Poll: If a Tree falls in a forest...
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So? A dog having someone shout at it reacts in pretty much the same way as a human. They can hear. Ergo, they recieve sound. It doesn't matter what they actually hear.Saphatorael said:
Unless you are a human that understands dogs, or a dogs that can speak human languages, you can not prove your point.The Eaten Cake said:
EDIT: As in, you cannot say that a dog receives sound. Sure, they react to it, but that doesn't mean they perceive the same.
I say no.
A "sound" in it's literal meaning does not exist until it is converted to electrical/nerval impulses by your brain. Then, these electrical and nerval impulses are sound. Sound Energy is the act of vibration traveling through atoms. So therefore, A tree falls in the forest and makes a sound and nobody's around, it didn't make a sound. It made sound energy.
I await the screams of "IDIOT." "U SUCKS" "OMG UR RETARDED" etc. etc.
A "sound" in it's literal meaning does not exist until it is converted to electrical/nerval impulses by your brain. Then, these electrical and nerval impulses are sound. Sound Energy is the act of vibration traveling through atoms. So therefore, A tree falls in the forest and makes a sound and nobody's around, it didn't make a sound. It made sound energy.
I await the screams of "IDIOT." "U SUCKS" "OMG UR RETARDED" etc. etc.
If a tree falls in the woods, does it make a sound?
This is a zen kōan that is supposed to be inaccessible to rational thought but is accessible to intuition. Whatever that means, but okay. I tend to go on intuition anyway, so it's no big deal.
There have been many answer given to this question over the years. The one I reject out of hand is: "No it does not make a sound because as defined by the dictionary, a sound must be heard." I reject this answer because I doubt if Buddhist monks thousands of years ago were all that concerned with nitpicking dictionary definitions, particularly the definitions of English words. So this is a dead end.
Another solution that is offered is that there is no answer but the kōan is meant to quiet the internal monologue in preparation for deep meditation. I don't know about you, but such questions do not quiet the internal monologue. They make it noisier as I puzzle out the question. This may be just me. I can't see those damned Magic Eye things, either. But, I've seen people stubbornly cling to "there is no answer." It smacks of them not arriving at this conclusion on their own but just repeating an answer they had been told.
A variant on that is that there is no one answer but each person can find a different piece of wisdom hidden in it. This is more in line with what little I know about Eastern Philosophy. Arriving at your own answer is more important than what the answer is, and I do agree with that. Which means that you should probably stop reading here and go draw your own conclusions. But, from here, I know of two conclusions, one is often repeated, the other is mine.
The first deals with perceptions and it does go through many variants. A common variant involves questioning the existence of things that are not observed. As in, "Do things really exist if we are not there to see or hear it?"
This implies that reality is a show put on for our benefit. Sort of like that movie The Truman Show where everyone in Jim Carey's life was an actor. This is in line with some Eastern philosophy where reality is considered an illusion and such. This is seductive, but I cannot subscribe to this idea. If reality is a show, who is the show for? All of us collectively? Am I just an actor in your show? Are you just an actor in mine?
Questioning reality may be useful in some cases, but reality seems pretty solid. So, I can't buy the idea of reality being an illusion. Particularly since it is all we have and zen does not seem to replace it with anything (although I admit I am largely ignorant of what zen teaches in this regard and I am also not completely closed to things beyond this perceived reality).
I may be a bit too practical to be a philosopher, or to be a successful one. But here is my take on the kōan. As stated above, this is an answer, not the answer. But it is an answer I find satisfying.
If a tree falls in the woods, does it make a sound?
First off: to answer the question is to miss the point. In Eastern philosophy, never is a direct answer to a direct question the point. It's always working sideways towards some other meaning.
Our first instinct when asked this question is, yes it does make a sound. We say this because we know that when objects hit the ground, a sound is made. The sound may be different depending on what falls and what it lands on, but when something strikes against something else, it makes a noise.
But the question is, how do we know if that particular tree made a sound when it fell? The answer is, because we assume it does.
The important thing to realize and understand is that much of our perception is based on assumption. Our perception is finite so much of what we perceive is assumed rather than directly observed. Some Eastern thought calls for the excising of assumption from our lives, but our mere ability to function relies too heavily on assumption to remove it completely. Instead we need to be aware of how much of what we perceive is assumption and realize that sometimes our assumptions can be wrong. That sometimes we are misinterpreting incomplete data. This is what I believe is the point of the kōan.
In closing, I was driving during a wind storm. I saw a tree near the roadside fall.
I did not hear it.
