Hey , If I may join here on this argument . Shouldn't there be a clear difference of evaluation between :

1)A " conceptual " case ( as tree fell without observers to witness the falling and thus no sound "reported " ) .. matter of faith as bravenewworld wrote .
2) An " eventual " case ( as in the event did occur while observers witnessed it) .

Which reminds me of Kant's " a priori " and " a posteriori " .

So , if we go back to the original question , which clearly pointed out , that there were NO OBSERVERS , then doubtlessly bravenewworld's argument makes more sense ( to me at least ) .

Just a contribution to this thread .

Sama

I do agree with you that I went a bit offtopic by giving "what if" cases.
But I'm just trying to explain my point of view. For which i'm comparing some cases, because I don't see much difference between a tree with nobody around it to hear it, and a tree with a deaf man around there who can't hear it.

If nobody sees the sun, does it mean it doesnt exist or give off light?
-No there will always be someone to see the sun.

If nobody sees the tree
- Aren't there micro-organisms in the tree to hear it? A tree is always filled with other insects or even smaller things.
And they are there to wittness the sound. To these organisms, the tree is HUGE. If the tree would fall down they would definatly feel the vibrations.

You can keep telling yourself that we're talking about a tree without any observers, with no-one or nothing around it. But this doesn't exist in a tree.

The definition of "sound" is ["mechanical vibrations transmitted by an elastic medium; "falling trees make a sound in the forest even when no one is there to hear them"].

If there is a person who is standing in the forest and yells "Hello!". He is the only one who hears himself say "hello". So to that person it would definitely be a sound. But let's say later that day he arrives home and says to his wife "while I was in the forest I yelled Hello!" This would imply to the wife that he did indeed make a sound although she was not there to hear it. While a tree is not vocal and cannot convey this same message, if it fell in the forest, it would indeed make a sound. Although a tree cannot tell us it made a sound, we can assume it did.

Just my thought on the subject.

Hehe...well I should perhaps have pointed out "without a listener AND/OR observer". Meaning anyone present.

i find it hard to believe how hard it is for some of you to just imagine a fictional scenario. I KNOW that there's a lot of life forms inside and around trees, but please, if you may, just get out of your "reality" based way of thinking and imagine that there are no other life forms, could you do that for me? and Brave New World posts another question which may sound stupid to some but it's really not, how do we know that we don't affect the reality around us? what if trees only make sounds when they fall when people are nearby, i'm not saying this is true, but what if we affect reality in such a way that it wouldn't even exist if we weren't there to witness it. we have absolutely no way of knowing this for sure, because it's impossible to study something without the observer actually being there to witness it. so in the own words of Brave New World "it's an act of faith", we've heard trees fall, so we imagine that they all fall and make the same sound, but how do we know for sure?

if all of humanity closes their eyes for one hour, does the visual world cease to exist for one hour? it sounds stupid, but there's no way of knowing, there's no way of knowing anything for sure unless you are there to witness it. and about the sound, it DOES need to be heard in order to become a sound. what is an apple? it's food, why is it food? because you eat it, if no life forms ate apples, would they still be food? no, they would not. an apple needs to be eaten in order to be called food, a sound needs to be heard in order to be called a sound, it's a requirement if you will. right now you are facing a computer, if it suddenly stopped working, if it just broke down, it would not be a computer anymore because it wouldnt be able to perfonrm any of the functions that a computer performs, so when someone asks "what is that?", you should answer "it's just trash, but it used to be a computer"

Whether it magically changes or not I dont know cause I am not there. : )



Well maybe it does and maybe it doesnt cause there is no one there to hear it.

thanks!

If no one sees it how can we be sure it is giving off light?



Well how do we know there are micro-organisms if there is no one to point them out? How can you this doesnt exist in a tree without being there to prove so?

I've heard this before =/

Aha - but there WILL be a sound when the tree falls in the forest - if only AFTER the event. It is the sound of environmentalists fretting about Oxygen/CO2 levels, and demanding huge carbon taxes

Meow Purr

Well written.

The sun will always be seen by someone as I already said, (And if the sun would stop giving off light we'd probably all die)

Brave new world, I noticed how most of your replies basically mean the same thing; "If there's no-one there to wittness it, can you be sure it exists"
I don't know if it's me, but you're answering my questions with other questions, by using the one question this topic is all about, which is quite interresting. ^^

On that point, that is why humans have FIVE senses. if sight is removed we still know it is there from touch, taste(O.o), sound, smell



Why do you think this?

