If a tree falls down and there is nothing to hear it, does it make a sound?

Answer 1

A sound that none can hear is no sound. The answer is no in my opinion. The question has been asked in many forms and is made to determine the frame of mind as if the glass is half empty or half full. Those who say it does make a sound determine from pure experience where those who say no determine a broader range of possibilities. Meaning there is no wrong answer.

Answer 2

The falling of the tree creates waves in the air around it and these waves only travel a certain distance depending on the size of the tree and the force at which it falls. Obviously, the falling tree is not sentient enough to create these waves only in the presence of a perceiver. It ALWAYS creates these waves.

For a human who isn't deaf and who is within range, the waves are perceived as sound waves and create the sensation of noise in the brain. For another tree close to the falling tree, the waves are not perceived as noise but are perceived as air vibration causing its leaves to move. If there is no perceiver, the waves exist for some time before dying out.

So, the waves ALWAYS exist. It is the perceiver who/that classifies those waves as noise or something else.

Answer 3

This is a simple fact that our perception of reality is limited due to limited range of meaningfulness of our senses. This is the reason we perceive various things farther away or detached from us. But speaking a little more conceptually, I would like to consider the example of a railway track many hundreds of miles long. The fact the one end of the track is so far away that neither sight and nor sound can reach the other does not make hamper its normal rail operation - as it is most realistically known, and not speculative imagined that the track runs all the way along to the other end.

Similarly, the physical reality we perceive through our senses is not patchy; it is continuous. There are no break or isolations as such anywhere; and that all cities are ultimately linked to the jungles some distance away. In fact, by the use of an equipment powerful enough one could hear any sound made thousand of miles away, as the vibrations however slight would not lost altogether but only mixed up and distorted in the den of other sounds.

If we understand that physical reality is in fact a perfect continuum in the world, of which we are also an integral part of, and that we see things detached from our physical being only because our sense have a certain range, then we can see that all happenings in this continuum do affect us however we might not be able to sense those effects as noticeably as things happening is our most immediate surroundings.

Besides, I can argue that I exist despite the fact that there are many people in the world who do not hear me talk, or see me through their eyes, to whom I am completely unknown, people who do not experience me as their sensory experience, but despite all this I nevertheless do exist, and my existence in this regard is independent of the requirement of any number of observers; and just like the reality that I am but a part of, my being is not subjective to anything else, as all things, most strictly speaking, are but one - parts of the same grand physical effect.

The tree will make a sound.

Answer 4

Of course, just because there is nothing to hear a sound, doesn't mean that things which make a noise when they happen, only make a noise when something can hear it.

It is however impossible to prove it made a sound as it fell. But it would be just as impossible for somebody who heard a tree fall, prove to others that she heard it. She can tell them, but she can't prove it.

If a tree could fall silently when any noise could be heard, then there would be evidence that a tree could fall silently. Without that evidence we can assume a tree makes a noise when it falls, whether it is heard or not.

If you close your eyes, do your surroundings actually vanish?

Answer 5

Well, if going by your grammar was the basis of my answer, I'd have to say NO - because "nothing there" ... would mean just a tree falling and supposedly then without anything around to stop it either.

But if you're talking about natural occurrences in a forest, then sure it would - it's a bit like the question about fish having feelings, some scientists have told us that these creatures don't feel it when they get killed.

Unless you are the fish I'm sure that that's a final statement about these poor creatures.

Answer 6

According to who? To the tree? Or to the "nothing" that isn't there to hear it? To the tree, it makes a sound. To the "nothing", it doesn't, because the "nothing" knows nothing about the tree falling down.

Answer 7

A tree can not fall without something being aware that it fell. A man with lie detecters proved that other leaves and plants responded when a leaf was damaged. Sound produces viberation which affect and impress all things around it.

Answer 8

Why should there be no noise just because no one hears it?

I believe so. When you are out in the world you hear things that you can't see all the time. You can hear a horn or car alarm from around the block. Can you hear it just because someone closer to it can see it?

Don't be silly, of course it makes a noise.

Answer 9

Yes. Test your theory. Put a tape player in the woods and rig a tree to fall and leave.

Answer 10

Am I reading this right? ' there is nothing to hear it' doesn't make a lottta sense.
BUT if it falls then it will make the sound of a tree falling. all the insects will hear it and feel the vibration.