if e tree falls in the woods and there's no one around to hear it, does it make a sound? i'll say what i think, then if you guys dissagree, please explain your theory. i think that if a tree falls in the woods and there's no one around to hear it, id does NOT make a sound. sound is defined as vibrations traveling through air, water, or some other medium, especially those within the range of frequencies that can be perceived by the human ear. the simple answer is that sound is something that can be heard. if no one hears it there is no sound. until someone hears them, those vibrations traveling through the air cannot be called sound. so i think that if a tree falls in the woods and there's no one around to hear it, it emits certain vibration with the potential to become a sound, if there was somebody there to hear it. does anyone have a different point of view?

Yes it does. Sound is simply an energy and the effect this energy has on the surroundings can be measured after the fact. It is pompous of us to assume we have such influence as to be able to negate this by our absence.

Good answer.

Eyethangewe, Mr. Thong.

I agree, the sound waves are created even if no one is there to hear them...

Yeah. Try explaining this to other people at school. Just dont try. It took half an hour.
I was going to say the same as PU and Leonardo, but you both beat me to it

I'm with Leo. Sound is generated whether someone is there to hear it or not. But I think we are also basically arguing about the definition of a word, is the word sound only properly used when referring to those vibrations which actually reach the human ear, or is it proper to use it for any vibrations which have the potential to be perceived by the human ear?

Good point, Iams.

I was using 'sound' as from physics where it is the wave energy propagated through a medium. As to whether it should be hearable by us should we then exclude ultra sound or subsonics? I think any sound energy should be included if we have the means to detect it whether we can hear it naturally or not.

With your definition of sound, you are right.

There is a major problem with your definition of sound however. It's OK
to put this in a human perspective for most purposes but there are excep-
tions. For instance an avalanche can be triggered by sound and then bury
and kill hundreds of people. Did the falling tree which triggered it make a
sound? I would say that a better definition of sound would not include any
type or species of ear.

And if anyone asks, the egg came first because being hatched is a defining
characteristic of being a chicken. The egg was laid by a chicken-like animal.

It should also be remembered that the world is a highly complicated
and interrelated place. A butterfly flapping it's wings in China causes
a hurricane a week later in Haiti. The falling tree scurries animals and
sets in motion vast changes which dramatically affect all life on Earth
over time.

Why wouldn't it make a sound as well?

you missunderstand, i know that the vibrations are there, but as someone mentioned above it comes down to the definition of sound, if something is not heard, it is not sound, it's just all the vibrations. the avalanche is not triggered by sound, it's triggered by vibrations. technically, if no one hears it, it's not a sound.

God heard it!

No, it makes sound waves that could be interpreted into some sound or noise, but if no once/thing is around to hear it, it just produces the waves.

A deaf person can't hear it but he can feel the vibration.
I can hear and feel both but if i wasn't there how can i hear or feel it?

Now we're left with doing a census of what's in the area. Is a man who's
sleeping or in a coma capable of hearing sound. What if it wakes him up
and he's not sure if he heard it or not. What about animals? Why can't
they hear sounds?

Words are for communication and communication is easier if words have
as definite as possible definitions. Why introduce complicating factors.

but doesn't that depend on if god exists?

Oh.......................


right

cheo et al,

Sound is vibration. If you wish to debate whether a sound is a sound simply because no-one is there to translate the vibration into the words we use to describe sound then I think that's a short hop from solipsism.

Let us say you were alone in a room. If no-one can see you, hear you or is interacting with you do you still exist? Yes, you do so long as you are aware of it. Now sound is not aware of itself (as far as we know) but we can show it exists by measuring its energy (or the effect of its energy) even if we didn't detect the sound itself.

For those who are adamant that it is not sound but simply the energy or 'waves' that would exist - that is what sound is. Sound is not the language we have to describe the phenomenon, it is the phenomenon itself.

How can we say for certain that it makes a sound? It is an act of faith to say that it does because we are not there to hear it.

I think this is a nearly impossible scenario. Even if a human isn't there to hear the tree falling, other animals certainly are and would react to what they heard (ie. running out of the way).

Also, the existance of sound cannot depend solely on being heard by an ear. If this was true, recording equipment in an empty room/area/etc wouldn't be able to pick up sound for lack of an eardrum.

And what about EVPs? Sounds we can't even initally hear... can't be picked up by our ears, yet still exist.

But if you arnt there how would you know animals are there? The point is if you wernt there to hear the sound of the sound recording how would you know there is one? We only know they exist when we read them off our technology.

