If a tree falls in a forest
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If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? This popular philosophical riddle appears often in pop culture, and raises many difficult questions regarding observation, and our knowledge of reality.
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[edit] Explanation
[edit] The possibility of unperceived existence
Can something exist without being perceived? - eg."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.
[edit] The dissimilarity between sensation and reality
What is the difference between what something is, and how it appears? - eg. "sound is the variation of pressure that propagates through matter as a wave"
Perhaps the most important topic the riddle offers is the division between perception of an object and how an object really is. If the tree exists outside of perception, and it exists predictably outside of perception (common sense grants us both of these), then it will produce sound waves. However, these sound waves will not actually sound like anything. Sound as it is mechanically understood will occur, but sound as it is understood by sensation will not occur.
This riddle illustrates John Locke's famous distinction between primary and secondary qualities. This distinction outlines which qualities are actually in an object, and which qualities are not. That is, a red thing is not really red, a sweet thing is not really sweet, a sound does not actually sound like anything, but a round object is actually round.
[edit] References in culture
The phrase is incorporated into the song "If a Tree Falls", one Bruce Cockburn's most popular songs. The lyrics concern the loss of rainforests.[1].
The phrase is contained in a Dos Noun sound entitled "Beauty", the lyrics reads "Like when a tree falls in the forest and no ones there to hear it, is probably, when it sounds the clearest"
