Why does it matter whether or not people are around to hear a tree when it falls in the forest?

Question

If a person lives in isolation from everyone else they don't cease to exist, so how could it be that sound would cease to exist just because noone could hear it?

JoJo - What about animals? They can hear sound, can't they?

Answer 1

It all depends on how you read the question. I read it this way:

If a tree falls in a forest, and no one is there to hear it, does it still make a sound?

The answer is incontrovertibly NO!!!!

It does not matter whether anyone is there to hear it or not!

Trees - - - Don't - - - Complain!!!

End of story!

Silly question anyway.

Answer 2

Sound doesn't exist. It is a perception in the brain, registered in the temporal lobes.
Sound waves exist, and still exist in places where nobody is adjacent enough to percieve the sound waves.
So the answer is yes, it always makes a noise because it will always produce sound waves, if in air, which is a medium that can carry sound waves. Water can do so, to a lesser extene.
Would a tree make a sound if it falls next to a person who is completely deaf.?No, because the waves made by the fall are imperceptible as sound to a deaf person. The deaf person may feel the shaking, affects of the motion, but not the sound, just like it doesn't exist.

It's all in your head

Answer 3

Okay, to the question, "If a tree falls in the forrest and no one is around, does it still make a sound?", there likely never will be a single answer that satisfies every one of us.

And, unfortunately, your question "Why does it matter?" really adds nothing to the question. The "Pro-sounders" will say that sound waves are produced whether anyone is there or not; and the "No-sounders" will say that without people to perceive it, there is no sound.

This suggests a basic impasse in philosophical discourse: whether the common dictionary definitions of words really apply to the underlying reality of observed phenomena.

"Sound" is really an internal experience. When vibrations of a certain frequency and amplitude enter the ear, nerves are stimulated, the brain does its little interpretive magical dance, and we "hear" a tree fall.

On the other hand, a tree falling will, like it or not, produce certain vibrations, which is an external experience, whether perceived or not. Are those vibrations to be called "sound" if not heard by anyone? Who knows? Who cares?

Why does it matter?

Every one of us must decide that question on our own. Following is my own personal take:

More and more, quantum physics is showing us that there is, in fact, and underlying basis to reality, even to god, if you want to call it that.

The ultimate background to reality is the quantum field, or quantum "soup" (a term I prefer only because the first book I read on the subject used it). The quantum soup is a field of possible phenomenal outcomes, which collapse into a single reality upon observation.

For example, do you think light is a wave or a particle? Quantum physics says that the possibility is that it is both. In fact, empirical evidence tells us that if one tests light for wave behavior, then wave behavior is seen; and if one tests for particle behavior, then particle behavior is seen. Neat, huh?

Quantum physics also tells us that our senses perceive a reality from among multiple possibilities, and that these perceptions are unique, individual, and personal experiences to the observer. Now, it gets interesting.

We know that the senses -- touch, taste, smell, sound, sight -- are unique to the individual. Not everyone will agree that lemons are more sour than limes, for example, because not everyone has the same number or arrangement of taste buds. These are 'individual' experiences.

But the question is: Who is the individual? Where is the "I" who perceives all these experiences?

Because everything we know comes to us by our senses, and because we identify so completely with our physical selves, we assume that the mind is ours as well -- that the "I" unique to each of us is within.

While that may be true of memory, it may not be true of mind. Again, quantum physics is beginning to think that the make-up of the quantum field itself is . . . (drumroll) . . . spirit.

Call it spirit, universal mind, mind of god, collective consciousness, or divine madness -- call it whatever makes you comfortable -- but it is there.

The field (soup, spirit, mind, etc.) is out there, in here, infusing all of reality, informing everything and everyone; it is the universe. The field is -- for equal unit measures -- as much present in a grain of sand as in Pope Benedict.

The field (spirit, etc.) is a part of us, and we are part of it. Each affects the other. Each may affect physical matter (quite possibly a rational basis for -- dare I say it? -- magick). As beings of spirit, we can affect one another. What the "I" that is this body perceives becomes a reality that is part of the quantum field.

It may thus be said that any phenomena once perceived is a phenomena always perceived. And since our perceptions are so minutely different as to be virtually indistinguishable from one another, the phenomena may be "universally" perceived as well.

