I sense sarcasm.Dax317 said:Damn....didn't see that one coming.skywalkerlion said:I wasn't trying to whineBerethond said:
But it says clearly IT MADE A SOUND.
However the sound of one hand clapping..
*head explosion*
Poll: Can someone tell me how this is unanswerable??
- Thread starter skywalkerlion
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Of course it makes a sound, even if no-one hears it.
Now, onto a question no-one can answer...well, you guys might.
Tricky, huh?
Now, onto a question no-one can answer...well, you guys might.
What colour does a Smurf go if you choke it?
Tricky, huh?
If I was sarcastic I would put "[/sarcasm]"skywalkerlion said:I sense sarcasm.Dax317 said:Damn....didn't see that one coming.skywalkerlion said:I wasn't trying to whineBerethond said:
But it says clearly IT MADE A SOUND.
However the sound of one hand clapping..
*head explosion*
Purple. Oh snap.sasquatch99 said:Of course it makes a sound, even if no-one hears it.
Now, onto a question no-one can answer...well, you guys might.
What colour does a Smurf go if you choke it?
Tricky, huh?
Existence isn't defined by who is there to sense it. Does a meadow disappear cause nobody is looking at it? It's defined by the question, did it exist, and has anything changed?
Also, sounds are vibrations caused by collision. So essentially, the apple could not have fallen at all in that case. And yet when we go there later, it's on the ground, meaning that it has fallen, meaning that it has collided with the ground, meaning it emitted a sound. If you didn't see or hear it, but you can prove that it happened, it happened.
Also, sounds are vibrations caused by collision. So essentially, the apple could not have fallen at all in that case. And yet when we go there later, it's on the ground, meaning that it has fallen, meaning that it has collided with the ground, meaning it emitted a sound. If you didn't see or hear it, but you can prove that it happened, it happened.
Don't worry. I've always thought it was ridiculous as well. It can rely on a bunch of idiotic philosophical beliefs, namely, that the external world is dependent on our perception (i.e. things wouldn't be the same if we aren't here to see them). This is, of course, complete bullshit.
Actually, take it far enough and you can't.
You can't actually prove the existence of anything in the world purely through reason.
You can't actually prove the existence of anything in the world purely through reason.
I believe that last one was answered by the Simpsons.Dax317 said:
OT: I don't think it does. Let me explain.
When a tree falls it creates soundwaves, which themselves make no actual sounds. It's when they vibrate within your ear that the sound is made, so if no ears are around to be vibrated within, there is no sound.
I think.
And now I think about it, I think there's a theory that without human beings to perceive something then it doesn't exist.Glefistus said:
EDIT~ The Bandit just explained what I meant, which is things change when they're not observed. Which is a bi-product of my extensive paranoia that I have sometimes, which tells me I'm the only REAL human alive and everything else is fake and disappears behind me, etc..
Imicrazy?
Denying isn't an adequate argument technique, something people need to realize. You can tell me "prove event x happened." I'll gather evidence (historical documents, whatever) present it to you, and you'll just say "yeah, but I don't believe it; PROVE IT!" And then I'll call you an idiot.Mr Wednesday said:
Actually, it makes no sound.
Sound is just the effect on the ear that we interpret as a noise.
All it makes are air waves in a pattern.
Without the ear, there is no sound.
Sound is just the effect on the ear that we interpret as a noise.
All it makes are air waves in a pattern.
Without the ear, there is no sound.
I dunno, it's kind of like the same dilemma as Schroedinger's cat. We cannot know if the tree did make a sound or not because we do not know all of the parameters of the tree falling or, for that matter, we don't even know if sound waves exist. We cannot know anything except for the existence of our own consciousnesses, and that we cannot fully prove (De Carte's "I think therefore I am" is the closest thing we have to a proof). Therefore, if we do assume that the laws of physics apply and that this world exists, then yes, it does make a sound, but that sound does not exist to the collective human consciousness, which I really think is the surrounding issue of the question. Yes it does produce sound waves, no it does not exist in the collective human subjective reality.
I think that was his point. No matter how picky you get about what counts as "proof", you could never stop getting pickier until the point where you deny everything, and by that point you've clearly gone too far. There's a point where you have to just stop insisting on relying on pure intellect for everything and just go with common sense.The Bandit said:
Existence can only established within a framework of thought. The framework could be empirical or intuitive, but they're both valid arguments.
If you take an empirical approach, nobody has any evidence that there was sound because nobody was around to hear it. So no it never made a sound.
If you take an intuitive approach, you know from experience that trees make noise when they fall, so if you see a fallen tree you 'know' that the tree made sound when it fell, even though you cannot prove it and you're leaving big room for error.
It's a metaphorical question, really. Not so much about trees and sound.
If you take an empirical approach, nobody has any evidence that there was sound because nobody was around to hear it. So no it never made a sound.
If you take an intuitive approach, you know from experience that trees make noise when they fall, so if you see a fallen tree you 'know' that the tree made sound when it fell, even though you cannot prove it and you're leaving big room for error.
It's a metaphorical question, really. Not so much about trees and sound.