Because there are very few, if any, places on earth that at least some species of animals do not occupy.

i know that animals are almost everywhere, but this is a hypothetical situation, we're not actually talking about a tree that fell, it is a fictional scenario where a tree falls and no creature with the ability to interpret those waves as a sound is nearby. and it may sound a bit dumb, but if i am in a room and never come out, i don't exist to anyone else but me, if you are near the tree when it falls, the sound exists only to you, this forum exists only to the people who have seen it or heard about it, therefore if no one knows about the tree's sound, it does not exist to anyone so it doesn't exist at all

That's besides the point, it's a philosophical question.

I've always interpreted this to be a question of 'is reality internal or external?' Given the fact that you can only perceive reality through your senses, and your senses are part of your mind, should you consider your experience of "reality" a personal experience or something outside of yourself?

If something happens and it has no effect on you, is it more accurate to say it happened (if you learned of it from a reputable source or found evidence), or it didn't happen (because everything you perceive is subjective and claiming to have objective knowledge of the world would be presumptuous)

As a neopagan, I believe that my being, along with the rest of the world, is part of a Greater Whole (Gaia or Nature). Most of what happens to the Greater Whole never affects me, but that doesn't mean it didn't affect something bigger than me. If you ripped a leaf off a tree, leaves on the other side of the tree wouldn't "know" about it. But on some miniscule level, the tree to which the other leaves belong would have been affected.

So, if a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it-- it sure as hell DID fall and make a sound.

Perhaps the only act of faith is believing we exist? Once this is accepted everything else becomes reality and faith is no longer an issue?

Sorry, didn't mean to slip into philosophical mode. Just had this thought and wanted to get some feedback.

What do you mean by the question. Elaborate more my good friend. The mystics say that once the self is known all else is known and so one can dispense with faith.

Know thyself --- Socrates

The Kingdom of God is within you --Jesus

Reality is only one that is the Self. All the rest are mere phenomena in it, of it and by it. The seer, the objects and the sight all are the Self only. Can anyone see or hear, leaving the Self aside. ---Ramana Maharshi

Most of us think that we are limited beings in a limited universe that live and then die....... The mystics and perennial philosophers would disagree. They say we are miserable because we don't know who we are, even though we think we do.

Pleasure or pain are only aspects of the mind. Our essential nature is happiness. We forget the Self and imagine the body or the mind to be the Self. It is this wrong identity that gives rise to misery. --Ramana Maharshi

You are the Self, the infinite Being, the pure, unchanging consciousness; which pervades everything. Your nature is bliss and your glory is without stain. Because you identify yourself with the ego, you are tied to birth and death. Your bondage has no other cause. --Shankara

What we search for is the one that sees. --Saint Francis


Makes one wonder why arnt we already aware of this self??? Is it because we identify with the body or mind instead of infinite consciousness???? How does one get rid of this deep rooted ignorance????? With knowledge? The mystics agree on this also:

"Knowledge leads to unity. Ignorance, to disunity." --Sri RamaKrishna

"Ignorance is the mother of all evil." ---Gospel of Phillip

There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance. --Socrates

So we go on a journey to discover who we are which is what we always were in the first place but was ignorant of it yet wern't really because our true idenity is beyond all knowledge and ignorance and so knew all along??? Sounds tooooooo contradicting

There is no greater mystery than this: Being Reality ourselves, we seek to gain Reality. --Ramana Maharshi

So until I achieve "knowing myself" I guess faith is the greatest thing to me at the moment.

What I mean is that people translate mysticism as being the quest for reality, but it's really the quest for accepting yourself as a 'real' being. Have this faith, accept that you are real and the rest of reality is self-evident. Faith is no longer required.

That is what mysticism is. Accepting yourself as 'real' but not accepting with a touch of doubt. Acceptence because you know through and through because it is self evident. I think the faith starts off with doubt but the more you ground yourself in it the more you accept and the more reality shows itself as it actually is and not as it is according to us.

But if you weren't there, how do you know that the tree fell?

You can't 'partially accept' something and call what you are doing faith. You can't know something unless you accept it first. Stop trying to know yourself and accept yourself - the knowing will follow.

It makes a sound. It doesn't matter what your definition of sound is, and it doesn't matter if there is any one, human or animal, there to hear it. The proof of this is simple. When the tree falls to the ground "watch" the leaves on nearby trees. They will resonate with the waves (call them sound or not) caused by the vibration of the trees falling and hitting the ground. There will also be air movements from air waves and movement of the tree from ground waves/ vibrations. So, all these things occur, whether there is an observer there or not. This question was NEVER originally raised or meant to be a serious scientific question. It was begun as a philosophical question like. If there is no victim, did i commit a crime? In other words, of what consequence is anything, if it has no observable consequences.
Yea I know BNW will say, if there is no one there to hear it, there is no one there to see it. The difference is that the effects are observable, unlike sound waves. You could see it from a satellite or other remote viewing device. But even if no one is there, we "know" it happened because in everyone of the observed examples of this type, exactly the same series of observable events occured. This is what is known as scientific method. While it has its limitations, you will find yourself going loopy if you deny the general validity of such "proofs."

