When a child comes in I believe that it's a 'multipersonhood ' and it knows it its consciousness knows it and it has a nuclei in the center of its consciousness that is the repository of all experience and all knowledge. And when you look in the eyes of your baby and you feel this sense that they are an old soul I believe indeed they are.
God has cared for these trees saved them from drought disease avalanches and a thousand tempests and floods. But he cannot save them from fools.