Does a tree in a forest make a sound if it falls when...

james_dean · Post by **james_dean** » 14 May 2006 20:02

No one is saying that something doesn't exist if we're not there to experience it.

yes they are. it's called existentialism, did you miss that post?

Switch Kicker · Post by **Switch Kicker** » 15 May 2006 05:32

I thought somewhere someone ruled out existentialism... I don't remember... Either way, existentialism is a stupid idea anyway. And I don't beleive it's possible. But whatever some of you want to think... that's your beleif I guess.

james_dean · Post by **james_dean** » 15 May 2006 16:05

Existentialism wasn't ruled out. I said it was stupid, but that doesn't really count. Actually I think I said it was poo

But the point is that it IS possible. Can you prove it's not possible?

james_dean · Post by **james_dean** » 15 May 2006 16:07

As you said, we can hear sounds that aren't really there, because it's all electrical signals in our brain. Every sense is the same. There's no reason why we couldn't be stuck somewhere and this is all in our mind, matrix style

Troyson · Post by **Troyson** » 15 May 2006 16:21

haha while i was in school today some kids were arguing about this topic...i told him some of the things from this thread and basically convinced them you can argue about it forever without getting anywhere

Seath · Post by **Seath** » 15 May 2006 17:19

Existentialism isn't stupid, that's an ignorant comment, I wouldn't consider it poo either

I think it's an excellent philosophy and it sums up how I feel about individuality and personality. I definitely don't think it shouldn't be just ruled out so quickly. I like this excerpt from the movie waking life about existentialism:

The reason why I refuse to take existentialism as just another French fashion or historical curiosity is that I think it has something very important to offer us... I'm afraid were losing the real virtues of living life passionately in the sense of taking responsibility for who you are the ability to make something of yourself and feel good about life. Existentialism is often discussed as if it were a philosophy of despair, but I think the truth is just the opposite. Sartre, once interviewed, said he never felt one minute of despair in his life. One thing that comes out from reading these guys is not a sense of anguish about life so much as a real kind of exuberance, of feeling on top of it, its like your life is yours to create. Ive read the post modernists with some interest, even admiration, but when I read them I always have this awful nagging feeling that something absolutely essential is getting left out. The more you talk about a person as a social construction or as a confluence of forces or as being fragmented of marginalised, what you do is you open up a whole new world of excuses. And when sartre talks about responsibilty, he's not talking about something abstract. He's not taling about the kind of self or souls that theologians would talk about. Hes talking about you and me talking, making descisions, doing things, and taking the consequences. It might be true that there are six million people in this world, and counting, but nevertheless -what you do makes a difference. It makes a difference, first of all, in material terms, to other people, and it sets an example. In short, I think the message here is that we should never write ourselves off or see eachother as a victim of various forces. It's always our descision who we are.

And the tree doesn't make a sound.

james_dean · Post by **james_dean** » 15 May 2006 18:20

Yeah my bad... dumb moment. And I take full responsibility for that

I remember reading Sarte in yr 12 philosophy, it was good... I should read it again because I've forgotten most of it. Thanks for the wake up call

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 16 May 2006 22:42

Iron Clad Ben wrote:Aside from people's dispute over wave physics, this is really a philosophy question, Existentialism. That is, something only exists because someone can experience it. You need an observer. According to existentialism, the tree that falls with no one to hear it, makes no sound.

If I were prone to sleep walking, and one night my subconscious decided to engage in sleep-shredding and hit Furious Alpine Symp Torquescrew (probably 9 or 10 adds, do the math) and no one was there to observe it, did I really hit?

More simply. I have a quarter in my hand. I close my hand, no one can see it. Does it still exist while it isn't visible? According to existentialism, no. Same argument as the tree.

I think this is a really bad explenation of existentialism and probably the reason people were dissing it.

In fact I would say the existentialism doesn't say that the tree makes no sound. Rather the point of the question is that it doesn't matter if the tree makes a sound or not. Existentialism isn't a philosphy about the world around us - it's a philosphy about us. A very loose definition would be that humans are defined by our existence. I guess you could say that existentialism is about saying that how we behave is our choice - rather than other theories that attempt to explain the reasons why we make those choices in an objective and scientific manner. Existentialism would say that that can't be done. In a sense it says that we have control over our lives - as opposed to saying that the world around us controls our lives.

