I don't agree with the statement that things only exist as we are aware of them. It's makes no sense at all.
Second of all, I personally don't think that the action of the tree falling and it's after effects would change wheither a person is present or not therefore making that person a nonessential factor. The process still occurs the same way therefore to say that it is an incomplete cycle is false because for it to be a cycle, our presence or lack of would have to somehow disrupt it's flow.
I beleive that a lot of people trying to back up their arguments with dictionnary definitions are moreso caught up in the semantics of things.
It's almost Medieval thinking to say that something doesn't exist just because you can't see or hear it. There was a time when people thought fire was evil, Hey, where did these eggs come from that I found under a bird...I didn't see the bird lay them...There comes that wet stuff falling from the sky again..Which god sent it? Hey how'd that bugger get in my nose..I didn't put it in there, so someone must of put it in while I was asleep, Oh maybe it was a spell from the witch next door...I better report them....
You don't have to view it for it to be real... 😑
I could go either way on this question.
It depends on the definition of sound. If you classified a sound as something heard, then obviously, it did not make a sound.
If a sound is energy displaced, creating vibrations, then yes, it would make a sound.
However, if a sound is only a sound when it is heard, and therefore serving its purpose, then no, it would not make a sound.
You people do know that this is a question not meant to be answered but meant to raise more questions...
literally, I stand by what I said earlier... yes, vibrations in the air would still exist but without someone/something to recieve those vibration sound doesn't exist.
as for the dog whistle... of course sounds still exists there it's just too high pitched for humans to hear it. The dog still recieves the vibrations and translates them into sound.
Philosophically, I would generally say no as well. Out of sight out of mind... that's how most of us function I think. If we don't see/hear it we don't care about it. If something happens that doesn't affect us (directly or indirectly) we generally don't care about it...
If we don't know about it, it didn't happen at least not in our minds. Not for as far as we know, and basicly what we know is all that we have. There is nothing beyond what we know, and nothing that we don't know of excists. At least not for us, so no the tree didn't fall. The tree never excisted.
Its only there on the ground once we can see it
Originally posted by lemonsqueezy
yes it would..
sound would still exsist even if it wasn't hear by anyone
Are you so sure about that? Do you know the road excists when you can not see or hear it?
No you don't, logically you would assume it does, but thats what so interesting about philosophy, you can't be sure...
You ever the theory's that live is just a dream (no not the Matrix)? What if it is true, then we dream everything. We dream this forum for some stupid reason, we dream the computer the road when were on it, and everything else. That would mean that anything we see in a dream is not real just there when we want it to be there, or think its there...
You just don't know about it, logic would dictate that it does, i completly agree with you. But it is not sure, now you can argue that nothing is sure, and you are right about that. But it has nothing to do with this, this is a thread about excistence without anything to verify that it actually excists...
Let me ask you another question?
Is your mother still alive?
Assuming that she was last time you saw her, you will automaticly say yes.....
But how do you know? What if she died in those few seconds that you lost sight of her, seconds hours days whatever... You don't know do you? You just guess so...
(if your mother is dead, sorry, but just replace mother with somebody else that you know that you don't see at this moment)
The point here is, that we simply do not know for sure... Has the tree fallen on the ground? Perhaps perhaps not, or was it just always there... Without anything to verify it, it just doesn't excist... Therefor i at this time have to assume that my mother and father and sister are all nothing and i am the only one in the world... Only when i see somebody else, i will be sure that, that is not the case.
Sound is the waves traveling through the air. Even if you don't hear it its still sound waves. Even if we can't hear it it is STILL sound. If the tree fell in the woods would we it make a sound? not enough information actually 😉 did it actually hit the ground? did it get caught up in the surrounding trees? did it land in some moss? was it a large tree? 😄 its all really just relative to the information not given. Which is why its fun.
Fishy, a tree has to have grown to have fallen. it couldn't have ALWAYS been there or else it would never have grown into a tree. unless of course the tree grew sideways but then technically it never fell but there are some pretty tell tale signs of that one 🙂
yEAH I agree in that context.
The whole point of that is like a tricky SAT question.
For it to be classified as a sound an organ or instrument must pick it up.
It's like when they say "In space no one can hear you scream"
It's a true statement because space is a void, vacuum and sound cannot travel through it.
The same can be said here. No organ ie the ears or instrument picks up the sound vibrations but the action did occur and the tree does exist.
Again it's all stemming from semantics.
ok heres how i make sense of it, lets say that a tree does fall down in a forest, if no1 is there to listen to its sound, would it really have meant something to fall down? does it have any significance? would it have made a difference if it had or hadnt fallen down if no1 is there to listen? does it have any significance if theres no1 there to listen to it?