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OK so if a tree falls inside a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound???[color=pink]xxx[/COLOR]
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Sound exists in your head.
It vibrates the medium - the air. Lacking any ear/brain in the vicinity, there is no ‘sound’.
Define “sound.”
That which is heard (probably technically correct, and in line with Philster’s response) – no.
That which can be heard – yes.
If you’re into quantum theoy I guess you ould approach this by saying, if nobody is around to witness the tree falling, it doesn’t fall because it doesn’t exist as such.
I thought the originsl question was:
If a tree falls, does a bear shit in the woods?
The Perfect Master Knows All:
If a tree falls in the woods, is there a sound?
This isn’t a great philosophical question. It’s just a definition question.
If “sound” is what someone hears, the answer is no.
If “sound” is pressure waves in the audible spectrum, the answer is yes.
I saw a show where they had a sound gun. The thing would start a brick wall vibrating until it collapsed.
I take this as evidence that sound is objective in the same way that light is objective.
Could God make one hand so big that even he wouldn’t hear it clapping, in a forest, when there’s nobody around?
There is nothing to stop vibrations of the tree being transferred to the surrounding air and propagating as longitudinal waves. These longitudinal pressure waves are capable of being transduced by a small apparatus called a cochlea into an electrochemical signal which itself propagates up the auditory nerve via the thalamus to the auditory cortex in the thalamus.
The question is equivalent to “If there’s no cameras or eyes around, does the tree still reflect light?”
(And the quantum interpretation is statistically irrelevant for macroscopic objects: the probability of them being obseved at even an atom’s breadth away from their previous position is such that observing it for the entire age of the universe will offer not even a trillion to one odds. The tree’s classical, certain existence without observation becomes equivalent.)
“…to the auditory cortex in the temporal lobe”, sorry.
There was a young man who said “God
Must find it exceedingly odd
If he sees that the tree
Should cease to be
When there’s no-one around in the Quad.”
Dear Sir:
Your astonishment’s odd:
I am always about in the Quad.
And that’s why this tree
Will continue to be,
Since observed by
Yours faithfully,
GOD.
A friend of mine likes to say, “If a man says something in the forest, and his wife isn’t there to hear him, would he still be wrong?” 
You’re friend is George Carlin? 
Your, dammit, your!. Teach me to post pre-coffee. :smack:
Ah, so that’s where he got it from! (I didn’t say he made it up.) Sorry, I’m rather isolated from US entertainment here, and haven’t heard Carlin’s routines for years.
If a tree falls in the forest, and there’s non-one around to hear it …
…
… all the other trees start clapping …
…
… with one hand.
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(I didn’t say he made it up.)QUOTE]
Ah, I’m just messing with you. I’m pretty sure Carlin himself “borrowed” it. It’s been around in various forms for quite a while.
Just where and in what context did the “tree falling” question arise? Did someone use it to make a certain philosophical point?