If a tree falls and nobody hears it does it actually create a sound? Why [not]?

Doesn't the tree just create sound waves, and since there is no one around no one is there to receive the waves.

 

do those waves exist if they aren't perceived?

 

Omg you totally solved that riddle.

 

well yes because just because no one heard it dosent mean theres no sound. you cant hear the song i am playing right now but it dosent mean im not listening to it. im sure the animals can hear the tree break.

 

Firstly.. you have to decide what a sound is...

is a sound:

-vibration emenating from a source?
-vibration travelling through the air?
-our ear drum vibrating?
-our brain recieving data?

Secondly.. you have to decide how reality works...

is reality:

-only sensory input (like the matrix)?
-something that occurs even if we do not percieve it?
-a world only relative to us as an individual (life is just an illusion/dream and i am the only thing that exists)

Once you've figured all that out... then you have an answer.

If you have the general view that things exist even if we are not there to experience them existing, you think the laws of physics are definitive... and you think a sound is vibration in the air... then yes the tree would make a 'sound' relative to those points.

 

exactly. your 2 statements are correct.
nothing mroe to say about this thread really

 

lol YES YES! CHUCK NORRIS! ROCK!

 

i appreciate that, but they were questions, not statements. each person's answer to those questions depends on how they view reality. no way i could have been right or wrong.

 

yes its physics if something defys one law of physics it defys all laws of physics and if that happened the universe would explode and be no more

 

who told you that? why do you believe it?

 

well since its a LAW of physics if something breaks one it has to have dramatic effects

 

I am going with all of the above here, and excluding none. In order for a tree to make a sound, it is necessary that a human being be involved.

If a tree falls in the woods and nobody's around, it only does the first two out of the four. It creates vibrations, but no sound.

 

ooooooOOOOOoooooh.... I've always wanted to break the Laws of Physics... probably would kill me though, huh?

 

hmm yea or the government because they dont want any1 to know that its possible to break the laws of physics

 

these laws you speak of are human descriptions of observed patterns. it is probable that these descriptions are based on an incomplete view of all that is actually taking place. logic is a human construct and does not always, if ever, denote the truth of any sort of existance.

 

ooh, like in the Matrix! Also reminds me of "Animatrix", where those kids discover an abandoned, "Haunted" house, which is actually full of glitches in the matrix system... and it ends up being closed down.

 

^^ movie? never seen it.

 

Irrelevent question. Just because the sound didn't travel into your hearing vicinity doesn't mean it didn't "happen". If what I'm about to say is true, and what I just said is false, shut the fuck up.

 

oh....now i understand.....

 

i double that