Originally posted by Josh Redstone

And about trees, they make a sound when they fall wether your there or not, its just hard to imagine stuff happening without us being there to see it.

This might seem far out, but a part of philosophy is called Epistemiology, and it teaches you that since you can't prove it (you're not there) there as much chance that it does make a noise or doesn't. (actually, Kant's books are pretty much about this: when you don't experience directly something, you can't proove it exists, but you can't proove the opposite either. Read Criticism of metaphysics to go further in this)
This kind of thinking is used in Zen to be able to focus and reach a state where you are fully aware. And even though it might sound stupid at first, those sentences and way of thoughts have been there for centuries, so don't trash it because you think they're stupid and pointless, because it's WAY deeper than that.

There's actually a physics branch that's called quantum (I don't know if that's the right translation) that's based on the fact that when you want to study a really small phenomenom (inside an atom, for example) your study changes the observation, by throwing photons (what makes light) in there that wouldn't have been there if you didn't watch it. And some quantum paradoxes pretty much relates to those zen questions.

Ain't questions great? :)