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unsui888
Embodied


Registered: 10/11/08
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The Infamous Tree Falling
#22165422 - 08/30/15 04:29 PM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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So I'm sure this question has been visited at least a few times on here, but I would like to revisit it as my answer has seemed to change over the years. So... "if a tree falls in the woods and there is no one around to hear it, does it make a sound?"
I'm beginning to think that it doesn't because a sound is a property of our brain interpreting the signals it receives. If there is no brain to interpret the signal, then the signal is essentially just the mere vibration of molecules. I think this also extends from the auditory to the olfactory modality, but when I try to extend this idea to the visual modality, I have a harder time believing the visual event did not occur if no one was around.
Any one care to discuss this, again?
-------------------- "a note for asses: what is very convincing, is not necessarily true - it is merely convincing" primus------------------------------------------------------------------------ -----------------------------------------------mama didn't raise no fool
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zZZz
jesus


Registered: 12/28/07
Posts: 33,478
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Re: The Infamous Tree Falling [Re: unsui888]
#22165494 - 08/30/15 04:47 PM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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i don't think we can ever know the answer to that question.. or rather it's a pointless question to confuse the impressionable folks, a conundrum if u will.
it's like saying if u went out for a walk in the park, would you actually be walking in a park?, or would it be merely projection from ur mind?, or "are we really alive, or do we just think we are?.."
confusing right?..
although they may be important questions to some, i dont necessarily think there's really a point in trying to answer them. it is these kinds of questions that take one out of the moment and cause one nothing but stress. and if we were ever able to answer them, what then i ask u??, what then?..
i suppose our egos would be pleased, but that's about it..
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unsui888
Embodied


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Posts: 1,154
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Re: The Infamous Tree Falling [Re: zZZz]
#22165547 - 08/30/15 05:07 PM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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I don't see your analogy to walking in the park as even close to being the same question... whether we are walking in the park or it is just a projection of our mind, we are still walking in the park.
I think answering this question would provide at least some insight into the nature of things, so I guess if you don't want to look into the nature of things, then yes, it would be pointless. Pondering this question does not cause me stress...
-------------------- "a note for asses: what is very convincing, is not necessarily true - it is merely convincing" primus------------------------------------------------------------------------ -----------------------------------------------mama didn't raise no fool
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champinhom
Lord Justhappensness


Registered: 03/06/09
Posts: 987
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Re: The Infamous Tree Falling [Re: unsui888]
#22166363 - 08/30/15 08:18 PM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
unsui888 said: So I'm sure this question has been visited at least a few times on here, but I would like to revisit it as my answer has seemed to change over the years. So... "if a tree falls in the woods and there is no one around to hear it, does it make a sound?"
I'm beginning to think that it doesn't because a sound is a property of our brain interpreting the signals it receives. If there is no brain to interpret the signal, then the signal is essentially just the mere vibration of molecules. I think this also extends from the auditory to the olfactory modality, but when I try to extend this idea to the visual modality, I have a harder time believing the visual event did not occur if no one was around.
Any one care to discuss this, again?
the sound of the tree falling is what? It is your experience. There is no tree falling. It is all your experience,i.e., a matter of vibratory energies--you might call them sensations--wafting through consciousness. Now if those energies don't waft through, i.e., if you don't hear or see the tree, then there was no tree, no falling, nothing to hear, nothing to see. In other words, the objective world is a myth, something you have never experienced. All you know or can know is your own vibrating consciousness. An objective world is, at best, hypothesis.
-------------------- My father used to say: I don't care what else you do in life, just don't be an asshole. People, forgive me when I forget what my daddy said. Cut back the proliferating list of people whose opinions can hurt you. Unless they have done or want to do you some good, their views are just not worth tracking. Saul Bellow “People are just cannibals unless they leave each other alone.” Doris Lessing Those whom the gods would save, they dower with compassion. Mr. P. Silocybin
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OrgoneConclusion
Blue Fish Group



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Re: The Infamous Tree Falling [Re: unsui888]
#22166564 - 08/30/15 08:44 PM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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A cactus is NOT a tree.
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Space Elf



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Re: The Infamous Tree Falling [Re: unsui888]
#22166798 - 08/30/15 09:26 PM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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Basically, do things actually occur if no one is around to perceive it happening? Pretty much the entire history of our universe occurred without anyone perceiving it. So yes, I believe the tree makes a sound. That is, unless you believe Someone did perceive it, like God, etc. That's as far as I want to go into this topic. Fun to think about though.
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Cognitive_Shift
CS actual




