Dahemo said:
Wicky_42 said:
Someone - an article in an old New Scientist I believe - once tried to convince me that if there was no observer to an atomic event then the even could not be proven to have happened - the whole 'can't measure an electron's position cos looking at it would move it' thing. That seemed to imply that there was something innately special about the human eye that would validate an event, which was a line of thinking I couldn't agree with. it wasn't until much later that I found a physicist pointing out that the environment itself acts as an observer - the environment will experience and be changed by the event, and that evidence for said event can be found within it.
Does the tree make a sound? Ask the squashed soil, the surrounding trees, the crushed leaves, the disturbed bushes, the myriad wildlife. If you know how to "ask" those questions, then you would have your answer.
An interesting hypothesis but fatally flawed in that you're assuming that that evidence you find would directly and logically corrolate with the tree falling. Forensic science can only fill in past events so far. Was the tree pulled down? Blown down? Undermined? Could you accurately show these events to have occured. This is of course an irrelevance, we all agree the tree fell, but did it create sound?
I beleive "organisms that perceive sound" would be ruled out of this equation, so we're talking about a tree in a sterile forest, pure hypotheticals but that's ok. Then we have to argue whether the disturbances which the tree creates as it falls are called sound if they remain unperceived. Those of you who wrote this off in the first page are thinking too literally, the question revolves around validation by perception
(problems like Schrodinger's Cat) and in that sense the debate is unclear. Undoubtedly the mechanics have been followed to create sound, but without reception, has sound occured? You can put a plug in a socket and turn on the switch but nothing will happen if the wire isn't attached to anything.
I for one think that it does make a sound, but that unreceived sound is 'in potentia' and not fully existing, but enough of the requirements are met to call it sound...
KaZZaP said:
If you put a cat in a box with a vial of poison rigged to break at a random time the cat will be both alive and dead until someone opens the box to see. The powers of the observer.
Ah-hah! Schrodinger's Cat is irrelevant to this discussion as it explores the quantum uncertainty inherent in whether the cat was
killed by (a machine triggered by) random radioactive decay. The key point in that is that because theoretically the particle could be said to have decayed or not to the the cat could surely be said to be both dead and alive. Theoretically.
Here we are talking about a tree falling down, and the compressional waves produced by said motion - the compressional wave was formed, there's no theoretical physics that says otherwise, and neither the tree nor the wave are in a quantum state.
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There's a few issues in this old proverb thingy: definition of sound, presence of non-human life, what does it matter anyway?
If you take sounds to be something a person hears, then the entire question becomes anal since you have already stated that there are no people, and therefore by your definition there is no discussion. If you take a more scientific view on the nature of sound as a compressional wave then it is obvious that if the physical event described occurs then there will indeed be a sound wave produced, regardless of observers.
As has been mentioned, the natural presence of wildlife would also act as observers to the sound, but even in a completely sterile environment the vibrations would pass into the ground, compressing and vibrating the soil and rock beneath the forest - the very Earth would observe the fall.
Really though if you're going to even think of bringing this question up you have to consider where you think you are going with it - what is the proverb supposed to mean? Why ask the question? Is it some attempt to consider how important Man thinks he is, that things don't exist when he's not around (on that point, how do I know any of you exist without experiencing you my self? Does the next room exist if I can't see it? Physics says yes...)? Whether you hear the tree fall or not, the state of the tree is 'fallen'. It can block streams, cause floods, knock down other trees, host fungi etc all without being watched by a person. You might say 'yes, but until I've been there to check then theoretically it
could still be standing. Sure, but I don't think the tree cares.
Unless there's some decent theoretical/conceptual/psychological reasoning behind this question then I don't see it's point other than for the minority to go, 'ah, but
it doesn't!!!eleven'. Someone show me otherwise.
