A tree falls in the forest.............

.......... and no-one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?

Technically it does, because as it falls it displaces air creating waves of sound through the air. But as this is a philosophical question lets forget the technicalities :3

If no-one is there then how do we know the tree has fallen? How do we know that that particular tree made a sound as it feel if there was no witness? This could be said for many things, you wouldn't know someone existed until you actually met them or in some way encountered them? Up until that point, from your perspective, they didn't exist.

Please discuss x]

 

Technically... if you don't know a person exhisted until you actually met them or in some way encountered them... they would still exhist. Just not to you. xD Does that make sense? I suppose with people with different outlooks, it wouldn't.

So, I'm agreeing with you, indeedo.

This is a kind of 'If we don't hear it, see it, smell it etc., is it really there?'

Watch someone bring Him into the equation. lulz.

 

It's bound to happen >_>
What I mean is, if we didn't have logic and common sense, we would only know that everything around us and what we remember exists (although with memory things change so it's a bit iffy =/).

How about this, what if you went to a forest and marked a tree to distinguish from the other trees. Then when you came back the next day the tree was lying on the ground. You would naturally assume that it had fallen. But without any witnesses how can anyone be sure? For all we know a UFO (silly I know >_>) could have picked up the tree and laid it on it's side to make it look like it had fallen.

 

You're making it rather complex.

Simply, you wouldn't know. Until you had proof otherwise. :\

 

ummm....obviously, it would make a noise. just becuz you dont' know of something's existence doesn't mean it doesn't exist, DUH

 

This reminds me of something I thought when I was younger. If nobody is in a room, is the room still there?

Of course, logically speaking. The room (or the noise, for that matter) can't just disappear; it doesn't follow the laws of science, but if you look at it simply, no one can really ever know if it makes a noise when no one is around, except maybe if you use a tape recorder, but then again, someone would have to knock down the tree...

So, I'm really not sure, but I'm leaning towards yes: it does make a noise.

 

I don't know if it would make a sound, philosophically.

Science tells us it would but how do we trust something (science) that only gives us logical answers in a platonic way through rationalism rather than having faith in a fact or event/belief?

Of course it would emit vibrations. But from experience, I honestly do not know if it would make a single sound.

 

... Well said... ^

 

If you believe the tree made a sound then it did, if you believe the tree even fell, then it did. The entire world is simply a perspective of what we see and how we see it. Technically something doesn't happen until you see it happen or believe it to have happened. How do we know that the entire world even exists? It could all be in our heads and what we believe is what we get. If you can truly make yourself believe something, like say you can fly, in your own mind it is completely possible and therefore true. From outside your mind, it might not work and you'll fall to your death if you jump off a cliff, but you don't know what goes on outside your own mind and therefore can't tell if anything and everything is a dreamscape or a true reality. So basically...the tree fell and it made a sound if that's what you wanted it to do, if not, then it did not.

 

i think you guys are complicating a simple question, lol. OF COURSE it'll make a sound. just becuz you dont' know about it doesn't make it not there

 

It's a philosophical argument. You can't just say "it does". You aren't there, you don't know, making anyone's opinion obsolete.

Do you see what I'm getting at?

 

In the end if you believe the world does not rotate around you and your perception, what you see and hear etc, than it probably 'makes a sound' because it fell and normally trees would do that, since you aren't in a vacuum where sound doesn't travel. To answer this way, people generally are comfortable with saying that life goes on and moves whether it is observed or not by sentience and follows a pattern.

If you believe that the tree fell, but since you weren't there to hear it and there were no sentient witnesses, no one can prove it made a noise, it may not have. This perspective would say that without someone there to actually hear it, maybe the world doesn't work the same and it needs someone to perceive it in order for an act to transpire.

I would say the first, but know others who would say the second. In the end, it's a philosophical debate and there is no real right or wrong answer.

 

Its is hard to judge the ethos of someone/thign you don't know if you haven't actually heard of them/it or seen them/it, especially basing on what they say. In the case of something happening when you are not around doesn't mean that it didn't happen. In that case I don't know if China or Africa actually exist. Its all in the eye of the beholder as for them to judge these things. But for instance, we can't see the wind, but we all know it is there..isn't it?

 

Well, clearly you're right. A tree HAS TO make noise if it falls. It's just the way things work. I don't even know what ****** questioned that in the FIRST PLACE. :D

 

To me its one of those belief questions, you believe it happened, though you don't have proof you believe it, its like relegion, you believe it.

 

For all those using science to say it does, you're not exactly right. Sure, the definition of sound is the vibrations of air molecules that are recieved by living things. It isn't a sound if there isn't anything to hear it. So simply, it doesn't make a sound if nothing hears it.

 

Wow, that is a very good point. But, does that mean that vibrations received by a microphone aren't sound?

The whole point of this 'argument' is that it is philosophical. This means that we aren't necessarily talking about reality exactly. It also means that you don't assume, because knowing, for example, China exists is an assumption based on facts given to you. If you think about it, what you perceive as reality is what your senses tell you, whether it's vibrations reaching your ears or photons hitting your eyes, all of which you assume to be true.

Woops slightly off-topic :)

 

No one would know what is real or not. All animals have different degrees of sensitivity in their senses, like dogs can smell better than a human and some owls are able to see better than humans as well, all animals see the world differently, one may see something the other doesn't, so their is no reality that can be proved, just since you can't see it or hear it, doesn't mean its not there, like the tree.

It just depends if your ready to accept that you won't know for sure.