So, what does this mean for the sound of a tree whether someone is there or not? Simply this: if you test for sound, you get sound. If you test for silence, you get silence.

Get the basic definitions right, and the reality will follow.

Answer 4

a lot of ppl are focusing on the specifics of the question. I dont think that the point has anything to do with sound or trees. I mean, obviously it does make a sound, it does not matter if it is percieved, the fact is sound waves would be created whether or not anyone was there to hear them or not. I think the point of the question is to present a scenario with what appears to be a predictable conclusion and then take away any possible proof. That leaves the answerer with nothing to say. And thats the whole point, to show the importence of evidence and to challenge the obvious.

Answer 5

You are taking the question much too literally. The riddle of "if a tree falls in the forest, and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" is a very abstract issue. It describes whether something can exist outside of perception. It describes the "possibility of unperceived existence." eg."Sound is only sound if a person hears it". Yes, common sense dictates that the tree will make a sound, but can sound exist without someone to receive it? Can there be a play without an audience? Sound, by its very definition, involves human interaction, interpretation, and involvement.

For an indepth discussion of the riddle, check here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_a_tree_falls_in_a_forest

"The most immediate philosophical topic that the riddle introduces, involves the existence of the tree (and its sound) outside of human perception. If no one is around to see, hear, touch or smell the tree, how could its existence occur? What is it to say that it exists when such an existence avoids all knowing?"

"George Berkeley in the 18th century developed subjective idealism, a metaphysical theory to respond to these questions, coined famously as "to be is to be perceived". Today metaphysicians are split. According to substance theory, a substance is distinct from its properties. According to bundle theory, an object is merely its sense data."

"Can we assume the unobserved world functions the same as the observed world? - eg. "does observation affect outcome?"

"The Observer effect is the dissimilarity between sensation and reality: the difference between what something is, and how it appears? - eg. "sound is the variation of pressure that propagates through matter as a wave"

"Perhaps the most important topic the riddle offers is the division between perception of an object and how an object really is. If the tree exists outside of perception, and it exists predictably outside of perception (common sense grants us both of these), then it will produce sound waves. However, these sound waves will not actually sound like anything. Sound as it is mechanically understood will occur, but sound as it is understood by sensation will not occur.

"The "Observer Effect" refers to changes that the act of observing will make on the phenomenon being observed. For example, for us to "see" an electron, a photon must first interact with it, and this interaction will change the path of that electron." Or if you are watching your dog play, he might act much differently than if you weren't around. Your presence is influencing his behavior.

Answer 6

"Sound" is a shared human experience. There are waves of energy all around the universe. And some of those frequencies are picked up by human ears processed by humans where our minds turn them into something that we all accept as being this thing we call sound. So, in a sense we create the experience that is known as "sound". Thus, perhaps it exists only in our minds. And so the question becomes: what is the nature of that thing with no humans experiencing it. And, conversely, what is the nature of all other aspects of the universe that is beyond our experience.

Answer 7

The question really isn't about trees.
It is deeper than that.
Does one thing happen without the other?
Exactly what are the consequences of one happening on another thing?
Are things just interruptions of our brain chemistry?
Are their trees if there is no one to enjoy it?
Does a person walk in to a room and they get what they need.
When they leave the room, it ceases to exist?
Does one person see trees and another person see purple poles?
Do I hear and understand a statement the same as you do?
Or are we all in a world of our own?
Why does there need to have one thing happen to make something else happen? (do we have to believe in trees that make noise in order for it to happen?)

Did you have to ask the question before there is an answer.
And is there really an answer at all? is it all an illusion or interruption of our brain chemistry. ?
Can we not see the trees in spite of the Forrest?

Or is there no answer because the question is basid on assumptions?

Answer 8

Sound is the perception the brain has when it receives a signal from the ear generated by the perception of vibrations. The vibrations would occur whether there is an observer or not, but there would be no sound. Sound is the sensation of perceiving vibrations, and if there is no being to hear, there is no perception of vibrations.

Answer 9

Hello,

It dosen't. Even if you, me or other humans are not here we know there is sound generated. I did not hear Mt. St Helen's roaring 25 years ago since I am a 40 hour drive from there. So nothing happened in the sound department there?

Michael

Answer 10

It's a question to see how you define sound. Is it the perception of sound or the actual moving of sound waves. So it doesn't matter a toss except in conceptulising the definition.