There is no forest. There are only trees. The “forest” is a human fabrication, an abstraction that exists only in our minds. Abstractions serve a purpose in human communication, certainly. Let’s not try to deny that. However, we must never forget what they really are and that they only exist in our minds.
If you take a particular cluster of trees and establish boundaries in your mind and decide to name it Fangorn Forest, then until you tell others about it and they agree with you, Fangorn Forest exists only in your mind. Even when you do tell people about it and perhaps draw some boundary lines on a map, some may agree, some may disagree about what the boundaries are, or may want to call it something else, or may not want to acknowledge it at all. Even then, Fangorn Forest exists in some minds but not others. At no point has reality ever actually been altered. The “forest” does not exist. The forest has only abstract existence and even then it exists only to the extent that various people consent to it and to the extent that they agree on its properties.
