The Root Of The Problem [FICTOID]

I think, therefore I am, the sycamore tree thought.  But do I really think, or do I just think I think?  And if I think I think, isn’t that the same as actually thinking?

This was a questioned that perplexed the sycamore ever since it had been planted in a Beijing park.

The very meaning of existence was at stake here. 

If the tree truly thought, then it had identity, consciousness, in short, what the ancients called a soul.

But how can I think? the tree asked itself.  I possess no brain or neural system.  How am I capable of conscious thought?

The sycamore never saw The Wizard Of Oz or read the book (though a cousin in Canada had been pulped to produce paper for a print edition) and as such could neither appreciate nor evaluate the Scarecrow’s similar queries regarding his own intelligence.

If I have no brain, I can possess no thought, the sycamore reasoned.

Any thought I possess must be generated externally, not internally.

And if generated externally, then it is truly not reflective of any intellectual traits of my own, but rather those of some external agency imposing them on me.

Indeed, in order for me to even “think” these thoughts, I need to be a fictional entity, a mere allegorical prop for some unseen, perhaps benign, perhaps malignant entity.

“So what shall it be, boys and girls?” Buzz Dixon asked his readers.  “Give the tree a happy ending or feed him into a wood chipper.”

© Buzz Dixon