I forgot to add that vibrations are that...vibrations at some frequency. If you don't change that frequency into sound....all it is...is just vibes and nothing else. Until a receiver picks up that signal, then the job is never done, and vibes are flyin all over the place.

That's why Bees can see ultraviolet, yet humans can't. We don't have that high range capability within the spectrum.

That whole sound thingy can also be equated with light. You still need the same 3 ingredients as sound does.

All sound is......is a product...like light.....whose only existence and acknowledgement is soley based on a reciptient present. Without the reciptient...those photons and audial wave patterns are just that....nothing more than invisible ripples through space .

I was just wondering. Does the forest disapper if no one thing sees it?     
Can something exist without being perceived? - e.g."Sound is only sound if a person hears it"
The most immediate philosophical topic that the riddle introduces involves the existence of the tree (and its sound) outside of human perception. If no one is around to see, hear, touch or smell the tree, how could its existence occur? What is it to say that it exists when such an existence avoids all knowing? George Berkeley in the 18th century developed subjective idealism, a metaphysical theory to respond to these questions, coined famously as "to be is to be perceived". Today metaphysicians are split. According to substance theory, a substance is distinct from its properties. According to bundle theory, an object is merely its sense data.

You can't take away the reality of the fallen tree. Just because we didn't detect it with our senses doesn't mean it didn't happen. I believe the sound (vibrations) would be exactly the same whether we were there or not to "hear" it. If a tree fell in a canyon, the walls of the canyon become receivers (echo) so a receiver does not necessarily have to be animate. A receiver can be described as any matter the vibrations come into contact with.

If a star explodes in a distant galaxy, we wouldn't be able to hear it, but I bet it makes a lot of noise when it happens.

I guess what I'm saying is sound waves (vibrations that can be translated into sound) exist whether we hear them or not.

Another analogy...Jack and his lovely wife, Jill are hiking in the woods. Sadly, Jill has been deaf since birth. A large tree starts falling towards them and Jack pushes Jill out of the way. Jill didn't hear anything but she felt the ground shake as the tree landed (vibrations). On the other hand, Jack heard the loud snapping of tree trunk and branches as it fell towards them and the crushing sound when it landed.

Although Jill couldn't hear it, Jack could. The sound existed whether it was perceived by Jill or not.

Unfortunately, Jack is trapped under the tree and Jill has to go for help. She heads back down the path and a mile away another tree falls in her path. No one is near enough to hear the sound. Did the second tree make the same sounds as the first tree? I think so.

I agree with Rick. Before I read the other comments, the first thing that came to mind was a new galaxy that was discovered in the 90s. For billions of years it existed, but we didn't know it was there. There are many things we can't see, hear or smell. Also, sight & sound can be wrong. Ask several people after an accident what they saw and you will get different answers. That is because our perception of events can be influenced by our emotions. Did our Earth exist before the first human walked upon it? To me, hearing has nothing to do with the existence of sound. Beethoven heard sounds in his head after becoming deaf and was able to create music and express that sound to us. Did he not hear the music once his senses were impaired? Sound is energy, and energy comes in many forms. If we do not hear the thunder after we see the lightning, does that mean the lightning never flashed? According to science, lightning always produces thunder, but often the lightning is too far from us to hear the thunder it creates for the sound waves to reach us.

Yes there is sound but it is different from the sound if a human is nearby. The wood is different - less usable than when a human is not nearby - ask the lumberjacks. Better wood when a human is nearby. OK everybody - go hug a tree.

http://www.getodd.com/stuf/treefall.html

P.S. I don't know how true this website is. First I've ever heard of this stuff.

I appreciate all the responses and different points of view....fascinating.

I still firmly believe the word "sound" is a manmade word. And the definition must be within the confines of living things. Sure the mountain felt vibrations of the tree falling, but it still is only vibrations. What humans call sound is the end product of those vibes.

I never said that the occureneces never happened. Only that the receiver of those vibes and frequencies were not present to make sense of the data, which leads me to be believe that it's energy is in it's raw state. The whole porpose of writing about the tree falling and the occurence not happeneing if no on was there was to only show another angle of this. Of course it fell, but only after the fact that soneone was there to see it. If no one saw it, and didn't come back to tell about the falling, the whole point is moot anyway...and that's what I meant. There seems to be a personal aspect to all of this. If you weren't born, you wouldn't even know the universe exists. Right? It's all about perspective.