Accept oneself first i agree with that but that doesnt mean you are gonna know what it is. You accept it is there and the only way you are gonna know what it is, is when you admit that you dont know what it is because then you empty the mind of preconcieved ideas of what it is and become a container for truth and in turn capable of deeper acceptance.

Ah... this question again...

I don't see sound as what is heard, but by what it actually is - vibrations traveling through a solid, liquid or gas. With that said if a tree falls in the woods it is surely known that it will produce these vibrations. All the human ear does is allow for interpretation of/hearing these vibrations. Whether there is a human there to witness the vibrations or not, they are produced. So, sound does not need an ear to witness it in order to exist.

If a tree falls in the woods, and someone is around to hear it who is deaf, they can't hear it. If a tree falls, and someone is around to see it who is blind, they don't see it. If a tree falls in the woods, and it makes this huge vibrating pulsing feeling come over your body, when your around it, it's noise.

But, it's best considered not the tree falling on you, shattering your whole body into pieces, so that you don't live through the experience of the noise.

If a tree falls in the woods and there's no one around to hear it, does it make a sound?

...

Of course it does, it's a freakin' tree.

i do think that sound needs to be heard in order to be, it all comes down to the technichal stuff, i know that the sound was there and if i were there i would've heard it, but a sound is defined in all dictionaries as something that is heard, so it comes down to re-defining things. i'm not saying that sound does not exist because we aren't there, that would be like saying that, since humans have 2 arms, someone who is born without an arm is not a human, i'm just saying that if no one hears it, the definition of sound doesn't apply, so we can't really call it a sound. i once heard that nothing has happened and no one has existed if somebody doesn't say it. so if no one was actually there to say that the tree made the sound, and the sound doesn't exist to anyone, does it exist at all? and also, while talking about the tree and the sound, does the sound exist now because we made it exist? we are talking about it, so it exists to us? please keep in mind that these are philosophical questions and there really isn't a right or wrong answer, so please try to keep an open mind and don't try to convince everyone that your theory is correct, because opposition will always exist, that's the point of these forums

Hmmm, well I still have to say, in my opinion, that the sound exists whether witnessed or not. It may not exist in my mind or rather I may not have knowledge of the sound being produced, but it still there. Whether heard or not, it was still capable of being heard.

Or think of it this way...
A new mother has just conceived. Now she does not have knowledge of this yet, nor does anyone else, nor does the newly forming embryo in her womb have knowledge of it's own self yet. Does everyone's lack of knowledge of this event then render the embryo non-existent? I think not.
So then does everyone's lack of knowledge of the tree falling then render the sound non-existent? The knowledge of this event and the sound may not exist within our own minds, but because of our own ignorance can we really truly say that the sound does not then exist? Do all things have to be known by our own minds in order to exist? I think not.
Our minds do not put into existence the things that we witness, but rather witness things that already exist.

Well this side of the forum^ Good points O' Silent One. But, still, we can be born feeling vibrations, not knowing them. As it happens to us.

Hmmm, interesting points PFlack.
Let's see... If a person does not have working eardrums does that mean all things able to be heard do not then exist or would it mean the deaf mans ability to hear does not exist? If a person does not have working eyes does that mean all things able to be seen do not exist or does it mean his ability to see does not exist? If a blind and deaf man is in a place where everything is capable of being seen and heard yet the man is blind and deaf does that then mean that his surroundings do not then exist or does it mean that the act of hearing and the act of seeing is not known to him? Because this mans natural perception of hearing and seeing are not existent to himself does this then mean that sound and images around him do not exist? The sites and sounds are always there and are capable of being seen and heard... it's the ability to perceive them that does not then exist.

Or think about this. I took your scenarios of a the deaf man, the blind man and the man who the tree landed on and add a little twist to them.

