If a tree falls and no one is around...

[mikkel_the_dane]

Sound is a very physical thing, even if you are deaf you would still be able to feel the effect of sound if it is loud enough, but that is pure because you can feel the vibrations from it.

But still you haven't offered another definition than the normal one, and why a tree sound wouldn't necessarily make a sound just because no one is around to hear it.

There are 2 factor the physical ones to sound as physical and that a human interact with them. Even in your post.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

Life and the world would go on as usual if man had not even evolved.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

The world and the universe would go on as usual even if man had not evolved.
People are giving undue significance to the existance of man.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Quantum physics comes to a similar conclusion. At night you click off the lights and leave for the bedroom. Of course the kitchen is there, unseen, all through the night. Right? But, in fact, the refrigerator, stove and everything else are composed of a shimmering swarm of matter/energy. The results of quantum physics, such as the two-slit experiment, tell us that not a single one of those subatomic particles actually occupies a definite place. Rather, they exist as a range of possibilities — as waves of probability — as the German physicist Max Born demonstrated back in 1926. They are statistical predictions — nothing but a likely outcome. In fact, outside of that idea, nothing is there! If they are not being observed, they cannot be thought of as having any real existence — either duration or a position in space. It is only in the presence of an observer — that is, when you go back in to get a drink of water — that the mind sets the scaffolding of these particles in place. Until it actually lays down the threads (somewhere in the haze of probabilities that represent the object’s range of possible values) they cannot be thought of as being either here or there, or having an actual position, a physical reality.

What are your guy's thoughts on the theory?

The description of quantum theory is mostly just wrong, with the rest just misleading sensationalism. But it doesn't matter. Because we don't need quantum theory to realize that the kitchen, unseen/observed by humans (or observed/seen by humans) doesn't exist as such. This was fleshed out in some detail by Kant a while ago. For him, however, the issue was more about the fact that we cannot access the external world except as filtered through the senses and the impressions they leave. While interesting and important, over the past 50+ years research in cognitive science and neuroscience has shown that in many ways Kant was being optimistic.
Kant could not know how much of that which what we perceive is not simply shaped and filtered by our senses, but also that we don't have direct access to perceptual/sensory "data" or content. Cognitive and neural structures shape how our perceptions are interpreted at a fundamental level and all the way up (at very high levels, certain linguistic, cultural, and similar differences in humans can shape how we perceive things).
Other animals viewing the kitchen, for example, would not experience the same mereological relations, object categorizations, and other aspects of cognitively structured and interpreted perceptions that we tend to experienced in so ingrained a manner that we forget (if we ever were aware) how much of what we perceive as objects are only objects because of the conceptual categories that shape perceptual data alongside the very fundamental manner in which sensory input is also filtered and shaped by our perceptual faculties.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

It's unscientific. An axiom of science is that the universe is real. Any hypothesis denying that is not scientific.

1) There are no axioms of science
2) It is not a necessary assumption. Operationalists (and outside quantum foundations and related fields in the sciences more generally, instrumentalists) can get along quite well with out committing to any external reality, even if I have a hard time believing those who actually reject an objective, external reality and believe that operational descriptions are all empirical inquiry should (let alone can) be reveal.
3) The statement that the "universe is real" is not as innocuous as it appears. If one accepts, for example, that we can trust in the empirical findings of scientific inquiry, one need to accept that these findings reveal facts about the external world that would hold if no humans were around to have empirical findings shaped by the manner in which we are able to experience, categorize, and conceptualize our perceptions into intersubjective theoretical frameworks.

 

[Heyo]

3) The statement that the "universe is real" is not as innocuous as it appears.

I know, reality sucks. But why do people hate reality sooo much that they deny it?

 

[PureX]

Does it only have to be a presumption that pressure waves are created? Can we not set up instrumentation that can detect the pressure waves and record that information even though there is no biological ear there to verify?

"Knowledge" refers to our having direct experience of that which is "known". Everything else is speculation based on evidence. The "scientism" crowd like to imagine that "scientific" evidence is equal to proof positive. And that's a dangerously foolish position to take. Evidence is just evidence. And conclusions based on evidence are just speculation.

Is it only a presumption to conclude that a tree of sufficient height and mass falling on the earths surface, in earths atmosphere, will always create pressure waves in the earths atmosphere, or is it a fact?

Yes. That is a presumption.

 

[RestlessSoul]

The world and the universe would go on as usual even if man had not evolved.
People are giving undue significance to the existance of man.

How can man not give significance to his own existence?

 

[RestlessSoul]

I know, reality sucks. But why do people hate reality sooo much that they deny it?

Perhaps it’s more the case that people are so intrigued by reality, they feel the need to question all their assumptions about it? For how do we understand anything at all, if not by subjecting it to interrogation?

 

[Polymath257]

Something happens if certain assumptions hold about objective reality, but in one sense of the word there is not sound, because there is no human present.

Yes, if you define sound as only the human experience, then sound requires a human to experience it.

But if, instead, you define sound as the pressure waves in a material, no human experience is required.

The problem is that the word 'sound' is ambiguous. Once a choice of meaning is made, there is no problem.

