Talk:If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

message: The tree represents man, the forrest represents Christianity.   —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hendrivl (talk • contribs) 02:30, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Spiritual

message: Should the anthropic principle be mentioned as well? I think it relates. 
--Gorniki 23:41, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Anthropic Principle 

message: Why is The Matrix in the "See also" section? Is there a direct reference I'm failing to remember? -Phoenixrod 08:02, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm removing it for now. Feel free to add it back in if it does relate. -Phoenixrod 08:04, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There is no reference in the same way there is no spoon. Marlith T/C 01:35, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Matrix

message: It doesn't seem necessary, or at least logical to put a picture of a tree in this article.  The riddle is rhetorical, its not actually about a tree. CanCanDuo 20:13, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Picture

message: Which episode of the simpsons was this in? ACBestMy ContributionsAutograph Book 14:04, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Simpsons 

message: I had looked up the origin of this before Wikipedia, and was told that it was used in meditation to clear the mind - linked to some asian group - budhism, or whatever. It's similar to the one "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" they are designed to clear the mind in meditation - helping you think of nothing. Hopefully we can find a reference for this. Rfwoolf 21:17, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  I always read... 

message: [copyrighted material removed]
Tstrobaugh (talk) 18:03, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I've added the site you copied above to the article as an external link.  Copying the text itself, even on a talk page, is a no-no.--Father Goose (talk) 20:49, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Analylsis

message: According to Wikipedia policy, it only makes a sound if someone who wasn't there to hear it writes a book claiming it did. If anyone actually heard it or can prove that it actually made a sound, their book is an unreliable source, as is their first hand account of the event and/or proof.--76.191.180.171 (talk) 21:43, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikipedia policy, If a tree falls in the forest 

message: the article says "Since a sound is by definition a frequency, and such a frequency is emitted when one object strikes another..."
this is wrong.
Sound is by definition a VIBRATION of matter and it HAS s frequency. And this vibration can also be caused by other things that objects striking one another. Think LOUDSPEAKER.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.49.248.147 (talk) 22:19, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  sound is not a frequency 

message: If referenced criticisms are to be included about this philosophical concept, it should perhaps mention the use of similar ideas and arguments to systematically justify the denial of crimes against humanity, such as murders, massacres and genocides, by people who did not want to listen or did want to hear of atrocities being committed against innocent people. In this perspective, the tree is the innocent victim or group of victims, while the forest is society as a whole which remains largely indifferent to the suffering of a few, such as when the Armenian genocide, the Rwanda genocide, the Jewish genocide or the Holodomor took place. ADM (talk) 00:08, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Genocide denial

message: Some reference should perhaps be made to the theistic response: "Since there is nowhere in the universe where nobody - not even God - is around, the question is meaningless." -99.184.231.222 (talk) 17:43, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: the question is not meaningless. Unless you assume there is an observer for God, He does not exist.200.144.37.3 (talk) 13:55, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  You make the assumption that God cannot observe himself. If we're talking about an omnipotent God, that assumption fails.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.96.163.148 (talk) 14:54, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Theism 

message: This question tests the intellect of the same people as the question does below:
"How do you know that the refrigerator light really turns off when you close the door if you can't see inside the refrigerator?"
WayTooSerious (talk) 21:18, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, if you close the fridge slowly, you can see the light turning off. It's not like the bastards at GE were sitting in a conference room and said "Hey! Let's design the most engery-inefficient fridge in the world! It'll be hilarious! Just design it to turn off when almost closed, and then turn back on when completely closed! Great idea, huh, huh?" The answer to this question is also common sense. Also, you can easily replace a wall of the fridge with glass for the sake of experiment, close it and you'll see the light is off, the opacity of a material makes no difference in the laws of physics unless you have the mind of a drooling 4 year old. 168.103.126.103 (talk) 20:41, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Refrigerator 

message: I do believe this is completely made up.  I can find no one anywhere in the literature named Alexander T. Jackson.  For some one who is one of the "greatest minds of the 20th century" he doesn't seem to have written anything at all.  Therefore I will delete the Jackson portion of the reference.
BTW, George Berkeley didn't have anything to do with the question either.  
Finally, the "The Chautauquan" reference appears to be complete BS as well.  In short there is little value whatsoever in this piece.
Lukeorama (talk) 06:54, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alexander T. Jackson  

message: Reference number 5 now takes you to a "page not found" page. I'm not sure what the proper process is for remedying this is, so I'll leave it for someone else to do, but the dead link probably shouldn't be left on there.66.32.213.202 (talk) 09:17, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reference #5 

message: I would remove the Buddhist section, or at least the Tibetan part of it. It really doesn't address the (possible) Buddhist responses to this question. But in any case, it would depend very much on what Buddhist philosophical school was being discussed - whether Cittamatra or Madhyamaka (Prasangika or Svatantrika). Certainly the Cittamatra answer might be close to Berkeley's, as that school has often been compared to Western subjective idealism. But I suspect the Madhyamaka answer would be rather different. From that point of view (or at least the Prasangika version of that point of view), everything is essenceless, and all objects - whether mental or material - are conventionalities. So, in a certain sense, the Prasangika answer might be that the tree - given that both it and its sound are ultimately unfindable on analysis - doesn't make a sound even when there is someone around to hear it. 90.205.92.179 (talk) 22:16, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Buddhist section 

