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Philosophy: Falling tree make a sound?

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weavile#1

New Member
Everyone knows this question: If a tree fall in a forest and there is no one around to here it, does it make a sound? The "no one" means nothing with a conscious. I want to know what you guys think about this question and the answer, please explain as usual.

I say no because the definition of sound is:

noun
the sensation produced by stimulation of the organs of hearing by vibrations transmitted through the air or other medium.

If there are no nerves to be stimulated, there would be no sound, just waves. Sound is perceived and is not the same thing as waves.

What about you guys?
 
A tree that falls in the forest does not make a sound if there is no perceiver.

As Epicurus said, "just as the sound which is heard is not that in the bronze instrument being struck… rather is that which strikes our senses" (85, Epicurus Reader). A tree falling would move the air and cause waves to form, which could then be heard by a perceiver's sense capacities and be translated into an audible sound. But without that second half of the formulation, we are merely left with waves of air.

A wave of air is not a sound- to identify the two together would be a category mistake and is wrong.
 
I don't understand why that particular question gets asked. The current answer always requires the proponent to restrict the definition of what is a sound to exclude some common understanding of what the word sound means. The question ends up losing its significance. It is a much more intriguing question in the context of what was known some 2000 years ago. Or reformulated to take account of current theory on observer interaction with the physical world at the atomic scale.
 
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This was said by my physics teacher. A falling tree produces sound waves. If you're deaf and you're in the forest you're not going to hear it but you're going to feel the vibrations that the tree makes.
 
it's not to restrict the usage of the word to preclude common usage, rather, it is to make a distinction between how people would commonly use sound.

a sound, like a color or any other sensual thing necessarily requires an observer to have that SENSATION. sound is a sensation, it is NOT merely the movement of waves through the air or whatever medium is being discussed. if a tree falls into the water, and no one is in the water, does it make a sound? no- it's the same thing, an observer is required.

it doesn't exclude common understanding, it shows that many people fail to make the distinction of sounds being sensations AND the product of waves, etc. people merely attribute sound to BEING the waves themselves.

that is absolutely absurd, as I have already shown. it is absurd to think that the sound is the wave itself. THAT should be common understanding.

all this 'problem' or 'question' does is drive the significance home, and create a clear example to challenge people's prior held notions. i still think this has a lot of value.

---------- Post added 05/17/2010 at 02:00 PM ----------
Xuii2-the-cleric said:
yes
think of this...
can u here your brain?
does it exist?
Click to expand...

this doesn't make any sense at all. first of all, it's HEAR. can you HEAR a brain. secondly, i think you completely misunderstood what every previous poster said. re-read it all.
 
Eh, I'm a practical when it comes to this; unless you're in a vacuum, a tree falling is gonna make some sort of sound, regardless if anyone is around. You can't stop a force of nature from doing that.
 
The tree certainly feels it and I think the question is sort of a foolish one. There will usually be some sort of animal or insect life around it, so of course it should have been heard.
 
Ryan, I don't like that restriction because it means that a falling tree never makes a sound even when there is an observer. Once you restrict sound to being what the mind perceives then all connection with the initial source of the vibration is severed: the falling tree only causes the air to vibrate. That would be fine except for all the other uses of the noun sound where it is being used to identify the vibrations themselves.
 
Sound waves are vibrations, those vibrations are not absurd, what is absurd is this token question that implies that philosophy is entirely subjective/relative.

The point made about a deaf person is a good point. The tree still produces a vibration which we perceive and define as a sound. The deaf person does not perceive it as similarly as we do, but the tree still makes the SAME vibration as it would if someone who was not deaf was present.

Of course the definition of sound is something that has to be heard, but the vibration of the tree falling exist without someone perceiving them.

Also not a fan of this question, tricky as it is dependent on semantics of the word sound of someone hearing it rather than proving if any noise vibration is made without someone perceiving the tree falling
 
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Pokepop: Epicurus would say the person had a sensual experience, but if they were to make the further assumption that the sensual experience was indeed the object of perception, then that would be false (category mistake- like I discussed earlier). Furthermore, to fully address your question- if he or she held the opinion that the perceptual experience came from the object of perception in accordance with that object, then the opinion would be false- but that is not the say the experience is false, because we have already acknowledged that the perceiver had a sensual experience.

Epicurus already said it well:
"just as the sound which is heard is not that in the bronze instrument being struck… rather is that which strikes our senses"
Click to expand...
The sound is not the vibrations in the medium that the object produces- the sound is that which is perceived- the qualitative experience an individual has when exposed to a stimulus.

What is occurring is people attributing the phenomena to the thing that produces it. This is a mistake.
 
The sensual experience is triggered from the vibration of the tree. Either way does dissecting the sensual experience even answer the question? If sound is something that is within the person, this makes the tree falling independent of the sensual experience, so the obvious answer is the tree still falls.

Also i think everyone is just describing the process of how we perceive sound which is correct. Of course it is always our perceptions, we are not conscious of nature, or of anyone else's consciousness, but this does not destroy meaning. Creating meaning has structure truth and validity.

PS, Epicurus is not the best for metaphysical issues, it is somewhat ironic as his virtue in life is pleasure (sensual experiences) :thumb:
 
smpratte said:
The sensual experience is triggered from the vibration of the tree. Either way does dissecting the sensual experience even answer the question? If sound is something that is within the person, this makes the tree falling independent of the sensual experience, so the obvious answer is the tree still falls.

Also i think everyone is just describing the process of how we perceive sound which is correct. Of course it is always our perceptions, we are not conscious of nature, or of anyone else's consciousness, but this does not destroy meaning. Creating meaning has structure truth and validity.

PS, Epicurus is not the best for metaphysical issues, it is somewhat ironic as his virtue in life is pleasure (sensual experiences) :thumb:
Click to expand...

That's not in question at all? The question is, does it still make a sound- not does it still exist.

His theory of knowledge is based on sensual experiences- he is very good for this particular discussion. He made a great analogy which I quoted and am using to explain the stance I am taking.
:rolleyes:
 
If we bring Biocentrism into this,since no one is looking, there would be no tree(see double slit experimet for proof). The once tree would only be waves. Waves don't make sound unless their is a peceiver. It's as if the tree never fell, but was just there. I know this is hard to understand, but this universe is not logical.

EDIT: The waves still exist, but that is not considered sound.
 
If you already know the answer to this, and are going to insist that you're right, then why even bother with this thread?
 
I think the answer has been stated, that since we are only capable of understanding the sound through our perception then technically there is no True way to know if the tree makes a sound without us perceiving the sound. We assume the tree will make a sound if we are not there just as we do the sun will rise tomorrow, which is a safe assumption, but still an assumption.
 
We can assume a falling tree causes a vibration, but we cannot and have no reason to assume a tree will make a sound.
 
Seriously? You guys read into this stuff too much. Does a tree make a sound? Yeah duhhh because it is a tree and big things go BOOM.
 
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