tree falling make sound??

[Clayton]

if a tree falls in the woods, and noone, no technology or anything is nearby, does it make a sound? let everyone know what you think and why

[md]

Technically it both makes a sound and does not make a sound; at least if there is nothing to record it's fall... in fact you can't know that it hasn't fallen unless you are measuring. Look up schrodinger's (sp?) cat and the uncertanty principal.

[Clayton]

but the thing is, "technically" is such a troubling word. it links to a "theory" which can be a very loose thing, as so many things could happen to totally disprove a theory. lets put it this way, a generally accepted theory is that of gravity, but what says that apple you let go of is actually going to drop? you just dont know. there is no way to know for sure, all we know is that there is a good probability that it will drop. we only know that there is a sound if we are there. we cant test if we arent there b/c in one way or another we are in the premises, so we cant test a tree falling with no one there b/c we cant be there to test

[Delos]

Cornflake wrote:

Look up schrodinger's (sp?) cat and the uncertanty principal.

I prefer Einstein's cat-radio analogy way more:

Einstein wrote:

You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat.

[md]

I would argue that the uncertanty principal is a fact; at least in as much as much of the modern technology around you relies heavily upon it being true.

Delos: Einstein's cat is pretty funky too... but it's not both dead and alive at once

[Clayton]

ah once again another so-called "theory", what says that that cat cannot be alive and dead at the same time??

[md]

SuperFreak82 wrote:

ah once again another so-called "theory", what says that that cat cannot be alive and dead at the same time??

Ya know... I think I speak for a lot of people when I tell you to drop this whole "it's a theory" thing and bugger off. You and anyone else who decides to use theory as another world for "hypothisis".

[Clayton]

yes but the point is that you cannot prove for 100% certainty whether or not something will happen, the whole point is that if you are not at the location that the tree is falling how do you know it makes a sound?

[Delos]

[sigh]. You see, this is the result of too much Hollywood. That and paperback novels bought from Shoppers Drugmart.

The whole 'tree falling in woods' things is not supposed to be literal. Stop taking it that way! It's upon the same level as 'sound of one hand clapping'. It's supposed to make you stop and think about things for a moment, not attempt to find an excuse to flaunt your apparently unfounded ideas about hypothesis testing and semantics.
"Theories", as you put them, are not "loose". You're thinking about "hypotheses". They're sort of like plasticene...they start of formless, but after playing around with a bunch of things you eventually get quite an interesting shape. Given you'll have bits of hair and grass stuck in it now, but those add to the overall flavour of the creation (oftentimes literally).
Theories, on the other hand, have been beaten to death (oftentimes literally) by their repeated testing and by attempts to disprove them. In other words, they accurately and predictively describe some phenomenon.

If you're going to bring up philosophical topics like these, then discuss them on those levels. Don't attempt to approach them from a reductionist's point of view - leave that for the biologists. You will get a lot more responses here that are devoid of flame, and indeed brimming with cortically-tickling concepts...and I'm not talking about the adrenal cortex either, though I might be.

[Mazer]

I often wonder why people ask this question. I can understand if someone asks it to get a completely different point across (eg, "who cares?"), but is anyone really expecting us to reply with "Oh wow, I never thought of that!"?

[Delos]

Again, due to the marketability of such phrases as these, many people have heard them umpteen times and as such think that they know what they mean because they heard Bart make a joke about them to Lisa that one time...damn that was a good episode!
What I like most about these sorts of phrases is that there is rarely a single, definitive answer to them. Different people will take them and apply their own experiences and prejudices to them, and through that come to their own understanding of what it means.
And that, my friend, is what I would say is the goal of these enigmatic quips. To get people to reflect for a moment or two and come up with a thought that is their own, based on themselves, and not on what others around them think. As Emma Shapplin once said (and probably still does when her song comes on the radio): "What does it feel like/discovering yourself?"

[codemage]

So what you're saying, is that the sound of one hand clapping is the same as it is for two, but not as loud?

[ZeroPaladn]

Isn't sound just vibration of air? If a tree falls, it vibrates the air, therefore makes a sound, even though nobody is there to hear it.

Although that age old question was not supposed to be though upon as literal in the first place, im posting my awnser.

codemage wrote:

So what you're saying, is that the sound of one hand clapping is the same as it is for two, but not as loud?

If you wave your hand in the air real fast, dont you hear a whosh sound?

[Andy]

the REAL question is, if a tree fell in the woods, does it know whether if anyone is there

[Mazer]

Hang on now, "trees" trees, or Ents?