When Nothing hears a tree fall it makes no Sound - When Nothing sees an Orange it is not Orange!

Thank you brittwaller for your time and careful consideration. I'm sure this will be a good debate. "I Negate: "When Nothing hears a tree fall it makes no Sound - When Nothing sees an Orange it is not Orange!"" ""Nothing" (nonexistence) doesn't hear anything at all, nor does it see anything at all. This renders your position toward the resolution invalid." This has clearly become a battle of semantics; you would probably say I started it. My opponent has negated the title of the debate, not my resolution. My resolution, as I stated in the first round, is: "that a sound only exists in so far as it is heard and that colors only exist in so far as they are seen." The title of the debate was chosen to be provocative and fit into 100 characters. Nowhere did I state that it was my resolution. My resolution doesn't have to do with the notion that "nothing" as an object of nonexistence undergoes the action of hearing and that means there is no sound. That was a very clever move, brittwaller! The point of this debate is that when the act of hearing does not occur there is no sound. The same goes for sight and vision, that is what I'm going to argue. "Sound and color (defined traditionally) are the phenomena, hearing and sight are the sensations." You have left me in a tight position b/c you have forced me to choose between one of two resolutions. I either: 1) accept your definition of "sound" and obviously loose the debate b/c I don't care to argue for subjective idealism. Or 2) Deny your definition because you have accepted this debate aware of my definition yet changed it to be exactly what I proposed it wasn't. I don't wish to resort to this. This is what I will say. First the sensation of sound/color are not identical to the physical phenomena of "sound/color" (I'll call it sound and color for my opponents sake even though it departs from my original definition) There are three reasons for this 1 – Causation The physical phenomena causes the sensation, therefore they cannot be identical. 2. – Hallucination The sensation can exist without the physical phenomena, so they can't be identical 3. – Lack of observer. The physical phenomena can exist without the sensation. My opponent claims that hearing and sight are the sensations and not sound and color. I will now show you that hearing and sight alone are not sufficient in defining a sensation. If hearing and sight are the sensations themselves then there is an huge problem. Hearing and Sight as actions are transitive, meaning that they require objects to be heard or seen. This isn't just semantics, think about it… one can't undergo the action of hearing without an object to be heard. Same goes for sight. This ‘object' however doesn't necessarily correlate with the physical phenomena as I showed above. >They're not identical.< The object could be a hallucination. For example suppose you heard a clicking noise, but it was a hallucination. Here we have a situation in which there are NO air molecules vibrating and you are undergoing the act of hearing. Yet there still needs to be an object to be heard. As you can see, the object here is a clicking noise. You cannot hear something without an object to hear. The object may not be what we call "sound" in the purely physical sense. B/c of such hearing and sight alone do not sufficiently describe a sensation. So I assert, as I defined, sound and color are the sensations and these sensations do not exist without something to experience them. ^Extend my argument from round 1. Thanks Britt.