Regarding the question. I think the point of this question is one of faith. Unless you have made up your own personal definition of sound, it is clear that the tree should make a sound. However if nobody is around to hear it how do you know if it actually does or not? In fact you have no way of knowing. However if we ignore personal definitions of sound, I would say that everybody would say that yes of course it makes a sound. Now the moral of this story is simple. We have no actual way of knowing that god exists - just like we have no way of knowing if the tree actually makes a sound - however we should know that god exists like we know that the tree makes a sound. Sometimes we don't need actual evidence to know if something is true or not - ie. the sound of the tree or the existence of god. Not that I believe in God - I just think that that is the ultimate point of this question.

On the train of philosophical questions:

Imagine you are in a cart on train tracks. The breaks fail and you are unable to stop. Ahead of you the tracks divide on one path there are five people and on the other there is one person. It is inevitable that you will kill all the people on which ever track you follow. Now you have some kind of mechanism that means you can you choose which track the cart follows. Do you kill the 5 people or the 1 person?

Now assuming you decided to kill the single person. Would you also be willing to kill a healthy person on the street and harvest their organs to save the lives of 5 people? Why, why not?

professor · Post by **professor** » 17 May 2006 09:46

Now assuming you decided to kill the single person. Would you also be willing to kill a healthy person on the street and harvest their organs to save the lives of 5 people? Why, why not?

No. Because in your story, you were going to kill someone for sure, you had no choice in that matter. The choice was who/how many you were going to kill. While walking down the street, you don't have to kill someone.

Besides, if those people are dumb enough to stand on the tracks, they better be prepared to deal with the consequences.

Seath · Post by **Seath** » 17 May 2006 10:10

[quote="Jeremy]
Imagine you are in a cart on train tracks. The breaks fail and you are unable to stop. Ahead of you the tracks divide on one path there are five people and on the other there is one person. It is inevitable that you will kill all the people on which ever track you follow. Now you have some kind of mechanism that means you can you choose which track the cart follows. Do you kill the 5 people or the 1 person?
[/quote]

I would bail off the cart and not choose who dies.

Bander87 · Post by **Bander87** » 17 May 2006 10:19

Seath wrote:[quote="Jeremy]
Imagine you are in a cart on train tracks. The breaks fail and you are unable to stop. Ahead of you the tracks divide on one path there are five people and on the other there is one person. It is inevitable that you will kill all the people on which ever track you follow. Now you have some kind of mechanism that means you can you choose which track the cart follows. Do you kill the 5 people or the 1 person?

I would bail off the cart and not choose who dies.[/quote][/quote]

And possibly kill 4 more that didn't have to die?

Seath · Post by **Seath** » 17 May 2006 10:27

I couldn't chose to kill one person, and not knowing anything of this device used to chose the tracks it is possible that the cart would just derail itself or in some way not go down a specific track, none the less this scenario has alot of unanswered variables, what I was trying to say is I would never chose to kill anyone.

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 17 May 2006 22:19

Obviously the point of this question is that you have to choose to kill 5 people or 1 person. All possible ways of avoiding that are unacceptable answers.

In the second part of the question - 5 people are going to die if you do nothing - and those lives can be prevented at the cost of one life - why would it be unethical to kill one person to save 5 in the more practical story?

majet76 · Post by **majet76** » 17 May 2006 23:58

I hope you all realize that by trying to understand and answer the question you all have come to understand that humans possess limitations. Try not to get too caught up in differentiating between sounds and vibrations. Although it is important to think upon and question, that’s not the point of the original question.

Also, in addition to making humans realize their limitations in perception among other things, I believe that another point to the question is to make one sensitive to the world around them. This, in turn, helps the person better realize their place in the world.

Here’s a link that related to the same question. FYI, I have changed some of my beliefs. I do think differently on some aspects. Don’t think my views are still exactly the same.
http://modified.in/footbag/viewtopic.ph ... 2&postdays
=0&postorder=asc&highlight=majet&start=0

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 18 May 2006 01:09

Props to bradmin for posting the same thing in both topics

Also I give myself selfprops for staying consistant on my beliefs for an entire year!

