Poll: Can someone tell me how this is unanswerable??

[quiet_samurai]

You lack deeper understanding, the acctual question has little to do with trees.

This.

Also, I think for something to be considered a sound someone or something has to be around to hear it. So if nothing is around to hear it then no, it doesn't make a sound.

Please explain what it's supposed to mean. Just outta curiousity

I remember having this conversation before, and someone said for something to be actually considered a "sound" it requires the vibrtion of air molecules to stimulate the hearing organs of an organism. But, I'm not totally sure that would really apply hear, I was just being a Technical Tommy.

 

[skywalkerlion]

You lack deeper understanding, the acctual question has little to do with trees.

This.

Also, I think for something to be considered a sound someone or something has to be around to hear it. So if nothing is around to hear it then no, it doesn't make a sound.

Please explain what it's supposed to mean. Just outta curiousity

I remember having this conversation before, and someone said for something to be actually considered a "sound" it requires the vibrtion of air molecules to stimulate the hearing organs of an organism. But, I'm not totally sure that would really apply hear, I was just being a Technical Tommy.

Lol, funny you say Technical Tommy, me and my buds do that all the time. It annoys the shit outta people that don't understand. Or are Negative Nancies.

 

[ArcWinter]

My friend is a freakish mutant who can both clap one of his hands, and put his leg behind his head.

Also it's unanswerable because there's a bunch of ways to interpret it, so you're bound to be wrong one way or another.

And of course it makes a sound in the literal sense, the other trees hear it.

 

[Greyfall]

OT: Whats the sound of one hand clapping?

Along these lines.

: D I have found another! I can do that and totally thought I was alone! Doesnt really make it any less freakish though... : (

 

[Spacelord]

It is answerable, depending on your definition of sound.

One definition is the changes of air densities propagated by the falling tree.

Another definition of sound is perceiving said changes in air densities.

So the question is only unanswerable because it doesn't provide enough information.

So here's another unanswerable question: Is God?

 

[Erana]

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.

Existence is determined solely by perception. Existence itself is merely a notion that you have come to accept, but has been created only by your meager human senses. Trees existing at all is ultimately just an accepted idea, and no matter how much experience you may have with tree felling, and no matter how much scientific evidence we have to suggest that a tree, in fact, make a sound, it is ultimately just evidence.
The moral of the saying is that you shouldn't necessarily have absolute faith in experience or science.
I mean, people complain all the time about people having absolute faith in God, but accept the idea that the Earth is round without ever finding out for themselves.
It just seems silly to me.

 

[Kubanator]

Existence is determined solely by perception. Existence itself is merely a notion that you have come to accept, but has been created only by your meager human senses. Trees existing at all is ultimately just an accepted idea, and no matter how much experience you may have with tree felling, and no matter how much scientific evidence we have to suggest that a tree, in fact, make a sound, it is ultimately just evidence.
The moral of the saying is that you shouldn't necessarily have absolute faith in experience or science.
I mean, people complain all the time about people having absolute faith in God, but accept the idea that the Earth is round without ever finding out for themselves.
It just seems silly to me.

I can prove that the Earth is round by finding the height of a tall building, and walking away till it's just over the horizon and doing some basic trig.

The question itself is asking whether things exist outside our perception. If an event is said to occur, but the event will cause no observable change, can you say that it happened? In other words, do things that we can't prove happened, happen?

The answer is it's irrelevant.

 

[duchaked]

If a n00b whines on a message board, but no one's logged on, is it still annoying?

Of course it is.

hahaha that made my day
sigh, it's probably the worst with YouTube and IGN comments

 

[ma55ter_fett]

yes it does, it sounds somethings like "CRASH!"

 

[Godhead]

It's because i say so

 

[Erana]

Existence is determined solely by perception. Existence itself is merely a notion that you have come to accept, but has been created only by your meager human senses. Trees existing at all is ultimately just an accepted idea, and no matter how much experience you may have with tree felling, and no matter how much scientific evidence we have to suggest that a tree, in fact, make a sound, it is ultimately just evidence.
The moral of the saying is that you shouldn't necessarily have absolute faith in experience or science.
I mean, people complain all the time about people having absolute faith in God, but accept the idea that the Earth is round without ever finding out for themselves.
It just seems silly to me.

I can prove that the Earth is round by finding the height of a tall building, and walking away till it's just over the horizon and doing some basic trig.

The question itself is asking whether things exist outside our perception. If an event is said to occur, but the event will cause no observable change, can you say that it happened? In other words, do things that we can't prove happened, happen?

The answer is it's irrelevant.

You most notably didn't prove that the Earth is round. You're just providing evidence towards your case. You're also relying very heavily on the scientific theories on the behavior of light 'n such. I mean, you could as easily try and prove that there are no borealis by pointing at the night sky in Mexico, but be wrong.

 

[badgersprite]

The reason I always found the 'tree falls in a forest' question to be answerable is that it doesn't take animal life into account. The experiences of forms of life that predated us are just as valid as those that came after humanity.

And, if you take a more philosophical approach to the question and interpret it to be about the significance of a being living in isolation, I think the life of a fallen tree, even far away from humanity, makes an impact upon the world. The trunk of a decaying tree becomes an ecosystem in and of itself, supporting thousands of microorganisms. =)

 

[philzibit]

I no one is there to take in the sound, then is it really there?

 

[Mozared]

Aye, as said, you miss the deeper meaning. Of course it still sends out radio waves we know as sound. The question, as I've always took it, is if it still counts as "making a sound" if there's no one there to hear it. What exactly counts as "making a sound"? I mean, if a tree falls and nobody hears it, is it then even worth calling it "making a sound"?

 

[MR T3D]

Of course it does.
Your selfish to believe otherwise, also as likely religious, BELIEVEING that people are specially needed or some shit for the universe to go round.
Just accept that life is merely the product of a random chemical reaction, and move on, making society's exsistance as pleasant as possible.

 

[Kubanator]

You most notably didn't prove that the Earth is round. You're just providing evidence towards your case. You're also relying very heavily on the scientific theories on the behavior of light 'n such. I mean, you could as easily try and prove that there are no borealis by pointing at the night sky in Mexico, but be wrong.

On the basis that my sensory organs are functioning properly, I can conclude that the Earth is round. If I lay 1 kilometer of metal on the ground, and turn it on it's side without distorting it, I'd find it curved, as I would anywhere else on the planet.

I understand that this problem is only theoretical, but the problem is that anyone can do some basic measurements, prove the theories correct, and then extrapolate to form the more advanced one. There's 5 billion people in the world, and not a single one can disprove these theories.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_a_tree_falls_in_a_forest

"If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" is a philosophical riddle that raises questions regarding observation and knowledge of reality.

His philosophical musings had nothing to do with sound at all, neither its physical nature nor its metaphysical possibilities.

A truly unobserved event is one which realizes no effect (imparts no information) on any other (where 'other' might be e.g., human, sound-recorder or rock), it therefore can have no legacy in the present (or ongoing) wider physical universe. It may then be recognized that the unobserved event was absolutely identical to an event which did not occur at all.

 

[nickdon1]

i'm not arguing for either side but the concept might be easier to imagine if you think about it this way:
Does math exist without humans to think it? I'm not talking about the base ten system we use but the very idea of math as a concept. If there is no creature with sufficient intelligence to be able to literally put two and two together, then does it still exist?
What about sight? If there are no creatures with eyes can the sensation of sight truly be said to exist?
Thinking about ideas like this shows us how limited our understanding of things truly is