If a tree falls in a forrest but no one is there does it make a sound?

Answer 1

Yes because sounds exsists. Now if you had a majority that firmly believed it would not than it would not but you have skeptics so only with physics are things true because it comes to belief.

Answer 2

This old and familiar riddle is supposed to perplex and confuse us. It's supposed to be unanswerable.

On the one hand, it seems obvious that a tree falling in a forest with no one to hear it makes a sound. The tree-fall is just the same whether an observer is present or not. In cases where an observer is present, a tree-fall makes a sound. Removing the observer doesn't change the tree-fall. An observed tree-fall therefore involves a sound.

On the other hand, there does seem to be a sense in which an unobserved tree-fall is silent. With no one present to hear the sound before it passes out of existence, it might as well not have happened. It's almost as though the tree-fall only creates a potential sound, which, if unobserved, never fully comes into being.

I think that this riddle can be answered, that there is no need to be perplexed or confused by it. What the answer is depends on what is meant by the word "sound". Once we are clear on what we mean by "sound", we can say with confidence whether or not an unobserved tree-fall makes one.

First, we might have a purely physical understanding of what a sound is. A sound is a pattern of vibrations in the air. It has wave form. It's a kind of purely physical event. Let's call this kind of sound a physical sound.

Second, we might have a psychological understanding of what a sound is. A sound is an experience that we have. It is not vibrations in the air, but a creak, a crash or a thud, a mental event. Let's call this kind of sound a mental sound.

An unobserved tree-fall clearly does make a physical sound. We can tell a story about how physical sounds come into being—events cause air to vibrate by pushing against it—and this story makes no mention of observers. Whether anyone observes an event, then, shouldn't effect whether or not it makes a sound. We can tell exactly the same story about an unobserved tree-fall creating a physical sound as we can about an observed tree-fall making a physical sound. In this sense of "sound", then, we have every reason to think that an unobserved tree-fall makes one.

An unobserved tree-fall clearly does not make a mental sound. The story that we tell about how mental sounds come into being—vibrating air acts on the ear-drum which produces electrical stimuli which are presented to the mind as sounds—does involve the presence of an observer. If no observer is present at an event, then there will be no ear-drums or electrical signals and none of this will happen. No sound will come into being. In this sense of "sound", then, an event must be observed if it is to make a sound, and an unobserved tree-fall will be silent.

What this draws our attention to is of far more interest, I think, than the riddle about trees falling unobserved in forests: the amount that we contribute to our experiences of the world. We encounter vibrations of air in the world, but these are presented to us as sounds (in the mental sense). We encounter patterns of light in the world, but these are presented to us as colours. The world in itself is not as we perceive it to be. Our brains 'make up' a significant proportion of our experiences. In a sense, then, trees falling in forests never make sounds, whether they are heard or not; when tree-falls are heard, the sounds are always made by the people who hear the tree falling.

Answer 3

Sorry to clutter up your intray with this but the first time I heard this one, the question was '. . . does it make noise?'

The tricky part was the use of the word 'noise'. If a tree falls, of course it makes sound because, as at least a few others wrote, some of the mechanical energy is converted to sound energy even if no one is around to experience it, and sound was around before people were around to assign a word to that phenomenon.

The falling tree, however, does not makes noise if no one is in the forest when it falls. Noise is a term created by humans. (any kid who ever had their radio on 'too loud' for their parent's liking was told to 'turn that damn noise down!') In other words, noise was not around before there were humans to perceive it as being noise.

So, if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, it does make sound but it does not make noise.

PS - the crack from cowgirlsRcool asking if when men talk and no one is around are they still wrong? Interesting, I first heard THAT one: if a woman talks and no one is around. . . But cowgirl said it before me, so she gets credit (and I'll drift off into the forest with the fallen tree...). It was still funny. Thanks for the laugh, cowgirlsRcool.

Answer 4

Yep. I heard a tree fall in the woods from about 1/4 mile away so I wasn't there near it but I heard the sound it made. I found it a few days later.

Answer 5

the voices in my head say if a tree falls and no one hears, the tree was never standing to begin with.

Answer 6

Yes

Answer 7

~~~Yes, it still would make a sound if you were not there. If this theory is makeing you loose sleep at night,,,,then mabey you could put a tape recorder out in the woods,,,,,push record,,,,hopefully for your sake a tree would fall,,,,then you would have 100 % proof for your therory. ~~~

Answer 8

If a tree falls on a mime in the forest, does anyone care?

Answer 9

The presence or absence of somebody being some people, does not matter, if the tree falls and make noise!!!

Answer 10

Of course it makes a sound, sound waves don't really care if you're around to pick them up, they'll go out anyway.

Till next time,
Raven