If a tree falls and there's no one to hear it, does it make a sound?
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Solution: http://dictionary.reference.com/ QED: 2
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Sound is a function of the ears though, this is the flaw in your argument. Does it make a sound? No, not with nothing around to pick up the vibrations. Without the ear, and I don't only mean the human ear, I mean all things with ears, it is only a vibration. We can set up microphones, but the sound they transmit to our ears is a product of the microphone, the recording equipment and the speakers. It is not the tree. The point of this question is to show that some things that seem to simple to answer are not. You need to remember that empirically, to the human, without hearing the tree fall, it does not make a sound, even though it does push energy out in the form of vibrations and pressure changes. So the answer is no, there is no sound. "Sound is a function of the ears though" Wrong. Sound is a wave that is caused by the back and forth movements of the medium it is traveling in. The waves of sound signify changes in air pressure; the presence of sensory organs has NOTHING to do with the existence of sound. The human ear just responds to a spectrum of frequencies it can detect, much like our eyes are tuned to register a small portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. Do you content that infrared waves don't exist because they can't be detected by our eyes? No, unless you modify the definition of "light" to "radiation that is only perceptible to human eyes". Same deal with sound. And even if you were to make a modification to the question and have it say, "does it make an AUDIBLE sound," you still wouldn't have a case because the frequency range would still be within that 20Hz - 20kHz range detectable by the human ear. Subjective perception or the lack thereof does not affect the answer one way or another. It's almost as absurd as saying if a nuclear bomb were to be detonated on Venus and we didn't see it, it technically (by your logic) would not have emitted any light. "to the human, without hearing the tree fall, it does not make a sound, even though it does push energy out in the form of vibrations and pressure changes." You're assuming ears or sensory equipment are necessary for sound to technically exist, which is wholly inaccurate. Scientifically, sound is an instantaneous change in air pressure caused by vibrating particles, whether or not something is present to sense it or not. If you want to argue philosophy, this is not a discussion to argue it in, because science refutes your argument from the get go. http://www.glenbrook.k12.il.us/GBSSCI/ 2
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In my mind no. I think about the question assuming that "no one" means no conscious creature with a brain and ears (or variations of ears). Obviously this is an assumption and I know it could never happen in a real world scenario but we need to assume certain things to have a concrete answer to a question like this. "No brain, no sound, simple as that." http://stason.org/TULARC/physics/ http://www.cartage.org.lb/en/themes/ http://www.glenbrook.k12.il.us/GBSSCI/ Scientifically, sound is an instantaneous and periodic change in air pressure caused by vibrating particles in a medium. Sound exists whether or not a brain and sensory organs are there to detect and register it. Going back to the light example: since our brains cannot register infrared or ultraviolet light waves, does that mean those waves don't exist? Absolutely not; in fact that's an absurd position to take. So how is saying sound doesn't exist because there's nothing to detect it and store it as sensory information, any more sensible? 1
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I am not saying that sound waves and vibrations are not created. They certainly are, whether we can perceive them or not. However, different beings can interpret the same sound waves differently; sound is not a constant. In my mind this proves that "sound" is only a label for the way we perceive any given sound wave. There is a flaw in your example about infrared or ultraviolet waves. We know these waves exist just like we know the sound waves exist. Human anatomy does not have any sensory organs for registering these waves so they are not a fair comparison. Again, the I am not debating the existence of sound waves, only the point at which they become what we recognize as "sound". Side: sound waves do not imply sound
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