I once read a thin book called " What is reality anyway?". One subject it spoke about was about a scenario of a person eating chocolate ice cream. If you could split the persons skull open and lick his brain, would you taste chocolate? Everything we feel, taste, hear, smell, and think are all just the brain making sense of it by the only way it can. Is fire hot, if there was never anyone there in the first place to tell us that it's hot because they first tried to touch it for themselves?

Again....sure the walls of the canyons can be the recievers, but can the mounatain call it sound? All the mountain can do is be an extension of the medium in which the vibrations are travelling. It's this wonderful, and miraculous device we have been granted to us humans called the EARS which enables us to enjoy the fruits of such vibes as music. To everything else, those musical vibrations are only that....just air molecules that are agitated, travelling through a medium.

All light is photons and waves. If there is no receiver of those particles and waves, all it is ...is just another frequency that can't be seen. The right reciever of that particular frequency must be present in order to see it and call it light. We can't see ultrviolet light because our eyes are not made to see in that frquency. But a bee has that cpability.

Can you expect a person who was born blind to understand what light is if you explained it to them?

Re: Person without sight.
No, Pac. You can describe colors and light to someone and each person will visualize them differently. However, they still exist. But color isn't really anything but a byproduct of light & its spectrum, so without light, can there be color? I've often heard that 2 people do not see any color the same because how we see red or blue depends on how your eye absorbs the light. So grass to me is green and to you is green, but your green might be my blue.

"What humans call sound is the end product of those vibes."
I am hearing impaired due to an injury. Not severe enough to not hear but can understand most people when they talk.
When people speak to me it is all a matter of the tone of voice and the decible output wether I can understand them or not.
The same goes as far as other sounds in the universe.
Sound for any person or hearing creature is the vibrations of the sound wave created.
Sound waves go to the ear drum and then tranmitted to our brain for translation.

Justx...I was reffering to a person who was born blind. They have no clue what the color red looks like, and yes because of the light's reflection to our eyes, is how we see color.

Can you successfully explain what the light from a flashlight looks like to a person who was born blind? Einstein's whole relativity theory revolves around perspective, and one's place within it. It's all relative to the observer, is what he said.

We as humans take for granted, the complexity of our senses. They seem to be a given, yet their make up and what the brain has to do to interpret those signals are extremely difficult to fully understand. Perception can be a tricky thing. It can easily be skewed, modified, and affect the outcome when subjected to various conditions.

BTW...Beethoven already heard sound. The brain can very easily tap into the storage part of the brain IE...RNA sequence area of the brain...memory.

The senses are a personal experience, not something you can describe. And If you do describe it to someone, they can only relate to it if they underwent the same sense.

Do you know why you can't see shortwave, or microwave? They are just like light waves, except that our eyes can't see within that spectrum, which has much finer and faster frequencies.. If GOD came down today and gave us the ability to see those frequencies, who knows, we might see colors that haven't been seen before by humans.

Do you remember that Star Trek episode? The original? When Captain Kirk beams off the ship, only to find himself back on the ship, and all the crew members frozen in time ? Well if you watched it, you would have known that at the end of the show, Spock realizes that the captain was infact among them, but the captain was in a higher and faster frequency, and that's why they couldn't see him. To Kirk's perspective he saw everyone frozen,,,slower frquency. During the whole episode, members could here a buzzing sound near their ears. It was Kirk trying to communicate with them.

Captain kirk wasn't seeing frozen people, but rather people moving very very slowly, just like the hour hand on the clock.

Another point about sound.
I received my injury from and explosive noise. When that happen my hearing started to ring from the injury. It has been that way for over 40 years 24/7.
If I were to become totally deaf I would still hear the ringing.

Sorry about your injury JAP69. Hopefully science and it's ever so rapid growth in technology will be able to come up with something to alleviate the ringing. I'm hopeful they will.

If you blow a dog whistle (which you can't hear) and the dog come running - did it make a sound.

Was the dog behind the tree that fell? :-)

Tenaj....Did it make a sound to you? No, so to you it didn't make a sound, only vibrations that your ears can't relate into what we call sound. The dog has the right type of listneing parameters that can pick up the high frequency.

Elephants make a similar noise when in distress, in the wild. In their case, the frequency is so low that only the elephants can pick it up, for many miles to boot.

