Tree falling?

Question

a tree falls in the forest but no one hears it did it really fall

Answer 1

This is so lame.

stop stealing lines from the simpsons

Answer 2

Yes  ofcourse if it fell it fell.

Answer 3

duh it fell

Answer 4

a tree falls in the forest but no one hears it did it really fall

My answer according to the question the tree fell, and if I can see it on the ground  it obviously fell.

Now for the age old question. If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around does it make a sound?

I have always said yes. Are human beings essential for nature and natural happenings to occur? I guess what I mean is that it is kind of big for us to assume that just because we as human beings are not around to observe something to assume that it does not occur. Things happen all the time with us being unaware of it. To me just because I am not there to validate something does not mean it does not occur. A better question to me is

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around does it only make a sound?

Answer 5

Yes, if it fell it fell.

Answer 6

Hmm.. this seems to be one of those questions, that only gets more complex the more you think about it. In the sense that if you do not think about the question, or are somewhat close minded, you would just answer yes. But looking deeper into the meaning of the question can make you begin to question your own existence.

What most people fail to do, is really think when trying to answer this question, and to continue asking why or how. If you think that the answer is simply, "Yes it does" then ask yourself how you know that. Most people would say because that science explains that it would in fact make a sound. But realistically, this only furthers the question. Why exactly is what were told what reality is, and why do we know what exactly our existence is? To try and put this in a bit simpler of terms, how do we know whats real?

As infants we do not know what existence is, when someone is out of the room, it meant that they were just inexistent until they were back. As we grow older we begin to understand that there is more then just what we see an hear, but why exactly do we know this, other then the fact that we were told by other human beings. Realistically, nobody can be completely sure of the existence of anything, as anything we see,hear, or even know, is just signals we send to our brains, showing images and creating sounds that only we can see or hear.

What if all we see is wrong? What if this is not in fact reality, but just what our minds have created. Everything and anything that exists, is just what we perceive it to be. if we think that a tree falling in the woods makes a sound, then it does, to us. but if not, then it does not. And we can not really be sure about anything, knowing that we can not be sure in the existence of anything.

People that have yet to ask why about certain questions, would blindly think that all we hear and seemingly know about does in fact exist. These people usually live by the motto "seeing is believing", but what is sight rather then signals we send to out brain. But for some reason, even people with the "seeing is believing" motto, would believe that the unseen does exist, such as the sound the tree makes when it hits the ground when nobody is around. Which I personally think contradicts this motto completely, but is not seen as something that would.

So although i think this question is not as much a direct question, as it is more a gateway to more questions leading you to much more complex theories, it still brings up a very valid point. and that is that not enough people ask "why" when they are told something, and that this can be a generally popular cause for close-mindedness, and that no theory should rightfully be rejected.

So when a tree falls in the woods, does it make a sound?

Well personally, I don't know.

Answer 7

People could have seen it from afar, though....HAHAHA

And either way it fell.

Answer 8

On the one hand, it seems obvious that a tree falling in a forest with no one to hear it makes a sound. The tree-fall is just the same whether an observer is present or not. In cases where an observer is present, a tree-fall makes a sound. Removing the observer doesn't change the tree-fall. An observed tree-fall therefore involves a sound.

On the other hand, there does seem to be a sense in which an unobserved tree-fall is silent. With no one present to hear the sound before it passes out of existence, it might as well not have happened. It's almost as though the tree-fall only creates a potential sound, which, if unobserved, never fully comes into being