Classic Debate: If a tree falls in the woods...

To all those (almost everyone) who didn't bother to read my post, or just plain didn't get it, here it is again:

No, it doesn't make a sound. It can only become sound if we hear it, that's why it's called sound. If not, it's just random energy existing somewhere.

To call it a sound is to say that we have heard it and as a result, determined it's a sound. It's a specific energy designed to be received by our senses that pick up audio. With no senses, it's just energy. If the tree falls and no one is around, the energy used to create the sound is made, but unless we're there to hear it, it can't be a sound.

Just knowing that it's happened doesn't mean it's as good AS hearing it. Yes Milla, the energy for that 'sound' existed, of course. However, unless we are around to hear and classify it as such, unless anyone or anything is around to classify it as such, it's existance is unknown, unacknowledgable and therefore, as GOOD as non-existant.

What Leonheart is saying isn't all that crap, he's just saying it in an extremely wrong way. There's loads of theories and exciting ways to talk about perception and how we might all perceive differently, but IF that happens to be true and we all see different things than one another but can only perceive what our individual minds know, then there is no point in debating, coz our minds would only be telling us what we can perceive. Not necessarily what someone else is saying.

-AC

So what you're saying that if we take 2 completely identical vibrations through the air, of which one is heard by a human ear, only that one is a sound because the human heard it? No, by definition, it is a "sound" as it has all the properties of a sound.

Originally posted by moviejunkie23
yes but that random energy does exist wether we pick it up or not, if there were ears there to experience it the data of that random energy would be converted into sound.

Even if there were no ears, you would have vibrations. And even if our ears didn't hear it, they insects would hear or sense it..

Originally posted by Alpha Centauri
Yes Milla, the energy for that 'sound' existed, of course. However, unless we are around to hear and classify it as such, unless anyone or anything is around to classify it as such, it's existance is unknown, unacknowledgable and therefore, as GOOD as non-existant.

I think the animals would disagree.

Just because we do not know about it, it does not make it non existant. Applying that logic, the dinosours did not exist until we have discovered their bones and learned of their history.
By that logic, if we never discovered dinosours bones, or if we still haven't known about them, that would deny their existance.

Originally posted by dave123
So what you're saying that if we take 2 completely identical vibrations through the air, of which one is heard by a human ear, only that one is a sound because the human heard it? No, by definition, it is a "sound" as it has all the properties of a sound.

You can't see audio information because it isn't configurated to be picked up visually.

Again, missing the point. Having the properties of and actually being something are two very different things.

I have all the same body parts as Eddie Van Halen, same brain matter, same human organs. It doesn't mean I am an amazing guitarist because I have the properties to be one. I can only be one by actually BECOMING that.

How do you become a sound? By being heard. If absolutely nothing is around to pick up the energy made by the tree falling (and it can only be pick up via ears), then all that exists is the energy.

-AC

Of course it makes a sound.

Originally posted by lil bitchiness
I think the animals would disagree.

Just because we do not know about it, it does not make it non existant. Applying that logic, the dinosours did not exist until we have discovered their bones and learned of their history.
By that logic, if we never discovered dinosours bones, or if we still haven't known about them, that would deny their existance.

Yeah and I think the thread title states something also. When the thread creator specifies that there are animals in the forest at the time, I'll talk to you some more.

However, seeing as we're talking about (or at least I was) nothing or no one being around, I'll keep what I was saying.

And no, you're wrong. You're taking a step with my logic and then saying that's what I think. I'm not saying the energy doesn't exist am I? No.

-AC

No, you become a sound by having the frequency and wavelength of a sound, idiot. If a radio station broadbcasts, but no radios are turned on, those waves still exist.

Originally posted by dave123
No, you become a sound by having the frequency and wavelength of a sound, idiot. If a radio station broadbcasts, but no radios are turned on, those waves still exist.

Exactly.

Just like the energy created from the tree falling exists.

One foot in front of the other, you're almost there.

Idiot.

-AC

OK, if I have an orange.... it looks like an orange... feels like one, too... hell, it even bounces like one! But I never EVER taste it.... does that mean it isn't an orange?

Originally posted by dave123
OK, if I have an orange.... it looks like an orange... feels like one, too... hell, it even bounces like one! But I never EVER taste it.... does that mean it isn't an orange?

An orange's existance isn't made or broken on taste. Sound is needed to be heard for it to be a SOUND.

