If a tree falls in a forest and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

[johnzaku]

From a scientific standpoint, YES! god dammit yes.... DX vibrations occur whether or not we can detect them.

From a philosophical point of view, well, that's up to debate. My stand on it is, nothing exists outside our own realm or perception, if you never come into contact with something or the consequences of its actions, it does not exist. Then again, everything has an effect. Not to sound cliched, but it's like ripples. The tree falls, there's that little bit of CO2 not being recycled, it dissipates in the atmosphere, it open a tiny little hole in the ozone layer, that tiny little hole lets in just enough sun radiation, you get a little freckle on your forehead, your girlfriend has odd compulsions against freckles, she leaves you, you spiral into depression, you decide to give up civilized life, you run naked into the woods, far from anyone else, you scrape out an existence living on berries and nuts, one day, you come across a tree that looks younger than those around it, it seems to have grown out of the stump of a tree that fell many years ago, driven by a sudden mad urge, you lunge at the tree, tearing and ripping with your makeshift weapons and finally, you succeed, and the tree begins to fall... right onto you.
rinse
repeat

wow i got goin' there I meant to end at ripples, haha

 

[ScruffyTheJanitor]

Urgh....philosophical junk.

Ok, when it comes down to it, we cannot be sure there is a sound. We can't be sure there is a tree, we can't be sure there's a wood and we can still even doubt our existance to hear the noise so all in all, we're never really sure about anything, and will never really find out.

Q: So, will a falling tree make a sound if noone is around to hear it...
A: Blug

 

[Lullabye]

Y-yes? I mean how can it not make a sound? Living beings do not bring the laws of nature with them wherever they go!

according to quantum mechanics, the act of observing a phenomena changes it.
if it is unobserved then it must be doing both simultaneously, so not only is it loud and silent, it is also still standing and collapsed at the same time, until somebody or something observes it, at which point it is EITHER standing OR collapsed.

therefore, as nobody is around, it is both making a noise, and perfectly silent, whilst collapsed AND standing.

IS YOUR MIND BLOWN YET?

so its like the "i think therfore I am" philosphy, but changed to "I observe, therfore it is".....umm, I'm pretty sure thats complete crap.

Yes it makes "sound", and various other forms of energy as well

its true

it is the basis of wave particle duality

a stream of electrons are passed through a slit- it makes one line on a background
a beam of light is passed through the same slit- same thing happens
the beam of light is passed through 2 slits- it creates an interference pattern when the waves hit each other and cancel out (it looks like | | | |)
the stream of electrons from before are passed through the 2 slitted thingy- because electrons are particles you would expect it to make 2 lines on a background, right? wrong, it creates an interference pattern.

if you then decide to only fire 1 electron at a time, it still makes an interference pattern, this is because it is going through BOTH slits at the same time.
when some scientists decided to see WHICH slit the electrons were going through, (they put a detector next to one slit), the electrons just made 2 lines, when they removed the detector, it went back to the interference pattern, the act of observing the electrons fixed their positions in space.

want more proof, look up Schrödinger's cat

That is actually quite interesting.....but I'm sure there is more too it chan than that concious observation magically changed the pattern of the electrons. Also, if they were observing the electrons the entire time, then isn't that kind of..moot? Maybe the detector created some interference(it really doesnt take much to interfere ona sub atomic level you know..)

 

[Kajin]

If I'm not around to hear it, why should I care?

 

[Lullabye]

Urgh....philosophical junk.

Ok, when it comes down to it, we cannot be sure there is a sound. We can't be sure there is a tree, we can't be sure there's a wood and we can still even doubt our existance to hear the noise so all in all, we're never really sure about anything, and will never really find out.

Q: So, will a falling tree make a sound if noone is around to hear it...
A: Blug

Depends on what qualifies as "proof" to you. I hate the philosophical side of this stuff. On one hand, you have reality, on teh other, a human mind......which one carries the truth?

 

[ThreeWords]

If a tree falls in a forest, and it hits a mime, does any one care?

 

[Xanadeas]

Fuck this. If a meteorite slams into Titan where, by defenition, no-one is around to hear it, does it make sound?

Spoiler

OF COURSE IT FUCKING DOES.

Actually since sound doesn't travel in a vacuum, no it wouldn't.

True sound doesn't travel in a vacuum but Titan has an atmosphere. Therefore the impact upon the moon would be audible IF someone were there. Therefore it would indeed make a sound.