Registered: 12/11/07
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Re: The Infamous Tree Falling [Re: Space Elf]
#22166814 - 08/30/15 09:28 PM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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You could put a camera next to the tree and record it with out anybody being around. I would venture a guess there would be a sound.
-------------------- L'enfer est plein de bonnes volontés et désirs
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Middleman

Registered: 07/11/99
Posts: 8,399
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Re: The Infamous Tree Falling [Re: unsui888] 2
#22166830 - 08/30/15 09:31 PM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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If the tree is known to fall without anyone there to see it, then it follows that it makes a sound with no one there to hear it. Duh.
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unsui888
Embodied


Registered: 10/11/08
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Re: The Infamous Tree Falling [Re: Middleman]
#22166968 - 08/30/15 10:03 PM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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But sound is a product of brain activity... if there is no brain to perceive, then there would be no sound - just molecules.
-------------------- "a note for asses: what is very convincing, is not necessarily true - it is merely convincing" primus------------------------------------------------------------------------ -----------------------------------------------mama didn't raise no fool
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OrgoneConclusion
Blue Fish Group



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Re: The Infamous Tree Falling [Re: unsui888]
#22166985 - 08/30/15 10:09 PM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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nuentoter
conduit



Registered: 09/17/08
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it makes a shockwave of energy thrusting particles in all directions. that is all
how the hairs/membranes/nerves/brain choose to interpret these makes it sound.
I agree though this is a question made for only questioning purposes not made for answers.
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The geometry of us is no chance. We are antennae, we are tuning forks, we are receiver and transmitters of all energy. We are more than we know. - @entheolove "I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way - things I had no words for" - Georgia O'Keefe I think the word is vagina
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Tropism
ChasingTail


Registered: 09/12/09
Posts: 2,039
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Re: The Infamous Tree Falling [Re: unsui888] 1
#22168553 - 08/31/15 10:59 AM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
unsui888 said: So I'm sure this question has been visited at least a few times on here, but I would like to revisit it as my answer has seemed to change over the years. So... "if a tree falls in the woods and there is no one around to hear it, does it make a sound?"
I'm beginning to think that it doesn't because a sound is a property of our brain interpreting the signals it receives. If there is no brain to interpret the signal, then the signal is essentially just the mere vibration of molecules. I think this also extends from the auditory to the olfactory modality, but when I try to extend this idea to the visual modality, I have a harder time believing the visual event did not occur if no one was around.
Any one care to discuss this, again?
In short, without beings in existence there perceiving, did anything ever really happen. If the whole span of time and space came from an open to a close, but literally not a single thing was present to witness it, did it happen?
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quinn
some kinda love


Registered: 01/02/10
Posts: 6,799
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Re: The Infamous Tree Falling [Re: Middleman]
#22169523 - 08/31/15 02:53 PM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
Rev. Morton said: If the tree is known to fall without anyone there to see it, then it follows that it makes a sound with no one there to hear it. Duh.
-------------------- dripping with fantasy
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DisguisedCrows
Mr. Crow



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Re: The Infamous Tree Falling [Re: Tropism]
#22169535 - 08/31/15 02:55 PM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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If the tree fell and nobody was around to hear it, then no it didn't make a sound.
The answer is in the question itself. Sounds are auditory, and if nobody was there to decipher that auditory experience then the auditory effect never happened to begin with. For example, millions of years ago there was a time period when many of the animals could not hear. The vibrations they felt were their sense at the time, but no sound was made then because there was nobody there to experience it.
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Freedom is subjective.
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quinn
some kinda love


Registered: 01/02/10
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but are sounds even sounds you know  
like are the vibrational patterns and exchanges of nerve endings and synapses actually sounds themselves or something else..
and what if you heard a very low constant hum being played for your entire life could you be said to have ever have heard the note at all because to 'hear' something it needs to be in relation to other things you can hear, you could not possibly concieve of a world without the hum...
and what if the hum was the constant sound of trees falling over could you ever be said to have heard a tree falling over     
-------------------- dripping with fantasy
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champinhom
Lord Justhappensness


Registered: 03/06/09
Posts: 987
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Re: The Infamous Tree Falling [Re: unsui888] 1
#22170387 - 08/31/15 06:07 PM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
unsui888 said: But sound is a product of brain activity... if there is no brain to perceive, then there would be no sound - just molecules.
I know what follows will be flamed, but if you think about it long enough from all possible angles--this will take more time than most of us will ever give to it--you will see it. It is what Huxley called "The Perennial Philosophy":
Sound is not a product of brain activity. It is a product of awareness or consciousness and please, don't say "But awareness is a product of brain activity". The fact is brain activity is an idea in consciousness that tries to explain the presence of awareness. But, it is unecessary. Awareness or consciousness is the Primary experience. It is not produced by anything. It causes itself.
-------------------- My father used to say: I don't care what else you do in life, just don't be an asshole. People, forgive me when I forget what my daddy said. Cut back the proliferating list of people whose opinions can hurt you. Unless they have done or want to do you some good, their views are just not worth tracking. Saul Bellow “People are just cannibals unless they leave each other alone.” Doris Lessing Those whom the gods would save, they dower with compassion. Mr. P. Silocybin
Edited by champinhom (08/31/15 06:08 PM)
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Kurt
Thinker, blinker, writer, typer.

