came “IN THE FLESH”, IS THE DETERMINING FACTOR IN WHAT IT MEANS TO BE “ANT-CHRIST”! Even Islam claims Jesus was the Jewish messiah/Christ who was to come in the flesh) they all deny “WHO” it was (what person) that came (to be the Christ) in the flesh!?!…….To deny the father is to deny the son because they are one and the same person that came in the flesh! https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/part-6-anti-christ-where-everywhere-allen-daves?trk=mp-reader-card

    JOHN 14: 8-20 where Christ specifically identifies himself (his person as the person of both the father and the HS; the only distinction is in “location” and “method of manifestation” …….Note Isaiah 9:6. For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: …: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counseller, … the everlasting Father ….The son, father/Holy Spirit are all the same person, NOT like two different persons working together even as “one flesh” ….The “oneness” between Christ and the father is not comparable to a man & his wife, for only a fool would say “When you have seen me you have seen my wife, how sayest thou then, Shew us your wife?” Notice they asked to see THE FATHER and the response was Jn 14:9 ..“HAVE I BEEN SO LONG time with you, and yet hast THOU NOT KNOW ME, Philip…..Now image some fool trying to claim that statement if you asked to see his wife!?!!? You want to see the FATHER but have I been with you but you don’t know me!?!?! https://www.scribd.com/doc/305367608/The-Trinity-Heresy

    Jn 14 continued….…………..17. Even THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH; (Jn 14:6 I AM the way, THE TRUTH,) whom the world cannot receive, .. for HE DEWLLETH WITH YOU, (present tense/standing next to them in the flesh) and SHALL BE IN YOU… (future tense “In them”) 18. I will not leave you comfortless: I WILL COME TO YOU (future tense “In them”) Note: The spirit of Christ is the sprit of God and the holy spirit that is why Christ said “I will come to you” (to comfort them, because Christ is the comforter). The spirit was standing next to them in flesh… ….latter it would come to them to be inside of them (inside of their flesh as the spirit we are given)…..that is why. he would send the spirit…… However, Jesus himself here makes the point that the same person who was the HOLY SPIRIT that would come was standing next to them but lets them know “I will come to you again to be Inside of you”

    The whole point to Gal 3:20.a mediator is NOT A MEDIATOR OF ONE, (HEIS) but GOD IS ONE. (HEIS) again, point blank, identifies the number of persons of God! The “but” points out the contrast between multiple persons in a mediation party v the “one” of God. God is not like a mediation party with multiple different persons. …..”the express image of his person” ( the person of God; singular not plural).Any attempt to lay claim otherwise is willful ignorance and delusional nonsense https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/part-1-echadechadmy-godgod-echad-allen-daves?trk=mp-reader-card

    NOTE: don’t be that one in prov 26:12 over my use of the word “fool” here prov 18:13 (https://www.scribd.com/presentation/322007258/Fools ) “But but, the gospel of John…the Gospel of John …look look…” which is quite ironic since the gospel of John does not leave ANY room for multiple different persons of Jesus and father. However the gospel of John does leave a few verses that facilitate God’s promise in 2 Thess 2:11/ Isaiah 66:4 (take note of “HAND” in verse 2,14..You just can’t make this stuff up…God is surely laughing at these fools; Ps 2:1&4)

    ……Mark 12:28…Which is the first commandment of all? 29. …Hear, O Israel; THE LORD OUR GOD IS ONE LORD: 30. And ………..this is the first commandment….. 31. And the second is…..
    JESUS IS GOD AND IS THE FULLFILMENT OF ALL THE LAW AND PROPHETS SO IF YOU CAN’T GET THIS “FIRST OF ALL COMMANDMENTS” RIGHT, ALL THE REST OF YOUR “FAITH” AND PREACHING ON SIN IS MOOT

    TRINITARIANS CONFESS JESUS /THEY ARE NOT POLYTHEIST BUT ARE MONOTHEIST LIKE A LIAR & THIEF WHO “CONFESS” THEY DO NOT LIE OR STEAL The simple fact is that just because you confess or deny that you are in an adulterous relationship and denounce all forms of adultery has nothing to do with whether or not it is in fact adulterous! .. …A rose by any other name is still just a rose AND calling it a water lily does not change the definition of what a water Lilly or a rose is either!…No, Trinitarians confess & preach literally …”ANOTHER JESUS” 2 Cor 11:4

    https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/part-2-pgs-91-101-chapter-eight-lets-talk-us-allen-daves?trk=mp-reader-card