Say a tree falls in the woods and the only man to... *cough* witness it is a man who is deaf, blind and has no working nerves in his body so that he cannot feel.
The tree falls but he does not see it and he does not hear it and he does not feel it land on top of him. The man then dies because of the tree landing on him.(poor fellow ) Now, because this man did not hear the sound the tree made or see the tree falling or even feel the tree when it landed on him does this then mean that the event never took place at all? The way I see it is - the mans ignorance to the events around him cannot blink what happened out of existence, it's the mans ability to perceive the sounds, sites and feelings that took place that did not exist.
Being ignorant to something does not mean that something does not exist, it means that you do not have knowledge of something in existence. When you are given knowledge of something you are not bringing it into existence, you are making known to self something that already existed.

Agreed. Sound is generated whether it is heard or not.

Sound is matter. Matter is there whether it is visible or not. Also, just because something is not seen, does not make it not there. I have never been to Paris. From that I can assume that the there is no Eiffel Tower? Same goes with sound...case closed.

let me give you an example: if i ask you right now, is there an civilization living on the moon and the people living there are purple and have 3 heads? your answer would be no, there isn't such a civilization, it does not exist. and then next week, a civilization is found on the moon where people heve 3 heads and are purple. that civilization didn't exist last week, but it does now. it didn't exist to us before the discovery, and we were certain that it didn't exist at all. what i'm saying is that if you don't exist to at least someone, no one can say that you exist, so you don't. if the tree falls and i hear it, it exists to me only, if 20 people hear it, it exists to 20 people, but if no one knows of it's existence how can you say it exists, if it doesn't exist to anyone, how can you exist if you don't exist to anyone. IT CANNOT BE CALLED SOUND, SOUND NEEDS TO BE HEARD. we should come up with a new word for an "almost sound", something that could be sound if there was anyone there to hear it. and about the tree killing the deaf guy, the sound didn't kill him, the tree was there and it did fall down, but it didn't make a sound, at least not to him, and since he was the only one who the sound could exist to at the moment, it doesn't exist at all. and about the eiffel tower comment, you know of the existence of the tower, if you had never heard about it or seen it, you would've said that it doesn't exist, but there are other people who know of it's existence, therefore it does exist

There is no tree.

I don't know, I guess you'd have to ask the trees and stuff.

The question that keeps plaguing me is an expansion on the OP of this thread.

If a tree that falls in the forest doesn't make a sound because no one is there to hear it, then was it even 'there' to fall if no one was there to "see" it?

We have probably all seen fallen trees, and many of them must have fallen when no one was around. So how is that possible if it's just a wavefunction or vibrational frequency when not being 'observed'?

Hmmm... Interesting examples cheo_vl
However, just because everyone in the entire world was ignorant to the fact that such a civilization existed on the moon does not mean that last week the civilization did not exist, it just means that no one had knowledge of it's existence. Ignorance cannot blink something out of existence.
If I am locked in a dark closet my entire life never knowing anyone else and no one ever knowing me then my knowledge of anyone else is non-existent just as their knowledge of me is non-existent. Everyone who exists still exists I am just ignorant to the fact that they exist just as they are ignorant to the fact that I exist.
A spider just came out from under my T.V. I had no knowledge that it was under my T.V. until in crawled out from under it and neither did anyone else in the whole world. I can now say that I was the first to witness it's existence, but how can I really truly say that it was not under my T.V. because I had no witness of it? The spider existed under the T.V. what did not exist was knowledge of it's existence.
Perception does not bring things into existence it serves as a witness to things that already exist.

I've never read that sound had to be heard in order to be called sound before and also I was thinking about what you said about giving a new word for an almost sound, but how about this...

You and many others see sound as only what is perceived so only making it a mental thing.
I and many others see sound as a physical thing - vibrations in matter. So when you hear it you are just witnessing it.
So we can then split it into two titles for the two definitions of sound.... something like... sound perceived and sound motion... or mental sound and physical sound.... or maybe someone can come up with more creative names... and add a little spunk... Idk...

Maybe then everyone will be happy. >_>

Sound is vibration. The hammer in the ear vibrates when the ear drum is
vibrated and transmits this energy, with higher amplitude to the coclia where
sensitive nerve fibers are fired dependent on the frequency of the vibrations.
The bain interprets this data.

As stated before, you can define your terms so that a brain is required but why
make the world so complicated. Does the tree make a sound if it doesn't awaken
a sleeping camper but causes him to dream of storms? How about someone in a
coma?

Can a tree falling make half a sound? How about 1.7 x 10 ^-5 of a sound? If an
intelligent person hears it does it make more sound than if the village idiot hears
it?

Such things can be defined this way and then we can debate the number of angels
that can dance on the head of a pin.

I believe all language is for communication so definitions have to be as exact and
succinct as is possible.

It really makes no sense to take a scientific approach to this scenerio, it's simply philosophical.

thats a dumb question. of course there will be.