Registered: 11/26/14
Posts: 1,688
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Re: The Infamous Tree Falling [Re: Middleman]
#22170943 - 08/31/15 07:52 PM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
Rev. Morton said: If the tree is known to fall without anyone there to see it, then it follows that it makes a sound with no one there to hear it. Duh.
"If the tree is "known" to fall and no one is there to hear it..." is just begging the question.
Someone would need to experience some physical consequence in affairs surrounding the tree in order to know it falls. That'd might as well be considered sound...
Granted the question "if the tree falls and no one is there to hear it...", is already a way of begging the question, it's just that the answer comes in at least two ways.
This question is really about setting up faith in narratives for their own sake. It is narrative in fracture, and the suggested consequence of having to tell a story that is better than other stories that are also being told at the same time. Modern mythology.
Or, it is about a single broken narrative that modern people want to fix. The tree is even God...the one that fell and is dead... The tree is knowledge, or "what is known", and the narrative indulged with complacency. Or it's however things might be told.
This perennially-dead tree is either a very good, or very bad question... It is not even about the question, if we participants are the question.
If it's a platitude, why not turns towards something riskier?
"The Will to Truth, which is to tempt us to many a hazardous enterprise, the famous Truthfulness of which all philosophers have hitherto spoken with respect, what questions has this Will to Truth not laid before us! What strange, perplexing, questionable questions! It is already a long story; yet it seems as if it were hardly commenced. Is it any wonder if we at last grow distrustful, lose patience, and turn impatiently away? That this Sphinx teaches us at last to ask questions ourselves? WHO is it really that puts questions to us here? WHAT really is this "Will to Truth" in us? In fact we made a long halt at the question as to the origin of this Will—until at last we came to an absolute standstill before a yet more fundamental question. We inquired about the VALUE of this Will. Granted that we want the truth: WHY NOT RATHER untruth? And uncertainty? Even ignorance? The problem of the value of truth presented itself before us—or was it we who presented ourselves before the problem? Which of us is the Oedipus here? Which the Sphinx? It would seem to be a rendezvous of questions and notes of interrogation. And could it be believed that it at last seems to us as if the problem had never been propounded before, as if we were the first to discern it, get a sight of it, and RISK RAISING it? For there is risk in raising it, perhaps there is no greater risk." - Friedrich Nietzsche; Beyond Good and Evil
Edited by Kurt (08/31/15 09:05 PM)
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OrgoneConclusion
Blue Fish Group



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Re: The Infamous Tree Falling [Re: Kurt]
#22171279 - 08/31/15 09:09 PM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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Heisenberg UncertainTree Principle.
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MarkostheGnostic
Elder



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Re: The Infamous Tree Falling [Re: unsui888]
#22175571 - 09/01/15 08:12 PM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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It is clear that air and earth are compressed and displaced when a tree falls, but unless there is some kind of recording instrument, animal, insect or mechanical, there is no sound qua sound amidst the dust and debris. Sound is a neural response to compressed molecules. I remember the TV trailer to the film Alien in the early 80s with the words, "In space, no one can hear you scream." No one can hear through the medium of a vacuum, so while there are no space-trees, an explosion would not be heard until shrapnel hit your space suit and helmet. But back to the tree, it's motion, just as the audible quality of it's felling are potentially visual and audible events given the presence of an eye, natural or mechanical. But fortunately, the laws of nature, including gravity, the tensile strengths of various woods, the coefficient of friction of the roots tearing from the ground, the characteristics of air (wind) surrounding the event, and so many other variables, can all be used to predict the characteristics of the otherwise unseen and unheard toppling of a tree. Decibel level on a human ear varies with distance. Imagine watching a tree fall from a plane. You will see the debris fly, but you will not hear it at that distance. If you don't see the tree fall either, but see it lying down on your return flight, you can predict with a high degree of probability that it fell according to the variables I mentioned, barring paranormal, extraterrestrial, extradimensional, or supernatural intervention. .
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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Cognitive_Shift
CS actual




Registered: 12/11/07
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Quote:
OrgoneConclusion said: Heisenberg UncertainTree Principle. 
-------------------- L'enfer est plein de bonnes volontés et désirs
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