    - Like a thief in your house caught stealing your things insisting he was not there stealing “I CONFESS I am NOT stealing”. You just do not “properly understand” what he is doing/saying. Further, since you never had a “proper understanding” of what he is doing/saying you have no business accusing him since you do not even know what you are talking about in the first place. It is with and in your own ignorance that you base your “false accusations” & “ad homonym attacks” against him…… Ridiculous of course it is ……2Thess 2:11; Titus 1:16; 2Tim 3:5;

    - A Favorite tool for pathological liars is to use incongruent definitions or create oxymorons out of synonyms such as “a person” and “a being” so as to claim that your god is THREE DIFFERENT PERSONS but ONLY ONE BEING: Which is (1) no different then trying to claim that “THREE DIFFERENT CARS” is “THE ONE VEHICLE” (2) blatant demonstration of the dishonesty & sorcery these children of hell will employ with “a strait face” (which is in part what it means to be a pathological liar)
    ……but, ah i remember how this game is played… “God is three in one” (or 1in 3 or 3in one et al) should have given you a hint, harking back to Satan in The garden…God said you will die…Satan comes along and states no you will be more WISE……today .God said He is one; but Satan’s children come along and say no three is more WISE and humble in the face of God’s grandeur only “a mystery” that can be understood “in faith”. God uses head and right arm to explain the distinctions between father and son.. However, the Trinitarian heretics say to the effect: “NO, that is just a figure of speech, or that is not what God really means. What God is really saying is that God is three different persons”. Fools, hypocrites and blind guides, God said he was One and by your traditions and vain imaginations have taken the words of God and made them of no effect, refashioning God into your image!

    You can download the complete FREE book from
    https://www.scribd.com/doc/305367608/The-Trinity-Heresy
    OR
    https://www.academia.edu/23463667/THE_TRINITY_HERESY

    http://www.scribd.com/user/249756770/Allen-Daves

    independent.academia.edu/AllenDaves

    https://www.linkedin.com/today/author/0_0wXAPxHFpV6o3_6erj3ZFe?trk=prof-sm

    #2 SECOND COMING Thou Fool! “I come quickly” so “Hold fast
    till i come”… NOT …“in another 2000 yrs I might be coming soon any time now, so hold fast”!?! …those that deny the second coming of Christ in the war of AD70 are practicing a damnable heresy in denying the lord that bought them ( 2Peter 2:1-2 ;2Tim 4:8/ you cant love an appearing you deny& the context is the 2nd coming not the first)… Mat 7:23..”I NEVER KNEW YOU” …..Mat 10:33. But whosoever shall deny me before men……..sound familiar?…. If I said I am coming to your house in this generation when these things happen but no one knows the day or hour what fool would think I might be coming in 2000 years latter!?!? ..2 Tim 4: 4. And
    they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be TURNED UNTO FABLES.
    2Thess 2: 11. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: 12. That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

    DOWNLOAD FREE THE ENTIRE 480PG BOOK AT SEVERAL LOCATIONS
    https://www.scribd.com/doc/305366745/Revelation-the-First-Gospel-of-the-Kingdom

    or

    https://www.academia.edu/23464127/REVELATION_THE_FIRST_GOSPEL_OF_THE_KINGDOM

    #3 There is a sharp contrast between THREE groups :

    (1) “PREDESTINED DAMNED” who were NEVER written in the book of life ………..Rev 17: 8 WHOSE NAMES WERE NOT WRITTEN IN THE BOOK OF LIFE FROM THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD, …as contrasted …EPH 1: 4. According as he hath CHOSEN US in him BEFORE THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD

    (2) “MANY CALLED”= ONLY and ALL SAINTS (those who come to Christ) are written in the book of life … Philippians 4:3… ……Rev 21:27; (Only saints are Called and elect; Rom 1:6-7 et al) This is THE CHRUCH and ONLY these can have their names blotted out of the book of life ….….Heb 12:23 to the general assembly and CHURCH of the firstborn … WHICH ………are WRITTEN in heaven,

    (3) THE FEW CHOSEN: Those saints who were alive in group #2 who are now physically dead. They died “faithful” these are the FEW that were chosen faithful…….Rev 3:5. ……; and I
    will not BLOT OUT HIS NAME OUT OF THE BOOK OF LIFE, (Ps 69:28) …. These are the FEW that are CHOSEN and now that they have died and are saved then “once saved THEY CAN NEVER BE LOST”

    Predestination….its true..its all true…download here

    https://www.scribd.com/doc/306868420/Most-True-Christians-Go-to-Hell

    https://www.academia.edu/25217564/Most_True_Christains_Go_to_Hell

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