[Giga Hertz]

If I ask this question and no one is around to hear it, does the tree make a sound regardless?

[Rainer.]

I know you posted this in CPF, but I'm gonna move it to Philosophy... and see what happens...

[Giga Hertz]

Don't tell ST, but you're my favourite mod.

[Rainer.]

But if sound is the vibration of air, then yeah, if no one hears it, it still makes a sound.

[Giga Hertz]

It becomes waves of that energy, but is sound defined as what we hear, or the effects of the vibrations?

[Rainer.]

Originally Posted by Giga Hertz

It becomes waves of that energy, but is sound defined as what we hear, or the effects of the vibrations?

I think sound is sound regardless of if someone is there to hear it. I mean, is an apple red if no one looks at it? Color is just vibrations, too.

Besides, if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, God still hears it, right?

[acrossthesirion]

The "paradox" works by conflating two things that we experience together so that we tend to think they are one in the same--sound and hearing.

In short, the tree falling produces sound waves. "Hearing" requires some kind of organism to receive and register

[Demon_Hunter]

Originally Posted by Rainer.

I think sound is sound regardless of if someone is there to hear it. I mean, is an apple red if no one looks at it? Color is just vibrations, too.

Besides, if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, God still hears it, right?

This doesn't even take into account the various animals in the forest that have the ability to translate vibrations in the air into audio information.

Even if a human doesn't here it something probably will. So regardless of whether or not its considered a sound if no one is there to hear it, since it is heard by some creature then there is a sound.

[Rainer.]

Originally Posted by Demon_Hunter

This doesn't even take into account the various animals in the forest that have the ability to translate vibrations in the air into audio information.

Even if a human doesn't here it something probably will. So regardless of whether or not its considered a sound if no one is there to hear it, since it is heard by some creature then there is a sound.

I figured "no one hears it" would include animals.

[Caged Love]

Of course. (I lack an intelligent answer)

[6strBass]

The trick here is that Yes, if a tree falls in the forest it will produce sound waves, but if it is not perceived, it would not have sound. As sound is a sensory perception, it is a technical distinction.

The classical postulation is:

If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one around to hear it, does it make a sound?

If no one refers to a human, this gets into the modern philanthropic principal or, on a deeper level, subjective idealism. The question of whether or not any material thing exists outside of human perception. From this perspective the answer would be No because the tree can not be known to exist if it is not perceived.

I think sound is sound regardless of if someone is there to hear it. I mean, is an apple red if no one looks at it? Color is just vibrations, too.

What you may ask is since there is no secondary property to the tree (the perceivable aspects) does the primary property (its entity) still exist?
ie. The "Redness" of the apple, the "Treeness" of the tree, or even perhaps the "Soundness" of a sound?
This would be a question of the Substance Theory (ala Hume or Nietzsche) and I don't think any of us want to go there.

If no one is any creature then from a scientific perspective, if a truly unobserved event has no effect (imparts no information) then it is identical to an event that never happened. So the answer would be No. This view, however, would be argued against by proponents of the Chaos Theory.

The question is are you asking a scientific question or a philosophical question?

[Frank1234]

What if the whole world is all in our head?

I think that's one of the questions this tries to bring up. People dismiss this as silly all the time, but it's logically possible.

[to_be_released]

You could get all shrodinger on this and ask if the tree actually fell.

[Uptown Thrunk]

Originally Posted by Frank1234

What if the whole world is all in our head?

I think that's one of the questions this tries to bring up. People dismiss this as silly all the time, but it's logically possible.

Of course, some philosophers, like Alvin Plantinga, would classify the belief that the world is actual is a properly basic belief, and thus warrants no major degree of skepticism concerning it's reality.

[dogfood]

of course it makes a sound. why wouldn't it?