Bander87 · Post by **Bander87** » 18 May 2006 10:53

Back to the train question....

It's natural for things that are alive to die at some point, you can't avoid it - it's out of our control. Applying this with the person on the street, if I killed someone on the street, then it was IN my control for them to die (at that moment and going with the story that I WOULD kill him if I wanted to). This would be considerd murder. Where as the 5 other people that needed the organs would die naturally anyways, and causes of death from that of which are natural, isn't murder. Also with the train, 1 person would have dieing would have been out of your control, but if you killed 4 more people, that can be considered murder.

Murder is unaceptable to humans. In most sisuations, not murdering someone for the cause of saving 5 other people like the sisuation above, would be more acceptable. Although it does seem more logical on paper to kill that 1 person, it goes agains human acceptance and is considered worse.

My head is starting to hurt

Sorry if I didn't explain enough and for any run on sentences. I could barely organize my thoughts!

krumpage · Post by **krumpage** » 19 May 2006 14:37

if you break down this question all it really is saying is that a tree fell and made a sound or didnt make a sound depending if sound exist if no one hears. funny that made the question longer. anyway you can measure sound with pitch and loudness but is that really measuring sound of just measuring the sound wave.
people that say they hear sound when you think of a memory and your hear a person speaking in your memory. thats not physical sound its mental sound. no one else can hear it. in my opinion its imitation sound, because its just repeating sound you already heard, but is not physically there. you may think well i can make any noise in my head. well consider this you are repeating sounds you have heard and remixing them into mental sound. so really you record what you have already heard and are playing it back.
yes people say sound is a wave and other say its the interpretation but what really got me was that dog whistle idea. where you got a dog whistle and you blow it to a dog. and your dog disapears where it cant hear it does your dog whistle stop making sound. I say no because you are able to physically record it and record the pitch/sound or loudness with a machine which would have a very wide range of recieving sound. though that would be relying on technology which always could have a defect which would bring up the point of its only real if you experience it.
I dont know what this has to do with the tree but im typing my thoughts on this anyway ill try and bring to to the tree question. Really in this question its 100% true that it made a sound wave of a wave of energy right. So the question is is a sound wave sound (which a machine can physically record, but it measures the freaquencies and energy levels, which i guess to some people would still say it does not equal sound till you have physically heard it) or is sound wave just energy that needs to be interpreted by ears and the mind before becoming sound. Who knows its all personal opinion.
Even though i think this topic was totally pointless at least it brough out some interesting things on sound. One more thing though i always wondered it says that no one can hear it but if you record it and play it back would that be evidence that sound was made? I really am confused on this topic lol. even when righting this im not sure if it makes sense or is just my imagination. O well i tried to reply

blazingflurry92 · Post by **blazingflurry92** » 26 May 2006 16:59

Switchkicker........so what your basically saying is that when a tree falls in the forest and nobody is around to hear it.. it dosen't make a sound...............thats just like saying if a bomb was set and everbody left..and no one was around to here the explotion.. would it make a sound?..........................or its just like saying if a Meteorite were to hit an ocean at 100,000 miles per hour would the force of the meteorite against the water make a sound? i think yes. orrrrr.... if you were to put on the t.v. and walked out of the house.. would the t.v. still be making a sound?

SandWraith · Post by **SandWraith** » 26 May 2006 18:44

I'll admit I didn't read any of this thread beyond the first couple posts (which is the reason I didn't read any more). My friend brought up an interesting point though: if you say that "sound" requires interpretation to really occur, then suppose the following. Say someone puts a microphone and a recorder in the forest and leaves. A tree falls. No one is there to hear it so, according to some, it makes no sound. However, if you listen to the tape later, there's a sound. So you say that the tree didn't make a sound but yet one is recorded on the tape. Seems to me like this would be a contradiction unless you are very narrowly defining sound to mean a human have to be there to interpret the noise at that very moment.

JoFa · Post by **JoFa** » 26 May 2006 19:24

One of the other flaws with the "sound is the interpretation" logic is that you are basically saying that the mind creates the sound as an interpretation, instead of the actual tree falling. Well then, you're saying that nothing makes sound, as it's all in our heads, therefore making the question pointless.