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If a tree falls...
Hope you don't mind me starting this thread. Enoch and smc have brought up an ?age old? question: ?If a tree falls in a forest does it make a sound??
The answer, I believe, is ?It depends on what you mean?? Here is my reasoning. When the tree falls there is of course the physical act of it falling. As it falls it passes through the air and also most likely strikes other trees. This action disrupts the surrounding air and creates waves. But is it ?sound?? If there is a living thing around the area that creature will ?perceive? the waves as sound. If there is nothing within range then there is nothing to ?perceive? and hence no sound. Another example. Say you are watching a thunderstorm. Everyone knows that lightning heating and disrupting the surrounding air creates ?thunder.? But what if you are too far away to ?hear? the thunder? I live in central Indiana in the United States. We have had a lot of storms recently--most right on top of us! But what if you live in one of the large open states like Texas? When travelling across Texas I have often seen thunderstorms at a distance that produce lightning--but no sound. Either I was too far away or the sound was obscured by something else like engine noise or the radio. Here is my question: If you come across a tree lying on its side in the forest, how do you ?prove? it fell and wasn?t always that way? |
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Hello aw9725. Back so soon? I think this thread will drive me crazy. Last edited by Enoch Root; 04-22-2011 at 12:38 PM. |
#3
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I won't speak for aw9725, but I will try not to be too professorial going forward. |
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#5
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Some plants can also respond to vibrations. Tomato blossoms require vibrations to pollinate. Strawberry plants sense vibrations as insect attack and respond with chemicals to resist the attack. So living things can respond to vibrations. A sound may be defined as a vibration detected by a brain and interpreted as a sound. Typically, a sound would have some meaning, roar of a lion or call of a bird for example. A tree falling would create a vibration and possibly a screech if it fell on a rabbit, of course, something would have to "hear" the screech.
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"Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary." R.N. |
#6
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If this is purely a SEMANTIC argument it is therefore nearly useless to people and is quite quickly dealt with as you randolph and you smc have demonstrated.
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#7
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No, it's not semantic, at least as I see it. Rather, it is about what constitutes "reality" in some circumstances, and whether certain physical phenomena are real in the abstract or only when they are concretized by experience.
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#8
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That's what I was trying to get at: the argument is only really useful and really interesting if it is used to ponder reality. But from the previous posts everyone seemed to be talking about what the definition of sound is.
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