Lol, I just have to ask this question in this tread...

Now if a tree falls in the middle of a forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?
:D

Scientifically, yes. The sound waves are still produced by the movement of the tree. Philosophically? Depends on your P.O.V.
I would say yes to both parts, because even if there are no humans around, there are always animals in the forest.

lol, i just have to ask this question in this tread...

now if a tree falls in the middle of a forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?
:D
The tree falling in the forest scenario is an attempt to summarize Berkeley's idealist philosophy. Berkeley claims that there is no such thing as the physical world. All we can know about objects is the ideas we have about them. What we experience are sensations or perceptions of things.

When a tree falls in the forest it creates sound waves,but Berkeley would quickly point out that we don't hear the sound waves. All we can ever hear is a noise and this is different to a sound wave. The noise exists within the mind and is not a sensible thing.

What Berkeley is alluding to is that when we talk about sound we really mean EXPERIENCED noise. Therefore, if no one is around when the tree falls then no one hears it fall.

I will give you the same answer I gave my niece the other day:
only if it falls on a bear ^_~

That's what voice recorders are for, so you can play the sound back after its fallen :D

The tree falling in the forest scenario is an attempt to summarize Berkeley's idealist philosophy. Berkeley claims that there is no such thing as the physical world. All we can know about objects is the ideas we have about them. What we experience are sensations or perceptions of things.

When a tree falls in the forest it creates sound waves,but Berkeley would quickly point out that we don't hear the sound waves. All we can ever hear is a noise and this is different to a sound wave. The noise exists within the mind and is not a sensible thing.

What Berkeley is alluding to is that when we talk about sound we really mean EXPERIENCED noise. Therefore, if no one is around when the tree falls then no one hears it fall.

I should have added that that when there is no one around to experience the sound of a tree falling then according to Berkeley it makes no sound

Depends on whether you look at it at a scientific standpoint or a philosophical one.

The two can be the same, or opposites.

It really doesn't matter if it makes a noise or not, we simply have to assume that it does as it is a necessary condition for our understanding of falling trees. Synthetic Apriori if you like.

I agree that it's synthetic but I don't think it is a priori as well. I think we need to experience trees falling before we can come up with any general statement regarding the noise or lack of noise they make when they fall.

I see what you mean, however I see it as an apriori in that the proposition "All falling trees make a sound" contains a necessary element, i.e sound. For Kant this was the only condition for an apriori conclusion, that it should follow from necessity. Statements such as "Every action has an equal and opposite reaction" would also be apriori, as it holds true in all cases, the "opposite reaction" follows necessarily. Hence the "synthetic apriori" was born.

I'm sure that wildlife in that area would tell us yes if they could effectively communicate with us.

Are we actually discussing whether we should discuss the possibility of a tree making sounds or lacking the ability to make sounds when falling, that is to say that the tree actually DID fall, knowing that if we are not there to witness this crazy event, that the tree in our minds never really fell after all, it could have been knocked or blown damn by storm or machine. You must figure out whether it fell or got knocked down.

Course there's always God around to see all and hear all, therefore, as they say, only he can judge!

"Remember, only YOU can prevent trees falling...uh...forest fires!" :)

Speaking of synthetic apriori and given the fact that I am a golf tragic... Is the proposition " All short putts are never holed" an example of a synthetic apriori?"

Hehe, my knowledge of golf and golfing terms is weak at best, so I'm not entirely sure. Does "short putt" mean a putt that stops short of the hole? If it does I would say that it is analytic, as you need only look at the definition of the term to establish the validity of the statement. The definition of the term "falling tree" does not suggest sound in any way.

that it is necessary and apriori flow from the presuppositions embedded in the notion "every"; once this kind of tautology is removed. Berkeley's hypothesis is useful for establishing the conditioning variables by which the conclusion "makes no sound" can be excepted

Necessary and apriori mean the same thing. For something to be apriori it must be a logical necessity or psychological necessity.


