If a tree fell in a forest and no one was around...

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Yes it would still make a sound even if no human was around to hear it it would go crash and startle a few birds and squirrels. As long as it is not outside of the earths atmosphere soundwaves are generated whether you can hear them or not, so yes it would make a sound. Now if the chunk of the woods was somehow jettisoned into outer space and fell down in space no sound would be generated.

Relatively speaking it won't only if you're too far away, as it'd be possible to see a tree fall and hear nothing given enough distance. Also if you're deaf, it won't make a sound as you wouldn't hear anything at all.
Absolutely speaking it will because it established by past observations and the physics behind a tree falling that it will.

I feel that question is actually a reflection on the whole relative v.s absolute argument of nature.

I just can't imagine that all of you missed the obvious. There were ants on the ground that not only heard the tree falling, but some of them were brutally crushed to death as a result. Let's have a moment for the unfortunate ants.

*rests hat on chest*

Of course funny thing is if a tree fell down in space anyway it wouldnt fall down it would just float away since there is no gravaty in outer space. Yeah I quoted myself just felt like adding more information.

It would still makes a sound.

It's based on the idea that nothing exists except for your mind, so everything else is a product of it. I don't think perception exists for its own sake, they exist to make sense out of things into meaningful patterns. The obvious answer would be that it still makes sound, but I don't just say this because it's simple physics but because of the function that perception serves in the first place.

the question could be altered to say "if a tree fell in a forest and many people heard it but i was not there, did it make a sound?".

i think the question is really asking whether things can happen independently of one's consciousness. sometimes i think there are elements in our minds that subconsciously believe that events that we witness are somehow happening because we are witnessing them.

i can not really talk in terms of "us" because i have no real connection with the thread of universal human tendencies, but i do believe that on a very deep level, that my mind shares some similarities with other minds (without knowing exactly how, or in what way).

my world is totally presented to me via my senses and faculties. if an earthquake killed 10,000 people the day before yesterday, and i did not yet know about it, then for me it did not happen.

there is the microcosm of the subjective world which is the seat of our consciousness, and the macrocosm of the unattended events that occur outside of our consciousness.

all of the happenings in the universe (except those that i witness and are conscious of from my microcosmic subjective position) happen without my knowledge or control.

i trust that they happen, but i can not see them happening or even conceive of them happening.

if i am walking through bushland and i see a large fallen tree, my microcosmic subjective appraisal of what i see is that there is certainly a tree that is fallen, and the tree must have once stood upright, and it's axial transition from vertical to horizontal would have transformed a large amount of potential energy to a large kinetic energy in a short time, and the convective dispersal of that energy would have included compressions and rarefactions of air pressure at a frequency that my ear would have been able to easily discern.

but i was not there when it fell, and so i can only trust my logical digestion of the matter by believing what i think would have been the case when it fell down.

Well.. lets restate what he said.

What we think of as "sound" is vibrations in the air detectable by the human ear.

Take humans off the table. Also, lets take all other hearing capable living organisms off the table.

You have an earthlike planet with an earthlike atmosphere but no animate creatures with ears exist,and a tree or meteor falls on it.

Does it make a sound?

The question is purely semantic.

The crashing thing makes the same violent pulses through the atmosphere it would make on earth, but no animate creature with ears is around to hear it.

If the sensation of hearing is what you mean bythe word "sound" then it makes no "sound". Because no one and no thing can hear it.

But if the violent pulse of waves through the air themselves are what you mean by the word "sound"- then it does make a sound.

I go with the later. That "sound" is the phenomenon, not the sensation of the phenomenon.

All the meteors that strike mars and venus make sounds despite the fact that no one hears it (that we know of).

Yeah, electromagnetic waves need no medium, though sound is the kind of wave which does.

I agree that the sound will not be perceived without eardrums to vibrate.

Thats not the question.
The question is if the sound is not perceived then is it still sound?

For saint patricks sake it would still make a sound.

Or...Is it only the smart who see the point in such questions?
Gotcha!

Solipsism says no, and its impossible to win a logical argument against a solipsist; at some point or another you have to rely on the rather lame excuse that solipsism is not a useful way to look at the world. But then you've entered pragmatism, and they can get you there too, since it's not pragmatic to talk about things no one has or will ever experience.

Last edited by edgewaters on 09 Jun 2012, 3:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

May the ants rot in peace.