From a scientific standpoint, it depends whether you consider sound to be the actual sound waves or only the perception of those waves by an ear. For the first, a definite yes. For the second, no (unless forest critters don't count as someone). Philosophically, there are many ways to answer. Personally, I see it as a metaphor for karma. Whatever someone or something does, it has results - even if no one observes it. Sound would be symbolic of the karmic results. It goes back to the moral question - "If I don't get caught, is it still wrong to do ______?" Well, if someone is asking themselves that question, the answer is likely to be "yes." Another parallel can be seen in a commonly used example from Chaos Theory - the "Butterfly Effect" - whereby the actions of a simple butterfly can (hypothetically) effect global weather patterns. Of course, this question is a Zen koan, and as such it is important not to take it too literally. The main purpose of such koans is not that we must figure out the "right" answer, but rather that we open our minds in the process.

Practical answer: yes, of course it does. Real answer: To assert without any reservation that it must requires absolute faith in pure naturalism and the current understanding of physics and related subjects. Could some peculiar circumstance arise that would negate or prevent the generation of sound through natural, technological or supernatural factors? Yes. To assert otherwise would be dogmatism, not objectivism. The fact is we can't prove something makes a sound unless there is some verifiable record or observation that it happened (and I suppose even that could be faked, mistaken or misread). Back to the practical: it is entirely reasonable to assume that it does make a sound. We live our lives every day assuming the operation of certain natural "laws" which dictate that it would.

If there is no ear to receive the sound waves,then there is no sound. A sound must be heard.

You're assuming that trees may, in fact, fall in the forest when no one is around - which hasn't been proven.

Sound waves affect the deaf, and light affects the blind. Physical events occur independently of our ability to interpret them through our five senses.

This all depends on what you mean by sound. If you define it as the sensation experienced by an organism when its eardrum, or other vibration sensing mechanism, is excited, then the answer is no. This relies on "no one" including all living organisms that may have a vibration sensing mechanism. If, on the other hand, you define sound as the vibration of air particals caused by an event, then the answer is yes. This is a question of semantics and not philosophy.

It doesn't matter.

yes. physics has proven it. A tree has massive potential energy, and it's fall converts it into kinetic energy. When the tree comes into contact with anything, say, the ground, that item is forced to absorb the energy of the impact, releasing heat and sound from friction and impact.

Of course! Not because there isn't anyone around doesn't mean sound wasn't produced. Sound does not need a pair of ears around in order to exist.

Of course not! If there's no one around to hear it, what's the point? Of course, by "no one" I'm including all animals, people, AND recording devices, so, in short, no. And if you'll buy that, I'll throw the Golden Gate in free.

Here's a real question, if a fat girl falls in the woods, do the trees laugh?

Sound only exists when there are ears to hear it with, if there are no ears, then there is no sound. This reminds me of the theory of Schroeder's Cat in Quantum Physics.

No it doesn't make a sound....it makes pressure waves in the air sure, but until those waves hit an ear and is converted into sound by the brain they will merely remain pressure waves. When someone sneeks up on you, you say, man you didn't even make a sound!! Well of course they didn't make a sound because the pressure waves never made it to your ear.

If a husband walks into the forest alone, is he still wrong?

um yes it does.

only if it wants to. The tree needs to feel that making sound will fulfill the trees destiny.

Yes it does but no one is there to hear it. Simple answer.

I would say: "A resounding, Yes!" Pun intended! (I hope you get it, and if you don't, then read it again s l o w l y!) :-)

Sure it does. It just scared the hell out of Schroedinger's cat!

Ah!!! one of lifes great questions.. but I would say.. Yes.. it's just that nobody would hear it..

If a tree falls, the fall would induce vibrations in the air as waves of sound. Yes, phyically there is sound! But no one can hear it. There's still sound though.

No, because it is only sound once the airwaves it produces hit your ear drum, and are then transmitted to your brain.

Yes...yes it does

By the definition of "noise", it does not. But it does make a sound.

Impact makes any kind of sound.

Duplicate question.

Yep, but there is no one to hear it. =]

Can't test this.So you can't give an answer.The universe can act so weird(by our standars)that it may be that it really dosen't.I love questions like this because it's a test of how smart vs. literral someone is.In McAllisters case.........You're thinking too hard man!Put some more up like this!It gets good discussions going.I'll try to find some.

the originality is killin' me. yes, it makes a sound

This question has no answer, because it was explicitely designed to have no answer. This is a Zen koan. Zen Buddhists attempt to achieve a state of perfect awareness in the present moment. Through Zen (literally meaning "meditation") they seek through mental discipline to quell the brain's egoistic desire to catagorize and analyze. They do no seek to live their lives in this state, they merely use it as an exercise to gain greater control over their thinking process in everyday life. The use of a koan, a question with no answer, has been an effective technique for them to achieve this goal.