Humans can generally hear sounds with frequencies between 20 Hz and 20 kHz. Sound above the hearing range is known as ultrasound, and that below the hearing range as infrasound. So sound is something that you don't have to heard it to prove it exist. maybe you can feel the vibrations. So someone who is deaf doesn't need to hear the sound but he also can feel it. my point is: The fact is that there is a tree falling down. so there will be always vibrations. And without a observer there will still be vibrations. As i said before you don't need to hear the sound to confirm it.

Sound travels through the vibration of atoms and molecules in a medium (such as air or water). In space, where there is no air, sound has no way to travel

You can define "sound" any way you please but if you claim
that it doesn't exist without an observer stifles communication.
This leaves one to use the word "noise" to refer to sounds with-
out observers but "noise" already has a definition which is not
like "sound". Noise is the chaotic vibration of media as caused
by a chaotic force such as "white noise" from a radio or "static'.

A tree falling would make a very structured sound which would
be very dissimilar to noise.

There's simply no question that falling trees make sounds so long
as you use the scientific definition of sound.

No one has answered my questions in previous posts but I'll ask
another anyway. If you're unconscious under the falling tree will
it matter if there's a sound or not? Will it matter if the tree falls?

Here's a question (sort of).

Here in the UK we have roundabouts (they're bit of an obsession - mainly to annoy the europeans who have to try and learn to go around them the other way)

THe whole thing is technically 'part of the road' - you can drive around them endlessly.

Just a really small area of tarmac - you can drive forever - no beginning and no end.

Imagine it was a really big roundabout - a really large ring road with no exits - but the thought never occurred to you coz you're in your car driving along a straight road.......

But there is an exit.

All you have to do is define your terms.

And there has to be some word for vibrations which aren't percieved simply because they are as real as most of the people debating them. I would propose that word is "sound" but if anyone has an alternative I'm all ears.

Sound is not something we created, it is a constant. It existed before us and will outlast us. The creation of the heavens no doubt expelled a horrific sound. Having a insignificant tree fall, should be no different.

All sounds are noises, but not all noises are sounds. Does a fallen tree make a noise? Yes. Does a fallen tree make a sound? Yes, but ONLY when one or more organisms possessing one or more auditory organs is there to hear the noise. Otherwise, it makes no sound. It's just a word-play riddle. That's all it is, and all it will ever be.

But you are getting off topic here. If I were to say "would the sun still give off sunlight if there was no one around to see it or recieve it?"



Thanks!

How do you know there are still gonna be vibrations if there is no observer? So if man never heard sound before then we would know it existed? Could we say the same of God? Even if we have never heard God before or sensed God with the five senses does that mean that God still exists? My point being of course that you dont have to see or hear God etc to know that God exists....

Without an observer how can we know whether the sound is travelling or not? Hypothetically speaking if I asked you to scream one hundred kilometres away, how could I be sure that you were making a sound? I wouldn't....I could presume so but that would be an act of faith or trust.

Yes sound can be defined by a subject to define it. And only can it be defined when there is someone to define it.



Noise is sound and sound is noise. They are one and the same.



So if I heard structured noise that would be different from hearing a sound that is structured?



Well I know there is no question as long as someone is there to hear it. Otherwise how are we to know, unless of course we had faith in the reliability of the material universe which you speak. But even then we would be going by assumption and not by knowing.



As in we are there to wake up to the tree and hear it, cause this would be getting off topic, the topic is "if a tree fall in the woods and no is there to hear it, does it still make a sound?"

If we are unconscious under the tree and it lands on us and kills us while we are unconscious it wont matter whether it makes noise or not and it wont matter whether we are dead or alive cause we were unconscious the whole time

In fact if we are unconscious under the falling tree, your question wouldnt matter.

How can we know it will outlast us or existed before us if there was no one around that time to confirm it? How can we be sure it will still be here after us if there is no one to confirm it?

How do we know the fallen tree makes a "noise" if there is nothing there to detect the noise?

Does a tree make a sound if it falls in the woods and nobodies there to here it?
A good philosophical question which sounds like you have been reading up on solipsism or quantum mechanics.

I would say the answer is both yes and no.

The way I see it is the world is divided into two parts. Theres the part around us which we can gain infomation on and then theres the part far away which we are not in contact with. This part behaves as a probability or potential because we can gain no infomation on it. Just as quantum theory predicts parallel universes exist in situations where things behave as probibilities or potentials, I would say in this potential part of the world all outcomes exist. This includes a tree falling and making a noise, the tree not existing in the first place and even the weird situation where the tree both exists and makes a noise and doesnt exist at the same time. Lol.