message: I removed the following content, it was written in the first person, which is innapropriate for an an encyclopedia and is original research 
“Even Disney World, if I say that it exists, independent of the fact that I have never seen, heard, felt, smelled or echo located it, never experienced it, that I 'know' it exists because I have heard tales of it, does not the Disney World exist then in my knowledge, in my perception, in my mind, just like a memory would exist in my mind?”
TimL • talk 04:41, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removal of content 

message: What does the caption ("This coosy with the proverbial question has raised deep philosophical questions about the existence of the Pope.") of this picture (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/If_a_tree_falls_in_the_forest.jpg) in the article have to do with this?  It doesn't even make sense.  How does that raise question of whether or not the Pope exists?  How is that question deep or philosophical?  And what is a "coosy?" 68.98.176.37 (talk) 22:58, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Picture Relevance 

message: Who?
Earcanal (talk) 14:20, 20 July 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Pamela Jackson. But nothing there indicating she's relevant enough to the subject for an unsupported quote. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:22, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pamela Jackson 

message: I can find no record of William Fossett nor a book called Natural States nor anything similar to this published in London in 1754--nothing appears in the British Library, Oxford's Bodleian Library, Harvard's library or the Library of Congress online catalogues for either the author or title. What is the source of the quotation??  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.67.118.123 (talk) 13:27, 16 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I was looking for the same thing and couldn't find anything either, nor any other references to this author except in a few sources that probably copied the information from this article. The material was inserted in July 2011 by User:Wembridge, who applied a further tweak as recently as 26 May 2015. This user (and their IP alter ego) seems to be concerned about the preservation of endangered species in England, based on a few constructive contributions, mainly on the articles on the European badger and European hedgehog, and shares the surname with a staff member of PTES. But I am afraid this insertion is a hoax.  --Lambiam 11:28, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

text: There is also no Fossett in the index of authors on Eighteenth-Century Book Tracker, and no results matched a title query there either. I've removed the paragraph as a precaution to more people copying disinformation from Wikipedia; if anyone manages to find a solid reference, it can easily be reinstated.  --Lambiam 09:10, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is William Fossett quote correct? 

message: In my opinion yes it does make a sound. Timothy McGuire (talk) 05:26, 9 March 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks Timothy 2A02:C7C:312A:F000:24D2:D084:6CF0:4741 (talk) 16:16, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  My opinion on this matter 

message: If the universe is a simulation, it would be entirely reasonable to optimize out events that don't directly impact the intended observers.  Right now, while I'm sitting in Los Angeles, the simulation needs to maintain the existence of Chicago and the overall state of any elements I've interacted with, but need not simulate the moment-to-moment and day-to-day minutiae.  The simulation needs to be updated only when an event occurs that would impact me - that I would hear about on the news, or that I would find out about from others - and even then it need only be updated when the information comes to me.  If I go to call a friend in Chicago, the simulation could roll some dice and say "sorry, that friend got hit by a truck last week", without having made that decision until that moment.  (And then of course it would have to back-fill news stories, et cetera, but since 99.9999% of the world's events don't ever affect me the optimization would still be substantial.)
In such a simulation, no, a tree falling in an uninhabited forest makes no sound.
But I have no idea whether anybody has ever written anything linking these two concepts, and so can't supply any encyclopedic text.
Jordan Brown (talk) 19:44, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: In fact, the tree hasn't even fallen until that event comes to my attention.  Heck, the tree doesn't even exist until it comes to my attention.  The fact that the Tunguska event flattened 80 million trees in the middle of Siberia is the only piece of information that the simulation currently needs to maintain; it doesn't need to record the individual trees until I somehow get more information. Jordan Brown (talk) 15:41, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Simulation 

message: The definition of sound (not to be confused with Definition of Sound):
* In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave, through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid.
* In human physiology and psychology, sound is the reception of such waves and their perception by the brain.
Like so many supposedly intractable questions in philosophy (the existence of free will, whether the chicken or the egg came first, etc), this really seems to be a problem of definitions (and more precisely, of people not defining their terms properly and then getting into an argument with someone using a different definition). Iapetus (talk) 09:46, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Definition of sound 

message: The paradox of a tree falling absent any observer could be compared to the equally paradoxical thought experiment called  Schrödinger's cat.  In the absence of an observer, the wave function need not collapse at all, ever.  The state of the tree, in addition to not being perceived, is also unknowable, in a deep, quantum-mechanical sense, until someone (supposedly a human) observes it.
From Wikipedia's page, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_function_collapse: 
"When an external agency (an observer, experimenter) measures the observable..., the wave function collapses...
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Gil Dawson (talk • contribs) 22:52, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Quantum Superposition Suggestion