Berkeley claims that there is no such thing as the physical, in terms of independently existing objects. All we can ever know is IDEAS about them.

I am not sure how you are relating the two, could you please expand on this?

Oh, I get what you are trying to say. No we can't get rid of the "every' so to speak because for something to qualify as apriori it must be by definition UNIVERSAL.

Hi, 7six_seraph!

Whether there is sound or not would be a matter of defining what sound is according to the potential listener.

Thanks!

Is there sound? Most Likely.

Is it relevant to those who don't hear it, probably not.

I love to talk about the skeptic, but what makes any one person's "experience" the conclusive one. If we all lived in a world concerned with nothing more than our own experiences then we would find ourselves at a disadvantage. The unseen world in not invisible, just not yet obtained.

I would like to say that experience lies with just humans, or even animals, but for the sake of this argument, it would also like to extend it with any substance.

If a tree were to fall and nothing experienced its noise, the noise by definition exists. This would be an irrelevant noise. You may compare it to a tree falling on the moon. There is nothing to traverse the sound waves, even though all the elements are there for the experience.

Where does this leave us in conclusion?

I don't know... I suppose it would be more productive to argue the details of the questions. Lack of experience does not eliminate action, however, action doesn't necessarily provide experience.

I vote, Rephrase the Question!!
Lol

Have fun with this guys.

Hi, InfoJunkie4Life!

The original question is decades old, if not more. I first encountered it in a physics book having to do with acoustics.

There isn't one straight answer to it, and it is a matter of definition...

How something is defined can be a matter of personal choice, especially when the subject matter is so subjective...

Thanks!

Thanks... I've heard it before and have some philosophy background from college... I choose to remain inconclusive.

Hi again, InfoJunkie4Life!

It does make for a good practice in debate though, if someone wants to get into that kind of thing. There are larger topics that aren't as easy to swallow and swim in...

Thanks!

Agreed... time to tackle plato...

I like a challenge. I prefer to read completed argument similar to those about Socrates in Plato's dialogues. Then I take notes on each part of the argument... like a flow chart.

Then I critique the argument. Just for fun.

The more info in the argument, the more of a challenge, its hard to keep your mind on every step of a proof.

The answer to the problem.'A Tree in the Forest' is that when something makes a noise e.g. a tree falling, then according to Berkeley no noise is produced. What is produced are sound waves, which in essence is air vibrating. This is not a noise, something is only a noise if there exists a living creature with an ear ( ear drum and various tiny bones and fluid) which serve to pick up the vibrations. What is also required is a brain to interpret what is coming out of the ear. Naturally brains and ears tend to be found together.

The conclusion is that unless there is some reasonably advanced living creature with ears to pick up the vibrations, then no noise is produced when a tree falls. When we are talking about noise we really mean EXPERIENCED NOISE.

Hi, TUT317!

Then it's still a matter of definition then. Correct?

Thanks!

Hi, Clough.

In a word,Yes!

The tree falling only makes a sound when all things in the universe are a constant.

If the laws of physics can be broken or bent, then the sound or lack of, of a tree falling can also be changed

Given that all we know up to date suggest the law of physics cannot be broken, it safe to assume the tree would make a sound every time

However, mathematics also teech us that nothing improbable just highly improbable

Besides, if a tree fell and didn't make a sound, who would believe you :)

Hello Phlanx,
The laws of physics can be broken. If I can conceive of some physical occurrence behaving in a way that we don't normally expect then for all intention purpose the law is not absolute.
We cannot prove any physical law with certainty but we can disprove with certainty.

For example, when a tree falls in the forest I can easily conceive the noise being made is the sound of a piano playing.

Why do we expect to hear a cracking or crashing sound when a tree falls? As Hume says, it is just custom or habit. There is no logical necessity involved when we say that A causes B. Whenever we seen an event such as a tree falling we EXPECT to hear the appropriate noise.