Is there such a thing as total silence, really not hearing anything?

Answer 1

You might think that in absence of any external stimulation (any noise around you) you would experience hearing nothing, yet with nothing around you still do. The auditory cortex (part of your brain responsible for processing sound information) shows activity under fMRI(functional magnetic resonance imaging) inspection without any signal coming from the ear.

Another reason you might hear sound when nothing else is around is that your body makes noise (muscles, heart, blood-flow, organ function). Try contracting your jaw tightly while in a quiet place,you can hear your own muscles working.

Experience of sound without external stimulation can also be a result of tinnitus. This is caused by damage to the hairs in the ear which sense vibrations in the air (the sound) or to the nerves which carry sound signals to the brain, or even possibly by "central crosstalk" within the brain.

Answer 2

Thats like - if a tree falls in a woods and theres no-one there to hear it then does it make a sound. Theres always going to be noise whether we hear it or not. Like in those minute silences u can still hear people coughing or shuffling their feet or even breathing. It's not just people animals the wind almost everything makes noise and it's impossible not to make any noise. So no there is no such thing as total silence.

Answer 3

I can't totally confirm it, but I remember being told on several occasions that there is no such thing as absolute silence; there is always something making some sort of noise/sound.

Answer 4

If ther is total silence, the ears picks up ringing tone like sound. I dont know why but it seems the is something unseen in this world that keeps making a sound in within dead silence.

Answer 5

In spates no-one can hear you scream.

Really, I don't know, but I suspect that some sort of low level sound might still be heard from within or very close to our ears.

I'm not sure if that is also true for deaf people, I suppose it depends on the type of their deafness.

Answer 6

I thought you actually hear with your brain.
Due to electrical impulses your brain translates into audio-experience.
Don't know what it will be like if you totally loose your hearing..
You still could perceive electrical impulses?

If you're standing in a accoustically-dead room,
that sensation is quite interesting.
Its like your in a very small cabinet thats been treated with lots of foam and filling (like a coffin)

Answer 7

No,just like there is no such thing as nothing.

Answer 8

No there is no total silence. Only when you can cut off your seensory telephones by yoga you can be in total silence

Answer 9

No. The ears pick up background noise simply because of the molecular motion of the air.

Answer 10

Keith's right
if you are somewhere very,very quiet and you lie still, you will hear the sound of blood rushing around ,
Try it ?!

M : }

(assuming you have hearing)