Johnny L.A.: Strangely enough your suggestion reminds me of a SF story I once read, but can’t remember. Maybe you could repost it as a question in CS. Surely one of the SF buffs will know it?
While I had never heard of a similar “theory”, the thought that airplanes fly only because people believe they do was original to me. Nevertheless, it would not surprise me at all that other people have had the same thoughts and have written stories about them.
Handy, I mean, would The Universe’s “mind” thing be creating the rocks all over so that animals could perceive them?
I don’t think that anyone would say that the rock doesn’t exist because only the deer know about it, but then again, I don’t get the argument in regards to people, either.
I’ve always though of this saying as fairly straightforward and simple.
On a scientific level, the ears translate physical vibrations in the air via a fairly simple mechanism to electrical signals, which are then passed along to the brian in there electrical form. The brain then interprets the sound accordint to past experience - it recognizes the electrical signal by comparison to memory examples of previous electrical signals, finds a match, then the cognitive portion of your brian informs us that that electrical signal is a “tree falling”.
If no device were present to tranlate the air vibrations into electrical signals to be categorized, the tree would still be making vibrations in the medium (air), but would not necessarily be called “sound” by the layman’s definition of sound.
On a philisophical level, I’ve always taken this as a saying to get you to ponder your place in the world and your perception of it. We tend to take in information in various forms with our five senses, then define the world according to those interpretations, when in reality the physical nature of what’s going on around us is SO much broader and deeper. This saying came to mind while watching the Matrix, when Mouse asks the question, “i’ve never eaten chicken except in the Matrix, where its not REALLY chicken, but an electrical signal sent to my brain. But…how did the machines really KNOW what chicken tasted like? What if what WE think chicken tastes like is really like…tuna, or dirty socks for that matter…” (paraphrase of Mouse’s lines).
On an application level…I’m not sure of the purpose of getting you to ponder these things. Maybe its to help us free our minds and realize that we are not in a physical world, but a virtual construct made by computer who have taken over the world…
In that case, attribution of the origin of the phrase would be easy - Morpheus.
I’ve always though of this saying as fairly straightforward and simple.
On a scientific level, the ears translate physical vibrations in the air via a fairly simple mechanism to electrical signals, which are then passed along to the brian in there electrical form. The brain then interprets the sound accordint to past experience - it recognizes the electrical signal by comparison to memory examples of previous electrical signals, finds a match, then the cognitive portion of your brian informs us that that electrical signal is a “tree falling”.
If no device were present to tranlate the air vibrations into electrical signals to be categorized, the tree would still be making vibrations in the medium (air), but would not necessarily be called “sound” by the layman’s definition of sound.
On a philisophical level, I’ve always taken this as a saying to get you to ponder your place in the world and your perception of it. We tend to take in information in various forms with our five senses, then define the world according to those interpretations, when in reality the physical nature of what’s going on around us is SO much broader and deeper. This saying came to mind while watching the Matrix, when Mouse asks the question, “i’ve never eaten chicken except in the Matrix, where its not REALLY chicken, but an electrical signal sent to my brain. But…how did the machines really KNOW what chicken tasted like? What if what WE think chicken tastes like is really like…tuna, or dirty socks for that matter…” (paraphrase of Mouse’s lines).
On an application level…I’m not sure of the purpose of getting you to ponder these things. Maybe its to help us free our minds and realize that we are not in a physical world, but a virtual construct made by computers who have taken over the world…
In that case, attribution of the origin of the phrase would be easy - Morpheus.
I’d like to see extraordinary proof for your extraordinary claim that things cease existing if no longer perceived and then come back into existence as soon as they are perceived again.
If you claim that things do not exist merely because they are not perceived, then you also claim that things cease existing if they are no longer perceived.
If this is the case, then magic(k) is as real as James Randi says it is not–one need merely alter perception sufficiently and Randi’s inability to verify its existence is merely a problem with his perception.
Thus, if one is going to demand that the idea that perception is not necessary for existence be an “extraordinary claim”…
Easy there Dogface. I’m not claiming anything. Obviously I don’t believe that stuff pops in and out of existence when I turn my head. I was simply trying to point out that part of the point of this koan is to think about the alternatives.
The concept of object permanence (the fact that an object continues to exist when we can’t see it) is a milestone in child development. At a fairly early age, children make the logical leap that a thing which is hidden from sight is still there and can be “found”. However, this is not a fundamental truth but a learned behavior based on all available evidence. Children aren’t born with this concept of reality, they learn it to be true based on experience. We believe that objects exist when we’re not looking because we have never had an experience to contradict that (other than your little brother snatching your candy…). But like Schrodinger’s cat being alive or dead, we don’t really know if things exist when there’s no one checking. It seems kind of strange to mix quantum physics with Buddhist meditation, but they’re both going for the same thing: the world may not be exactly what we think it is, despite all available evidence.