YES the PROPERTIES are there but unless the final step, in THIS case, is completed then it isn't a sound. Just a possible sound. A propellor, wings and engine aren't a plane.

-AC

No it isn't.... back to Milla's point, ultra-sound exists, but we don't hear it. The fact remains that there is still sound.

Originally posted by Alpha Centauri
Yeah and I think the thread title states something also. When the thread creator specifies that there are animals in the forest at the time, I'll talk to you some more.

However, seeing as we're talking about (or at least I was) nothing or no one being around, I'll keep what I was saying.

And no, you're wrong. You're taking a step with my logic and then saying that's what I think. I'm not saying the energy doesn't exist am I? No.

-AC

Ok, lets go back to your logic of sound, to make it simpler - and lets back to the beging and cooling of the earth.

There was noone around when the volcano's were erupting, when the rocks were braking - by your logic, the earth was silent then, no?

There was noone around, by theory, so a huge volcano erupting made no sound?

Originally posted by dave123
No it isn't.... back to Milla's point, ultra-sound exists, but we don't hear it. The fact remains that there is still sound.

That's nice.......but if a tree falls in the woods and nobody or nothing is around to hear it, does it make a sound? No. Does it create energy that could be received as a sound? Yes. Why isn't it a sound? Because nobody or nothing is receiving the energy to complete the cycle.

So instead of swerving from my points because you don't like them, keep on it.

-AC

Sound is a series of mechanical compressions and rarefactions or longitudinal waves that succesively pass one into another and propagate through materials (medium) that are at least a little compressible (solid, liquid or gas but not vacuum). In sound waves parts of matter (molecules or groups of molecules) move in a direction of the spreading of the disturbance (as opposite to transversal waves). The cause of sound waves is called the source of waves, e.g. a violin string vibrating upon being bowed or plucked. "Sound is an alternation in pressure, particle displacement, or particle velocity propagated in an elastic material

Originally posted by lil bitchiness
Ok, lets go back to your logic of sound, to make it simpler - and lets back to the beging and cooling of the earth.

There was noone around when the volcano's were erupting, when the rocks were braking - by your logic, the earth was silent then, no?

There was noone around, by theory, so a huge volcano erupting made no sound?

It made audio energy that could have been perceived as sound had anyone been around, as I stated a few posts back. Then a couple of posts after that. Then in my one above yours.

-AC

"Sound is a series of mechanical compressions and rarefactions or longitudinal waves that succesively pass one into another and propagate through materials (medium) that are at least a little compressible (solid, liquid or gas but not vacuum). In sound waves parts of matter (molecules or groups of molecules) move in a direction of the spreading of the disturbance (as opposite to transversal waves). The cause of sound waves is called the source of waves, e.g. a violin string vibrating upon being b"

Why take a seat after posting something that isn't yours and that you didn't come up with? Surely that's not the way to go out, posting quotes and stuff.

Annnnnyway,

If you look back at my posts and bothered reading them instead of taking bits and adding them together, you would understand my point.

All the components of a "sound wave" can be there, following?.....but if the final step (for viewers at home, that would be us hearing it) is not completed, it cannot be labelled a sound. Like I said, parts don't make a whole.

Having components don't MAKE it a sound. Like cake batter. It's called cake "batter" because it's not a cake yet. Nothing needs to be added, it's all there. The components. Unless the final step is completed (that being the cooking, akin to us hearing) it isn't a cake.

It all depends on what you do and do not attach the label of "a sound" to.

-AC

Originally posted by Alpha Centauri
It made audio energy that could have been perceived as sound had anyone been around, as I stated a few posts back. Then a couple of posts after that. Then in my one above yours.

-AC

So then it was making a sound... what is sound if its not energy.

ok every1. if u wudv never heard of this forum or of this debate or of something called a computer or of electriciy or of somethin called an interaction with people, than wud all that you are doing on ur computer really exist, what if u had never even heard of this argument, then wud it exist{n u havent heard of the logical fact that "just because u cant see it doesnt mean its not there"} wud all this really exist?

Originally posted by lil bitchiness
So then it was making a sound... what is sound if its not energy.

No, it was making audio energy. Something that could be a potential sound. Now why is it only potentially a sound? Because no one can receive the energy created.

I'll use Dave's point. Radiowaves are sent out but no one turns on the radios. Can you still dance to the music? Somehow I don't think that's likely. However if you complete the last step in the cycle, turn the radio on. Boom, you have music. Because the waves were received and as a result, achieved their potential.

-AC