sound is nothing more then a vibration of particles in the air, and this will happen regardless of whether or not anybody is around to pick up that vibration with their ear drums and hear it.

I think my explanation had more logic in it.

The real question is, why the hell did that tree fall? Tree's dont spontaneously fall down without some means of leverage, usually a bulldozer or something.

Lightning could burn half of the tree, causing it to fall.

And making sound.

Prospect, those pressure waves are actually sound.
Us perceaving it, is called hearing.

Quote from Prospect

I know, I'm not saying they're not there. I'm just saying that sound seems to apply more to the general perception of those vibrations, not the vibrations themselves

I have to respectfully disagree. It seems to me that sound is the vibrations themselves, and that the perception of the vibrations falls under the category of hearing.

After all, if we measure sound with a microphone, we don't have to be hearing it for the sound to exist.




Frankly, this question relies on the idea that since you can't prove it, you can't say that it does or does not make a sound. However, because our normal experience dictates that a tree falling would make a sound, and we are only on the recieving end of the sound, it is safe to assume that it does make a sound, regardless of our presence. To say otherwise invokes the fallacious postulate that our presence somehow causes the air around the tree to vibrate, but we don't seem to have any such causal agent.

In spite of all evidence, however, since we don't know for sure without experimenting, we are forced to remain agnostic. We can remedy this by performing a simple experiment, however. Arrange a small metal ball to fall down a slide when a sound of 70 decibels or higher causes it to move, silently set it up near a tree that is held up by rope, and using a silent timer, set the tree to fall when you are far enough away as to not hear the falling tree. In order to controlt he experiment, you must make sure that the ball can not be caused to fall by wind or the vibration the tree causes in the ground.

Hm.. alright, I guess I'll agree with that. I was more or less arguing that sound is what we call the phenomena of pressure waves that we can hear, but unless someone's there to actually do it, all all they are are waves.. but yeah, I see where you're coming from.

But, you don't need to perceave sound for it to be sound.
Those waves are just called sound.

You don't need to hear them.

No, nobody is around to percieve the soundwaves, so there is no sound. Also a tree can fall, you are there to hear, but you still might not hear anything due to the way the tree falls.

Use a video recorder thank has a connection to keep it working, have alot of wiring so you have the distance of not being able to hear it yourself. Just have to then make the tree fall down by using something to do it.

But, then the video camera would be around to hear it.

'if a tree falls in a forest and noone is around, does it make a sound?' a video camera isn't a person.

But does the sound from the video camera even exist? Who is to say you even exist beyond your thoughts? Or if those thoughts are even yours???!?1/


OOoOOooOoOoOoOOOOOOOoOoOOoOOOOOoooh.

Aren't you a clever one? but you should leave that for another thread :D

Who says this conversation even existed? The universe could totally have just been brought into existence

ALSO THE PAST DOESN'T EXIST FAGGOTS

When we say no one is around to hear it, we mean nothing is around to pick up the waves.