 

[Polymath257]

There is the physical aspects and the human ones. 2 set of factors.

And, of the two, the human factors are restricted to beings that live on one small planet orbiting a smallish star among hundreds of billions in one galaxy of trillions.

The human aspect does not determine what is true of the universe, only what we humans know.

 

[Polymath257]

How can man not give significance to his own existence?

Well, it depends on the way significance is determined.

If significance is determined by what is relevant to me, then my own existence is significant.

If it is determined by what happens to the global population of humans, then it is much less so.

If it is determined by what happens in the universe as a whole, it is almost totally insignificant.

For me, it is almost the height of arrogance and egotism to think that what humans do is significant in any cosmic sense.

 

[Nimos]

There are 2 factor the physical ones to sound as physical and that a human interact with them. Even in your post.

Not sure what you mean with there are 2 factors, can you be more specific?

 

[MikeF]

MikeF said: ↑
Does it only have to be a presumption that pressure waves are created? Can we not set up instrumentation that can detect the pressure waves and record that information even though there is no biological ear there to verify?​

"Knowledge" refers to our having direct experience of that which is "known". Everything else is speculation based on evidence. The "scientism" crowd like to imagine that "scientific" evidence is equal to proof positive. And that's a dangerously foolish position to take. Evidence is just evidence. And conclusions based on evidence are just speculation.

Well, you have placed the words knowledge, known, scientism, and scientific in quotes. I guess you are signaling to me that you are using these word in a non-standard way?

All I can say is that our collective understanding or knowledge of the world is held with degrees of confidence. There are things we can be quite confident about. I would certainly agree that people can ascribe more confidence to an idea or explanation that is warranted, we human beings are fallible creatures after all.

When it comes to a tree falling through its surrounding atmosphere, I think it is more than safe to say we can be very confident that such an event will create pressure waves in the surrounding atmosphere.

Just as those who overestimate the amount of confidence we can have in a particular idea or explanation are making an error, I would say it is equally erroneous to undervalue or withhold appropriate confidence in ideas or explanations. Your conclusion that assuming the creation of pressure waves from a fallen tree to be mere speculation would be an example of such an error.

 

[RestlessSoul]

Well, it depends on the way significance is determined.

If significance is determined by what is relevant to me, then my own existence is significant.

If it is determined by what happens to the global population of humans, then it is much less so.

If it is determined by what happens in the universe as a whole, it is almost totally insignificant.

For me, it is almost the height of arrogance and egotism to think that what humans do is significant in any cosmic sense.

I think it’s hugely significant, that consciousness has awakened in sentient beings in a corner of the universe, capable of contemplating it’s vastness and aspiring to unravel some of it’s mysteries. Such a perspective only becomes egotistical imo, when we are more in awe of our own intellect, than we are of the universe from which that intellect has emerged.

 

[Polymath257]

I think it’s hugely significant that consciousness has awakened in sentient beings in a corner of the universe, capable of contemplating it’s vastness and aspiring to unravel some of it’s mysteries. Such a perspective only becomes egotistical imo, when we are more in awe of our own intellect, than we are of the universe from which that intellect has emerged.

I see it as fairly insignificant on a grand scale *unless* consciousness becomes more common in the universe over time. it might be an interesting start.

I'm not sure why this particular type of self-reference is that significant.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Yes, if you define sound as only the human experience, then sound requires a human to experience it.

But if, instead, you define sound as the pressure waves in a material, no human experience is required.

The problem is that the word 'sound' is ambiguous. Once a choice of meaning is made, there is no problem.

Now define something without that requiring a human.
So here is your trick used on you. I define you as worthless therefore it is fact, because I define what is useful.
As long as you don't understand that all your definitions require a human and that defining X is Y doesn't necessarily make it a fact that X is Y, we will play this game.

So sorry, but I know you can take it. Learn the limitations of your big beautiful brain or I will continue to point it out.
So here it is. There are no things in themselves in practice, because you are in the world and all you know is in relationship to you.
So if you read the results on an instrument, that requires that you read the results and some human has made it and calibrated it to a standard.
Objective is the relationship between human cognition and something not human cognition, because otherwise you can't know that it is objective as a relationship.
Phenomenon: plural phenomena : an observable fact or event.
What does those words require? It is that simple. When you claim what matters however you do it in practice, it is only a fact, because it matters to you. That is so for all humans, who have the cognition to do so.

 

[RestlessSoul]

I see it as fairly insignificant on a grand scale *unless* consciousness becomes more common in the universe over time. it might be an interesting start.

I'm not sure why this particular type of self-reference is that significant.

On reflection, ‘significant’ may not be the best choice of words. Astonishing doesn’t really do it either, and awesome has been devalued lately. So I’d probably go with miraculous, though I doubt that’s a word you’d choose yourself.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

And, of the two, the human factors are restricted to beings that live on one small planet orbiting a smallish star among hundreds of billions in one galaxy of trillions.

The human aspect does not determine what is true of the universe, only what we humans know.

But if we don't know, we can't use truth. God and truth are the same in that you can't point to them. They are complex abstracts in human brains.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Not sure what you mean with there are 2 factors, can you be more specific?

One is the experience of sound, the other is the physical makeup of sound.