Does a Tree Fall in the Forest Make a Sound if No One is Around to Hear It?

Does a tree that falls in a forest make a sound if no one is around to hear it? Well, if by "sound" we mean vibrating air, then the answer is yes; when a tree falls, the air around it vibrates.

However, if by "sound" we mean the conscious noise we hear as a result of our sensory organs interacting with the vibrating air, then if nobody is present to hear the tree fall, there won't be any sensory organs for the air to interact with, and as a result, there won't be any conscious noise to be heard.

So, the straightforward response to this age-old query appears to be: it depends on how we define "sound." The sound made by a tree falling is audible if we describe it as "vibrating air." The lonely tree that is falling does not produce any noise if we consider it to be a conscious experience.

However, the purpose of asking this question is not to receive an immediate response and then disregard it.

Instead, it seeks to highlight the odd tension between our two completely different conceptions of the term "sound."

On the one hand, we categorize sound as a mechanistic process that happens 'out there' in the world, apart from us. On the other hand, we think of it as a personal conscious experience that depends only on us.

When you give this latter term some thought, you see that it encompasses more than just sounds. Everything we see, hear, smell, touch, taste, and experience depends on our sensory system and on ourselves. Our experiences wouldn't exist without us.

Galileo Galilei, a famous astronomer of the 16th century, stated:

Only awareness contains tastes, odours, colours, and other sensory information. All of these attributes would be destroyed if the living thing were to be taken away.

If our senses were taken away, the world we perceive would turn into an indistinguishable emptiness with no colour, sound, smell, or taste. What would be left without us?

Because it touches on a more fundamental issue, our original query, "When a tree falls in the forest, and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?," is so tantalising. Namely:

If there was no conscious life, would the physical universe exist?

We might respond involuntarily to this question by saying, "Of course it would." But consider this one more: nothing would be experienced if there were no aware beings. Nothing approximating what we refer to as "existence" would exist. No senses of sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch, time, or space are present.

Is consciousness more fundamental than matter?

Numerous brilliant minds have come to the unusual conclusion that awareness must be more fundamental than the ‘stuff' ' that consciousness experiences after pondering on this strange situation.

For instance, the philosopher George Berkeley considers the absurdity of a reality existing independently of our conscious brains in his 1710 work, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge:

There is a peculiarly pervasive belief among people that all sense objects—including buildings, mountains, and rivers—have an existence that is natural or genuine, separate from how they are seen by the mind. What else are the aforementioned items if not something we perceive with our senses? What else do we observe outside our own thoughts or feelings? And is it not obscene that any one of these might exist without being noticed, let alone any combination of them?

According to this viewpoint, it is ludicrous to claim that a lone, falling tree makes noise. Berkeley argues that it is nonsensical to claim that the tree even exists in the absence of a conscious mind recognising it. Berkeley's subjective idealism, or his belief that the world is in our brains, is briefly explained in our short explanation essay. You can learn more about his mind-bending justifications for this stance there.

To wrap up this quick analysis of the conflict between perception and reality, take into account the following quote from Nobel Prize-winning quantum physicist Max Planck from a 1931 interview:

Consciousness is fundamental in my opinion. I see matter as a byproduct of awareness. We are unable to overcome consciousness. Everything that we discuss and believe to be real is predicated on consciousness.

How do you feel? Can consciousness be surpassed?