This is a zen kōan that is supposed to be inaccessible to rational thought but is accessible to intuition. Whatever that means, but okay. I tend to go on intuition anyway, so it's no big deal.
There have been many answer given to this question over the years. The one I reject out of hand is: "No it does not make a sound because as defined by the dictionary, a sound must be heard." I reject this answer because I doubt if Buddhist monks thousands of years ago were all that concerned with nitpicking dictionary definitions, particularly the definitions of English words. So this is a dead end.
Another solution that is offered is that there is no answer but the kōan is meant to quiet the internal monologue in preparation for deep meditation. I don't know about you, but such questions do not quiet the internal monologue. They make it noisier as I puzzle out the question. This may be just me. I can't see those damned Magic Eye things, either. But, I've seen people stubbornly cling to "there is no answer." It smacks of them not arriving at this conclusion on their own but just repeating an answer they had been told.
A variant on that is that there is no one answer but each person can find a different piece of wisdom hidden in it. This is more in line with what little I know about Eastern Philosophy. Arriving at your own answer is more important than what the answer is, and I do agree with that. Which means that you should probably stop reading here and go draw your own conclusions. But, from here, I know of two conclusions, one is often repeated, the other is mine.
The first deals with perceptions and it does go through many variants. A common variant involves questioning the existence of things that are not observed. As in, "Do things really exist if we are not there to see or hear it?"
This implies that reality is a show put on for our benefit. Sort of like that movie The Truman Show where everyone in Jim Carey's life was an actor. This is in line with some Eastern philosophy where reality is considered an illusion and such. This is seductive, but I cannot subscribe to this idea. If reality is a show, who is the show for? All of us collectively? Am I just an actor in your show? Are you just an actor in mine?
Questioning reality may be useful in some cases, but reality seems pretty solid. So, I can't buy the idea of reality being an illusion. Particularly since it is all we have and zen does not seem to replace it with anything (although I admit I am largely ignorant of what zen teaches in this regard and I am also not completely closed to things beyond this perceived reality).
I may be a bit too practical to be a philosopher, or to be a successful one. But here is my take on the kōan. As stated above, this is an answer, not the answer. But it is an answer I find satisfying.
If a tree falls in the woods, does it make a sound?
First off: to answer the question is to miss the point. In Eastern philosophy, never is a direct answer to a direct question the point. It's always working sideways towards some other meaning.
Our first instinct when asked this question is, yes it does make a sound. We say this because we know that when objects hit the ground, a sound is made. The sound may be different depending on what falls and what it lands on, but when something strikes against something else, it makes a noise.
But the question is, how do we know if that particular tree made a sound when it fell? The answer is, because we assume it does.
The important thing to realize and understand is that much of our perception is based on assumption. Our perception is finite so much of what we perceive is assumed rather than directly observed. Some Eastern thought calls for the excising of assumption from our lives, but our mere ability to function relies too heavily on assumption to remove it completely. Instead we need to be aware of how much of what we perceive is assumption and realize that sometimes our assumptions can be wrong. That sometimes we are misinterpreting incomplete data. This is what I believe is the point of the kōan.
In closing, I was driving during a wind storm. I saw a tree near the roadside fall.
I did not hear it.
Nothing I can say hasn't already been said, but I'm going to go with, 'Sound vibrations, which have been proven to occur one-hundred-percent of the time due to the natural laws of the universe, will occur regardless of the presence or lack thereof of human beings.'
Prove that they don't, then.Saphatorael said:
That argument works both ways. I'm fairly certain that science has proven that dogs use similar sound receptors, or ears to the less pretentious, to humans. If you're using that argument, then it applies to everything else which uses that system too, which includes other humans.
Valid point, but I stand in my little camp with my two or three proud allies.Gormourn said:
AND I WON'T BE MOVED.
Because, If a reciever transmitted the sound energy, it is converted to electrical energy (and nothing else) along the transmission. Therefore, your brain does not convert the sound energy into sound. It converts Electrical Energy into sound.
Anyway, I have completely lost intrest as it just hit me I am having a serious intellectual debate about a fucking tree.
I need a life bad.
No, but I know someone who can, with literally just his hand.Gamer137 said:
As far as the actual topic goes, if there is no one to hear it it does not make a sound. It vibrates, but our ears take those vibrations in as sound, sound is not produced if nothing can "hear" it.
Wow, thanks - finally someone knows a bit more than the average joe on this. Always knew there was more philosophy to this question, but no-one asking it has understood it before - and if you don't understand the question, how can you hope to get an answer?the antithesis said: