Question: "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"
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| Wild Garlic |
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| Dreaded Spanish Bluebells: I have been fighting a 15 year war on these - to little avail |
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| Sweet Cicely |
Answer: The idea is that it doesn’t make a sound, because “sound” requires a “listener” to hear it, otherwise it’s just air pressure waves. So it’s the idea that unless there is a conscious being to perceive it, it does not make a “sound”.
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| May flowers (or Hawthorn) |
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| Plantain - of of my favorite 'weeds'. I just love this plant and have been cultivating them in my garden. It turns out that they have a beneficial mycorrhizal root association with strawberries. (Bonus) |
On the contrary, there are all kinds of sentient animals to hear it, so I'd say it absolutely does make a sound. The idea that only people can hear is,well, politely, misguided.
ReplyDeletePossibly but I like the argument that 'sound' is just how we percieve those pressure waves. Other creatures may or may not perceive them as sound. Some can hear, some sense it in other ways.
DeleteBesides 'conscious being ' doesn't have to be human by default.
DeleteFinally an answer to the age old question about a tree in the forest. Makes purrfect sense.
ReplyDeleteI've never seen (that I know of) garlic growing. Love the purple tulips
Hugs Cecilia
It's not garlic like we buy at the veg market. The leaves and flowers smell like garlic.
DeleteI must remember that answer!
ReplyDeleteSo, with all those lovely flowers, if there is no one to see their colours, what colours are they?
ReplyDeleteWell if you are an insect that can 'see in ultraviolet you see something completely different to what humans perceive.
DeleteThre is never no one around. Birds and animals. They’ll hear that sound and probably take flight as it will frighten them.
ReplyDeleteSo many pretty flowers spring has definitely sprung in your neck of the woods
I read a response to the question written as a short poem ans signed 'Yours faithfully,God'. Something to the effect that God is always there....so of course it makes a sound.
DeleteI wonder if the bluebells are kind of like agapanthus, like when we pulled them out here we really had to dig deep to get the roots out and they self seed everywhere. The colours are pretty though.
ReplyDeleteHari OM
ReplyDeleteQuite so; "sound" is an intellectual creation to describe those air dispersements, and that level of linguistic interpretation - we have yet to prove otherwise - belongs only to the human critter. On the other ear, hearing, is a function that doesn't require intellectual interpretation, but still requires sentience, hence what Boud says is also true. Lovely images... YAM xx