Yes, it would make a sound. Just because there isn't someone or something there to observe it doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

 

[AdamG3691]

Y-yes? I mean how can it not make a sound? Living beings do not bring the laws of nature with them wherever they go!

according to quantum mechanics, the act of observing a phenomena changes it.
if it is unobserved then it must be doing both simultaneously, so not only is it loud and silent, it is also still standing and collapsed at the same time, until somebody or something observes it, at which point it is EITHER standing OR collapsed.

therefore, as nobody is around, it is both making a noise, and perfectly silent, whilst collapsed AND standing.

IS YOUR MIND BLOWN YET?

so its like the "i think therfore I am" philosphy, but changed to "I observe, therfore it is".....umm, I'm pretty sure thats complete crap.

Yes it makes "sound", and various other forms of energy as well

its true

it is the basis of wave particle duality

a stream of electrons are passed through a slit- it makes one line on a background
a beam of light is passed through the same slit- same thing happens
the beam of light is passed through 2 slits- it creates an interference pattern when the waves hit each other and cancel out (it looks like | | | |)
the stream of electrons from before are passed through the 2 slitted thingy- because electrons are particles you would expect it to make 2 lines on a background, right? wrong, it creates an interference pattern.

if you then decide to only fire 1 electron at a time, it still makes an interference pattern, this is because it is going through BOTH slits at the same time.
when some scientists decided to see WHICH slit the electrons were going through, (they put a detector next to one slit), the electrons just made 2 lines, when they removed the detector, it went back to the interference pattern, the act of observing the electrons fixed their positions in space.

want more proof, look up Schrödinger's cat

That is actually quite interesting.....but I'm sure there is more too it chan than that concious observation magically changed the pattern of the electrons. Also, if they were observing the electrons the entire time, then isn't that kind of..moot? Maybe the detector created some interference(it really doesnt take much to interfere ona sub atomic level you know..)

yes, they were observing the electrons the whole time, but without the detector, you only know that an electron has gone through the slit (it was a flourescent pattern on a specially coated background that glowed when an electron hit it), the detector was seeing which ONE it went through.

 

[LeonLethality]

it does make a sound. when you are around it makes a sound so how is this an exception?

 

[Mr Companion]

The real question is: "If a tree falls in the forest and only Gordon Brown is there to hear it, does it make a sound?"

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around, do I give a shit?

Not really, because it makes sound waves, thus, sound, regardless if you here it or not, negating any reason for me to discuss this further.

 

[AdamG3691]

The real question is: "If a tree falls in the forest and only Gordon Brown is there to hear it, does it make a sound?"

yes, hopefully

*splat*

 

[Soxafloppin]

Maybe it doesnt make a sound, but it does make a vibration.

 

[Jared]

There will always be sound even if your not there to acknowledge it.

Agreed. Its only thought human arrogance that we believe it wont make a sound.

 

[Reaperman64]

Sound is vibrations in the air and will exist whether we are there or not.
its like asking if the stars that are light years away are hot because we dont get all toasty

 

[Hexenwolf]

Hahaha.

It's funny seeing you try to use pseudo-science for this. Sound isn't "the interpretation of vibrations" it's "vibrations." Period.

So yes, it does make a sound.

 

[ntw3001]

Sound is vibrations in the air and will exist whether we are there or not.
its like asking if the stars that are light years away are hot because we dont get all toasty

Well no, because that is a plain old-fashioned stupid question based on technical misunderstanding. What this question is for is to spur debate on the topic of qualia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia). It's a question of whether you think 'sound' should be interpreted as referring to the vibration in the air, or the quale produced when that vibration is interpreted by a conscious perceiver.

 

[SturmDolch]

How can you even be sure the tree fell? If no one sees it, has the tree really fallen?

 

[ntw3001]

Hahaha.

It's funny seeing you try to use pseudo-science for this. Sound isn't "the interpretation of vibrations" it's "vibrations." Period.

So yes, it does make a sound.

Bah, alright, this was posted while I was posting my last comment. 'Sound' and 'vibrations' are not the same thing. They are obviously different words, with obviously different meanings. Not all vibrations are sound. Whether all sound is vibration itself, or whether it is an effect of vibration, is the question being posed here. I'm inclined to say that sound is a quale rather than a physical phenomenon in itself, because as far as I'm aware the only thing separating the definitions of 'sound' and 'random vibrations' is that sound is necessarily audible. That's what the word means, so it's referring specifically to the sensory experience of hearing.