It's all about the frequency and the right receiver. I know it's semantics, but techinically it's true.

It's just like water. H20. If you split one molecule of water, all you have is two parts hydrogen atom, and one part oxygen. It's no longer water but seperate ingredients. Same with sound. If any of those 3 requirements are missing, it's not called sound.

If you only have the maker and the medium, and no receiver, then the waves will just disipate in time. If you have the medium and the receiver, then you'll have to wait for the maker of the sound. If you only have the maker and no medium, like in space where there is no air for the waves to travel in, well...then it's just futile. Try clapping in space....you won't hear a thing...lol

Another is fire. You need 3 ingredients for fire to exist. Or for humans to call what we know as fire by definition.
1. Fuel....wood, gas, plastic...etc...
2. heat
3. oxygen
Try to start a fire with either one of those missing and all you'll have is a headache.

Yes, it did make a sound. The dog heard it. The question is - did it make a sound. Yes it did. Not who heard it. Sound doesn't care who hears it. Even though you'll not around when the tree falls, it still makes a sound.

I know that Einstein came up with his theory of relativity (which only a handful of people on the planet actually understand), but did he really say that everything is relative? I can't imagine that he would be unable to recognize that such a statement negates even itself.

You are right Pac.
All components on this planet must work together for the planet to operate as we know it.

Ok tenaj, let's put it this way. If a deaf person blew a special dog whistle in the forest and no living creature within hearing range was present, did it make a sound? No...if you say yes, then my question would then be, to whom did it make a sound? Until some creature picks up those vibrations in the air, then those vibrations just disipate after travelling through the air. It's only when a receiver picks up those signals and has a brain that can turn those waves into something meaningfull, it's nothing more than waves in the air.

Just like a T.V. set. When the station sends out those waves, someone must have a tv that can translate those signals into something meaningfull, such as a picture. Without a receiver, T.V., all it is ...is just frequencies travelling through space. If someone transmitted the first pictures through the air, but didn't build any sets to watch them through, and asked the masses....how was that tv show we aired last night. The people would think the station tower people were out of their minds. They'd say...what the heck are you talking about? What show. I don't see anything flying through the atmosphere.

So the question would be....If someone threw the on switch at the station tower transmitter, and no tvs existed, did the station produce a show? NOPE.... If you say yes, then who saw the show? And how?

If every living creature on this planet from the beginning of time was 100% totally deaf and had absolutely no ears, would the word sound ever be included in the english language? No. There would be no need to. The word sound is manmade. It's only in the languages because there had to be a way to describe what we picked up by our ear drums, and conveyed it to our fellow neigbors.

Surely all those people and animals and insects can feel the vibrations, but that's all. Maybe in that case the human population would communicate with vibrators. One short vibe would mean something and a long one would mean something else. just like morse code.

Comment by Tinker - Yesterday, 8:03 am
I was just wondering. Does the forest disapper if no one thing sees it?     
Can something exist without being perceived? - e.g."Sound is only sound if a person hears it"
The most immediate philosophical topic that the riddle introduces involves the existence of the tree (and its sound) outside of human perception. If no one is around to see, hear, touch or smell the tree, how could its existence occur? What is it to say that it exists when such an existence avoids all knowing? George

YUP>>>>YOU HIT IT ON THE NAIL>>>>It's all about perspective. It's really very simple. The senses recieve signals. Period. Sometimes skewed for whatever reason. Drugs?

Does the universe exist if you personally haven't experienced it? It's all relative. If you're alive then you are experiencing it.

I thank the smarter folk than I coming here to show what's under their sleeves. Like i say Keep'em coming...lol

Tinker..I applaud you. You have shown how easily any matter can be taken for granted. What reality dictates must be translated. What we see smell touch is an illusion created by the brain to make order out of chaos. Our very existence is on the balance. Can a person think his or her way out of existence, withering away into the knolls of society.....

Reality checks hmmmmmmm      What is real and what is not?

I'm aware of my existence. I can think about why my sense of prescence matters. I can overload too. I can outdo the situation with a 360 degree turn ending up where i left off. Reality, existence, morality, justice, remorse, contempt, desire, greed, jealousy, power, abuse, and a whole host of other realities in my world,,,,,

Life is in my fingers now. I'm typing what I'm feeling, with my feelers. Reality is now says the music man.....Sunshine music corp. dot com. Not really no such address. I'm bored....lo......