In practice, this is not a useful idea. Your dirty laundry is not going to disappear if you ignore it. However, if you’re trying to focus your mind, this kind of unanswerable question is a useful device.
And I really didn’t mean to ridicule your ideas by calling them an extraordinary claim. I just thought it was amusing that when taken objectively, the thought that stuff exists when there’s no evidence for it (which is what object permanence basically means) is an “extraordinary claim”. If I said I’d found a new fundamental particle or a new species of frog, I’d have to show evidence. If I claim that my coffee cup exists when no one is looking, I should be able to show evidence of that. I shouldn’t have to prove it doesn’t exist when no one is looking because that would require proving a negative. It’s up to my critics to prove that it does exist.
micco: you seemed to put your question a bit provocatively at first, but it is a genuine philosophical question. Since this constitutes a hijack of the OP, and one that leads right into GD territory, I’ll be brief.
We cannot proof that things exist in between us perceiving them. But philosophically speaking, there is not need to prove it, either. It is much easier to think of things continuing to exist in between. Occam’s razor, and all that. Philosophy for a large part consists of learning to live with the thought that we don’t know certain things for sure.
Of course, by the same reasoning you could ‘proof’ that the light in the refrigerator doesn’t go out when you close the door: it is far simpler that it stays on. That is called the fridge paradox of continuing existence, a powerful counterargument against Occam’s razor. I’m kidding here, if you hadn’t realized it.
See the thread I linked to earlier for related discussion.
Of course. As I’ve said several times in this thread, I am in no way advocating the position that things don’t exist when they’re not perceived. I don’t need to be convinced that they do and I can make all the logical arguments to support that position.
However, the OP was asking about the tree falling in the forest koan, and at least part of the point of that koan is thinking about the possibility that maybe things don’t exist that way. Like you say, this is a genuine question and has been considered by some great minds. If you’re meditating, it’s a useful train of thought. I’m not saying you should live your life in that version of reality, but it’s an interesting thought experiment. Just because Occam’s razor allows us to dismiss it as implausible doesn’t mean it’s not worth thinking about.
Again, as I said, I’m not accusing you of seriously thinking this. I’m just saying that within philosophy AFAIK there is no accepted proof (except by introducing God), and generally there is a feeling that there will never be a proof. It is the latter sentiment that makes it an entirely fruitless endeavour to go looking for a proof.
Since you did not ask ‘do things exist when you don’t perceive them’, but asked, ‘how do you proof that they continue to exist’, I again reply: there is no proof. If you want something that isn’t around, you’re out of luck. I didn’t say it was a silly question. A lot of interesting questions cannot be proven or disproven.
If you meant that you wanted a thought experiment ‘what if things didn’t exist when you don’t perceive them’, you had a very unfortunate way of phrasing that question. Reread your previous posts. For such an experiment, go ahead, but not in this thread.
According to Richard P Feynman [RIP] (“Feynman Diagrams”), reality CAN and DOES take breathers - all kinds of “virtual” particles being created out of nothing and then annihilated almost instantaneously in the course of physical sub-atomic phenomena
Dan Abarbanel
I apologize if I phrased poorly, but isn’t this thought experiment exactly what the OP is talking about? Why is it not apropos to this thread?
I’m sorry if my posts have lowered the tone of this thread. I did not mean to antagonize or incite. My reply to Dogface asking for proof of his extraordinary claim that things exist was a joke; as an engineer who is used to solid proofs, it amuses me that we cannot prove many fundamental things we believe. I’m sorry if that wasn’t taken as simply a joke or if it’s just not funny in the first place.
I know we can’t prove these things. I understand why we can’t prove them. And I have no problem with that. The fact that we can’t prove it and just need to get over it is the very essense of the answer to the OP, and it’s coming to that realization at a deep level that makes the tree-falling koan useful.
I’m citing the OP:
Seems to me the OP wanted very specifically what the purpose of the quote is, and who came up with it. That has been answered. He did not ask for a debate about a thought experiment. If he would have, this thread should have been moved to GD.
Sorry if I sounded a bit irritated: you seemed to ask a question (is there a proof), then when I took the time to answer that question, seemed to say: nya-nya, I didn’t ask that, you are accusing me of something that I don’t hold. I don’t like to waste my time aiming at moving targets. I also don’t like being made to look like someone who puts wrong arguments into other people’s mouths. Your last post made clear that you didn’t intend anything like that; I apologize for any snarkiness, and I hope we can leave it at that. 
If you really want to debate about the persistence of existence, I suggest you start a thread in GD. I repeat, this is not the forum nor the thread for that.