Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary

to see, to illuminate

Before I raise this most banal of questions I wish to point out one thing. Every tree that falls in the forest unheard is a poetic tragic sacrifice. We celebrate the tree even as we abuse it into a meaningless pawn of our thoughts.

===If a tree falls in a forest and there are no animals with ears to hear it fall, did the tree make a sound?

=

If the tree fell in a typical forest on planet earth we can safely assume that the tree in question was surrounded by air molecules. These air molecules would have been directly impacted by the tree as it fell and landed, presumably, on the forest floor. Air molecules thus impacted behave in a predictable fashion. So we can say then if a tree falls, air molecules will vibrate as a result. The event transpired with or without observers who have ears. Of course the event could not ever transpire without observers of any sort. Such an event cannot exist. No observers equals no event. An observer need not be human or even sentient. The most finite event possible involves two electrons as they exclude each other. Both electrons are observers of that event as they carry on the state change.

Now we enter into the question of sound. Vibrating air molecules does not equal sound. An individual experiences sound when vibrations in the air are communicated via the mechanics of our ear to the processor of our brain and then displayed on the screen of our conscious mind. A tree cannot create sound. We experience noise or sound at the moment we hear it.

Suppose we record the tree falling with a mike and tape recorder. Notice sound is not recorded or stored on the tape. When air vibrations reach the microphone they are converted first into mechanical energy then into electrical variances in resistance then again into mechanical energy until finally at some point a magnetic pattern is formed on the tape. When the tape is replayed, the tape player converts magnetic patterns back into an approximation of the original vibrating air patterns. At no point during this entire process is sound generated or experienced. Sound is not stored on the tape except in an abstract way. The tape simply stores a pattern of magnetism that can be converted later into waves of moving air.

Sometimes we do refer to specific types of air disturbances using the term sound or noise. In this context sound waves or noise does exist outside of mind of an animal with a working ear. This usage is an arbitrary abstraction, however. Air moves all the time and in all kinds of ways. With this definition we define a class of air disturbances that could be heard if a mind connected to an ear were present. Even under this definition the concept of sound still can't exist without an ear, real or imaginary.

Does this view put mankind at the center of his own universe? In some remote parts of some remote jungle that no one knows about trees will fall, they will push around air and no one will ever know that it happened. Years later they will fertilize the next generation of trees that will eventually fall unnoticed and unobserved by humans. In some distant recess of our universe an uncharted moon will eclipse the uncharted sun of an uncharted planet in an unknown solar system. No observer (of a sentient race) will witness this event. Yet it still happens, unless of course the world really is a flat disk at the center of the universe and Hubble is a fantastic lie dreamed up by the illuminati vampires that rule the world from caves buried five miles under the District of Columbia.

Some days I get really bored at work.

I live in a corner with a window. I live in a window in a corner. My window in a corner reveals more corners with windows. Each window I open leads to a thousand more corners with windows. I traverse this maze. My body remains behind the glass while my mind delves deeper and deeper. My mind takes on the shape of corners with windows with corners. My imagination, my playful baby boy of an imagination, dies in a corner. Something else seems to die as well but Oh look a new window. Shall I open it? Could it, might it be? It is==== Another corner with yet another window begs my attention if not affection. Affection, now that is an odd word. I love Windows. Windows does not love me.

==

(Dare I Sign) ---DavidSiegel

Yes, it does make a sound.

Other trees in the forest hear it. Trees are living, organic beings. They communicate with each other subtly, and they feel and empathize with each other. This is a proven/observed fact.

If a lone tree falls, does it make a sound? So long as it is in contact with something, yes. Take away all the air, so it is in a vacuum chamber, and it will STILL make a sound. The tree itself will vibrate, which is sound. If it is in occasional contact with another surface, such as a metal floor, then the sound will have a medium to be passed to.

The sun is a spinning ball of plasma that acts as if it has a solid core in it. How do we know this? It's sound. That's right. Scientist on earth listen to the sounds the sun makes. And use those sounds to study the sun's structure, particular its interior.

Remember, noise is undesirable sound... not the other way around.

---StarPilot

It seems as if you are defining sound as any type of vibration transmitted through any type of medium regardless of wavelength or amplitude. Using this definition I would agree with your assertion. In this context any thing can hear. The desk in the back row of the classroom hears the fire alarm as the vibrations of the air interact with the carbon molecules of the wood fiber. Some of the fibers may even vibrate in the same frequency and amplify these vibrations however slightly.

If one assumes a photon is a package of standing waves then you could say the forest baths in the song of the sun during the day and sings back to the vacuum at night. In fact we live in a poetic universe of song. Everything resonates. Everything hears, and everything sings. ---DavidSiegel

Sound is merely vibration/waves transmitted through any medium regardless of wavelength or amplitude. We have a natural bias toward the sounds our human ears pick up and our human brains understand. However, our human mind understands that the subsonic sounds that elephants use to communicate with each other (through the air and more often the ground) are sounds, even if we cannot properly perceive them. We intellectually know that dolphins use sound underwater to "see", even though again, we cannot perceive this personally with our minds via our ears.

If its sound while travelling through liquid and solids, then it's sound everywhere. We are the ones that decided, based on our different sensory inputs, that light is different sound. Light is recieved by the eyes. Sounds are received by the ears. But ask deaf people... they still percieve sounds, they merely percieve them differently as they FEEL them in their body "general", not in a specific body part (ear). As a blind person... they still percieve light, they merely perceive it differently as they feel it on their body. Eyes and ears merely allow us to percieve the lower amplitudes of these waves easier then not having them. Specific sensors for specific ranges allowing better sensing of those specific ranges.

---StarPilot