Introduction
The physical tangibility of material reality and the extent to which it is dependent on the personal perceptions of an individual is, perhaps, one of the most contentious topics that have been discussed throughout the history of philosophy. In the famous dilemma of a falling tree, the question of whether it actually makes a sound if there is no one to hear it appears to be much more intricate than it might seem.
On the surface, the objectivity of a sound as a physical concept implies that it does not need a witness to become a part of reality. However, on second thought, the very phenomenon of a sound as a physical phenomenon of a movement and the subsequent airwave suggests that it needs a recipient in order to become actualized. Despite the differences between the specified perspective and a more common and famous one by John Locke, the general gist of various phenomena being partially a reflection of one’s perception of objective reality remains in its place.
Thesis Statement
“If a tree falls in the forest and there’s no one around to hear it, does it make a sound?” I have heard this question before, and I have actually given it some thought out of boredom in the past. My view on the puzzle comes down to the idea that, if there is no source to receive the noise of the tree crashing to the forest floor’s surface, then there is no noise. Therefore, I will expand on this conclusion that I have reached and explore John Locke’s answer which was also negative, but for slightly different reasons.
Personal View
Personally, I connect the presence of a particular sound to the object or person that it perceives. Therefore, I believe that to exist, a sound needs a listener and the person or object that leads to the emergence of the sound in question. However, while the second factor is also of large importance to the creation of a sound it is believed that only the first one has a lasting impact on how sounds are perceived and how the information that they contain is carried further into the conversation.
Sound as a Secondary Quality
Dissecting the phenomenon of a sound will lead to the discovery that it is, in fact, a phenomenon of a secondary nature. The secondary quality of a sound manifests itself in the fact that for a sound to exist, it needs a recipient. In other words, the movement of waves that creates a sound requires a living obstacle that perceives a signal, locates it, and decodes it accordingly.
When considering the nature of a sound, one will have to admit to its perceived quality as the foundational characteristic on a basic level. Namely, when a sound is produced, it needs an object or a phenomenon that leads to the development of the sound in question. Moreover, dissecting the nature of a sound, one will also learn that it is represented by the movement of air and the creation of waves that are supposed to hit someone’s ear in order to become an actual sound (Howard 31). Be it the sensory organ of a human being or a specific device that is expected to locate sounds, a sound can only be heard once there is someone to hear it. Therefore, when the environment in which a sound can be heard is devoid of many listeners, the physical concept of a sound as a movement of waves that are supposed to be perceived by a corresponding organ, namely, an ear, loses its purpose.
When There Is No One to Receive a Sound
Delving deep into the physics of sound and the process of its production, one will need to concede that what is defined as sound is merely a series of air vibrations that a human ear perceives and transforms into the signals that are later coded and interpreted to obtain information about various objects (Nia and De Vries 629). Therefore, in physical terms, a sound can be regarded as a subjective coding of the physical changes in the environment that provides additional data and characteristics of a certain phenomenon or object (Stainton and Murasugi 2). In other words, a sound can be seen as information volume.
Therefore, when there is no receiver of said information, the existence thereof may be questioned. Ascribing the specified conclusion to the scenario with a falling tree, one may claim that the absence of an individual that could perceive a sound of a falling tree implies the absence of a sound, in general.
The described notion aligns with the views of John Locke, who also believed that the sound, which a tree makes when falling, cannot be considered existent unless someone actually hears it. However, it is worth noting that there are massive differences between the perspective that Locke suggested and the current one (Tipton 62). Unlike Locke, who put much more emphasis on the assumption that a tree would not, in fact, make any sound, the statement of this paper is that the sound without a person to perceive it cannot be deemed as such.
Indeed, Locke’s position on the subject matter was slightly different. Bordering the idea of solipsism, the interpretation of a sound as a nonexistent entity, in general, suggested that the sound in question was connected to the tree rather than the person hearing it. In Locke’s perception of the scenario under consideration, the absence of a listener would not make the sound disappear but, instead, will prevent the tree from producing the sound. In other words, Locke ties the phenomenon of a sound to the tree rather than the listener (Tipton 68). At first glance, the specified perspective seems more legitimate than the suggested one.
However, on second consideration, one will realize that Locke’s version of the issue endows a tree with the capacity of making a sound. In turn, the perspective proposed in this paper offers to leave the idea of a tree sounding in a certain way and, instead, focusing on the sound as a subjective phenomenon that is linked to its recipient (Kisilevsky and Stone 26). Therefore, the differences between the solution that Locke offers and the current one are quite different despite the common conclusion of a sound being disappeared from the perspective.
However, the proposed perspective on the dilemma of a falling tree also has its flaws since it may easily veer off into the area of solipsism as the denial of objective reality entirely, with the substitution of personal perceptions of external stimuli proposed instead. Although the described theory also contains some grains of reason, it incorporates several problems that lead to questioning reality, in general.
Therefore, by accepting John Locke’s interpretation of the dilemma of a falling tree making a sound in the woods, one will have to ask oneself a question of whether the process of hearing can be seen as secondary to the physical nature of what is actually happening (Keeney 4). Namely, without a recipient to hear the sound in question, a falling tree produces a vibration across the area, yet, with no organ to become an obstacle that will perceive the vibration of the air as a series of sound waves that will be decoded as a specific sound, the existence of the latter becomes highly dubious.
Nonetheless, the notion of a sound as a subjective phenomenon might seem absurd at first, mostly due to the fact that early all creatures on the Earth have ears or similar sensory organs that allow perceiving the movement of air. However, on closer inspection of the idea of a sound being a subjective sensation in one’s mind seems to be rational since it allows distinguishing between the elements of objective reality, such as motion and matter, and the aspects of personal perception defined by the presence of certain sensory abilities, such as hearing.
Conclusion
Since the phenomenon of a sound can be considered a result of a personal projection of a series of changes in the physical environment and the following processing of information with the help of appropriate sensory organs, the dilemma concerning the falling tree seems to have an obvious answer of it not producing any sound in case there would be no one to hear it. The specified perspective clashes with the one of John lode, who attributed the ability to create a sound to a tree instead of considering the notion of a sound as a highly subjective one that should be linked to an individual witnessing the occurrence.
Therefore, this paper supports Locke’s general assumption of a sound not being inherently a part of the material reality, yet it shifts from the object that supposedly produces it to the subject that receives it, thus making the notion of a sound passive. Therefore, the interpretation in question leaves the standpoint offered by Locke to venture into a greater exploration of the theory and centering it around a human agent rather than the perceived source of a sound.
Works Cited
Howard, Patrick. “Deeper Than Even the Grain Goes’: Attending to Sound as Pedagogical Practice in Alphonso Lingis’s The Murmur of the World.” Phenomenology & Practice, vol. 12, no. 2, 2018, pp. 28-36.
Keeney, Jonathan. You Can’t Yell” Timber!” if You Don’t See the Falling Tree: Harnessing Construal Level Theory to Promote the Ethical Framing of Safety Performance. Chapel Hill, 2017.
Kisilevsky, Sari, and Martin J. Stone, eds. Freedom and Force: Essays on Kant’s Legal Philosophy. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2017.
Nia, Mahdi G., and Marc J. de Vries. “Models as Artefacts of a dual Nature: A Philosophical Contribution to Teaching about Models Designed and Used in Engineering Practice.” International Journal of Technology and Design Education, vol. 27, no. 4, 2017, pp. 627-653.
Stainton, Robert, and Kumiko Murasugi. Philosophy and Linguistics. MacMillan, 2019.
Tipton, Ian Charles. Berkeley: The Philosophy of Immaterialism. Vol. 2. Routledge, 2019.