Assume that there ARE two mediums, Wood and Soil.
Soil and Wood are mutually exclusive.
We, the humans, suppose, can only dwell in Wood.
And for argument's sake let's say that we are like really small. Like 1mm in size or something.
Also, let's define a branch order. The trunk is a first order branch. That is to say, above ground, it is the first one. Now it branches off into two, these two branches are second order branches. Let's label them 2a and 2b and so on and so forth. Very many people started out at different locations in the tree. Some at O4 (Order-4) some at O5, O6, some at O3.
Now, those who "exist" at a lower order branch, can see other higher orders as a function of this lower order branch, i.e, that they "split off" from this one. OR, the ones dwelling in the higher order branches can look back and abstract their "past" as a function of a combination of other branches in this order. (edited)-
Journey Through the Wood
Now, after a long time, I've successfully unified the O1 branch and the highest order branch. The only problem? If I continue the journey from the higher order branch, things get weird. I encounter the seed. Therein, there are all "possibile trees that it can turn into" simultaneously. But from the trunk POV, it seems pretty set in stone. I travel down from this trunk into the roots (I am not aware of the soil that surrounds it) (remember, I do not know that there are roots. Since I can ONLY dwell in the wood, I can access one root at a time. That is to say, it is not possible from my POV for two roots to exist simultaneously for I have to make a choice and if I want to travel to a different root, I have to go back to the trunk and choose a different path.) These now become "alternate possible POVs" of seeing the deeper end of the trunk. But they're all singular in their own right (from human's POV).-
So we have the humans at higher orders doing essentially the same thing as those seeing from the trunk (note that they are all unified in their POV as sharing the medium that is "wood"). Their direction is same relative to their approach. The higher order ones keep splitting and study the "past" (lower order trunks) as a function of its constituent splitting while the lower order ones study the higher order ones (their branches) as a function of their own lower order branch as splitting from it. Let's continue the lower order journey. They encountered that there is a fruit at the end of the branch. They go inside still and encounter a "seed". (Now the seed ain't wood any longer, it is a different medium altogether.). Let's say that someone was in the seed and the fruit "dropped" to the ground. It "disconnected" from the wood. Now the fruit, from their POV, disappears. That is to say, the human who was in it, is now "dead". But from inside the seed, it has now entered the ground. Say that the flesh of the fruit gets decomposed relatively quickly (as far as the timescale of the tree goes) and now the seed is "exposed" to the medium that is the soil. And that you can perceive the soil because the seed is transparent to it. (not in a light centric manner) You now see that, the trunk splits into not one-at-a-time deeper extension, but ALL of them simultaneously. (roots) Not to mention, that this is not the only such cluster. (It wasn't so from the roots as it was "wood", which only allows traversal within itself and to the air via leaves)
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Here, the wood is "living" and the seed is "that which has the potential to be living" (that kinda sounds like a virus lol) The wood is bound to the air (connected to it via the leaves) while the seed, in its origin state, is bound to the soil.
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Also, let's say that each tree there is the exact same species. So the current tree must be a result of the seed from one of the other trees. This process is cylical in the sense that the seed to tree to seed keeps on repeating, but linear in terms of evolution (adaption of the tree in context of changing environment). That said, the pace of this linear evolution is much slower and happens over timescales orders of magnitudes over that of the lifespan of a single tree. So you cannot possibly tell that from the wood. From the soil, however, the past iterations are laid out horizontally via the roots which can be observed from the transparency of the seed. That said, the observer is still seed bound. That is to say, it can only observe the wood that results from it. That is to say, the number of possibilities within the seed are a function of the characteristics of the tree it came from. It can only have so many variations. It cannot, however, turn into another species altogether (well now I just sound like Oogway)