Read up on quantum mechanics and the schrodinger cat problems if you are confused.

I understand. However none of the "probabilities" are ever actualized until an observer comes into the scene. I fight this argument because I strongly agree that there is no objective world unless there is a subject one.

If you are not in contact with it then how do you know its there?????

From science and past experiences we know that falling trees make noise, but they don't make sounds unless they are heard.

You seem to be playing this role.

Not feeling philosophical right now. So...


If your mum falls in the woods....

Do the trees laugh?

So are you right now. ^^

We are talking about a tree, something that is proven to exist. The existance of God is not proven, so you can't compare those two.

I still think about this the same as when we started, A falling tree makes a noise when there are observers; why would it be different when there's no-one nearby. No, the ground doesn't magically change. It's true that you can say. "but there is no-one around to hear it so how can you be sure", There is indeed nobody around it to hear it!!!!. But the process doesn't change! If there's nobody around to hear it, why would it NOT give off vibrations? Why would it NOT make a sound?

Stop answering my questions with this sentence btw: "But how do you know for sure if there's no-one around?" It's driving me insane >.>

sound doesn't need to be heard to be called a sound. sound is cause by vibrations that cause the little changes in the air. just like sun light you don't have to see the sun light but you can actually feel it. it's not just a matter of faith, but there are all kind of other elements playing a role in making a sound. it's not just that someone need to hear it.

everything what brave_new_world said is not wrong. but what i'm really saying is that you can prove that there is a sound, by the knowledge we have.everything has to do with science here. you say that without an observer there isn't any prove. but we are talking about humans. and the question was; if a tree falls in the woods and there's no one around to hear it, does it make a sound? so actually somewhere far from here can detect the vibrations in the ground which means there is something that falls down on the ground, making a vibrations hard enough to create a sound.

using the word observer you mean all kind of things that can confirm a sound but in the sentence that is written in the topic-question. we mean humans or atleast something that can hear a sound. but feeling vibration is another thing. so actually somewhere far from here can detect the vibrations in the ground which means

yes i know i go a bit off topic but i have to do it to explain it.

Well actually this topic is called; "IF A TREE FALLS IN THE WOODS...." nothing said about humans ^^

But I understand where you are comming from, the reall age-old question is: "If a tree falls down in the forest and there is no-one (meaning a human being, or maybe even an animal) around to hear it, does it still make a sound?".

But we live in the 21st century, so we have alot of ways to catch a sound. We can use machines to proove the existance of sound as well.

If you detect vibrations on the ground far away from the forest how do you know they are from a falling tree?

maybe if you look in ur atlas you can see it's maybe in a forest.

well if you look back to the very first post you see the one who started this topic asked in his post the question.

Sorry my bad ^^

Poltergeist my comment doesnt attack your view. Your view is nothing exists independant of an obersever my view is that a pure realm of potential exists and when the observer gains their infomation than an objective reality is created. It means the same.

Do a search on wave-particle duality and the double slit experiment. The potential does exist and can be proved to exist at least in quantum mechanic experiements with atoms. It is this potential which is hotly debated about because nobody knows what it means. The best ideas so far thought of to explain it are parallel universes, extra dimensions, faster than light particles, wave packets and many more.

what, the atlas is in a forest?

too lazy to read the posts.

say this tree fell, it MUST of made a sound since kinetic energy turns to sound as the tree hits the floor, SEEing the tree lyning on the floor is proof of this.

Potential being the operative word?

Yeaz, Physics is very interesting i like it

Potential is still not a definitive answer.

The things that can not be proven have simply not found the right approach to understanding them yet.

Because something very different from what we consider the "norm" could be happening. And we wouldn't know cause there is no one there.



Good question.....I dont know I really dont but what I do know is that we cant tell unless there is someone there.



Just driving my point in hehe

Why doesnt anyone need to hear it? It is only because of observers that we know it is vibrations.



But that would be sly and the original question could then be put: "If a tree fell in the woods and no one was around to hear it but there were people with vibration detecting equipment, would it make a sound?



By observer we mean sentient beings or conscious beings.



Nah, you're all good.

Bleh...I think we can get to the conclusion that there will most likely be a sound but it will never be proven.

Aww beauty!@!



So in the end it comes down to an act of faith.