Of course it does...it's the same as saying if you are at work and your cat is meowing it's head off...that it's not making a sound. Just because no one is around to hear it it will still make noise.

OF COURSE...."IF AN ANT FARTS BUT YOU CANT HEAR IT...DID HE REALLY PASS GAS???"

Yes it does make a sound. Sound is not cancelled because no one is there to hear it.

Yep.

If person A gets punched in the face by person B, and there is no other person C to actually witness it, how will we decide if person A deserved it.

Yes, because sound is caused by viberations. If a three fell it would certainly cause those viberations.

Yes.

If the forest was empty where did the tree come from?

Yes it would make the same noise whatever

Sound, by definition, needs a receptor, or someone/something to hear it. So there is no sound.

But sound is merely pressure waves traveling through a fluid(Air), so, yes, it does make a sound. However, more importantly, if a tree falls in a forrest and hits a mime, does anyone care?

I don't see why it wouldn't. Not like forests are sound proof.

Yes it does make a sound, except the first person to hear it wouldn't notice it, because it would be soo quiet, due to it being such a long distance away from them.

yes

This question is inconsistent, because it assumes that a world which doesn't produce sounds that are not heard would have trees that fall outside of perception. Perhaps the tree is seen from a distance? In any case, the intended question is really "Does the physical universe exist outside of our perceptions?" The world we perceive (the phenomenal world) is fully and consistently conceptualizeable in physical terms. If the nature of the universe is in fact not physical (so that the falling tree does not make a sound), this fact is epistemically inaccessible. However, the fact that the universe acts consistently enough that our theories of its operation are consistently corroborated makes them useful concepts even if they are, objectively speaking, false. They may or may not be objectively correct, but they are intersubjectively correct*. Theories which produce accurate predictions can become conceptual frameworks . If we refer to a 'sound wave' as a real thing, that is a valid concept even if there is no 'real' air to be vibrating: our concept merely refers to a different underlying numenon than we imagine. Our constructed world is consistent, and has a place for sound; so long as the universe continues to supply us with phenomena which support these constructions, sound is a valid concept. If we wish to make the application of these constructions completely valid, we must make our claims in terms of perceptions (that way they can be tested). Well, we are assuming we don't hear the sound of the tree - and sound is transient. But it could have effects, knocking dust around in a particular way or something recognizable. This would be indirect, yes. But if we saw the wave on an oscilloscope would we have really seen any more? What about hearing the sound directly? In all three cases have perceived that something affected the environment in a way which we characterize as 'sound'. Whether the universe actually had vibrating waves or filled in the details as we looked for them, the end effect upon us is the same. We could choose to call all of these effects sound. Essentially, we have information about what the noumenon can be, because whatever it is, is must be something which is capable of producing our perceptions. Any noumenon which could not cause our perceptions must be rejected. We are not a simulation run on a two-state Turing machine with a four-bit-long tape, because at any given moment we perceive more information than that entire system contains.

yes, and squirrels heard it I have no doubt

Yes, I think so?

Of course it makes a noise.

Just to advise, this is a duplicate question. :)

I think that a better question is this: If you leave a bar of soap in the woods, and nobody's around to use it, does it still retain its bubbly powers of cleansing? :p

The entire point of this Zen koan is that it does not have an answer. It's purpose is to divert you from dualistic, analytical thinking. To try to answer it is just plain pointless.

Just click on "Search For Answers" at the top of the page and type in your question. This way, you'll know if you're submitting a duplicate, which in this case, you are. I've submitted a few duplicates too, and was glad when I got the info on how to prevent it.

I've been told that technically it doesn't. My understanding is that the sound waves must bounce off the ear drum to truly produce a sound.

There is a soundwave as the tree falls, so if there is a device to record the sound, then someone can still hear it later...

well it makes noise..but is noise the same as sound? Does sound only exist if someone or something hears it? Since there would be birds or animals or insects, etc in the forest when the tree falls I would say that it makes both noise and sound because it is heard, even if what hears it isn't a human being.

also high frequency sound that is only able to be heard by dogs, etc is considered sound even though humans do not hear it...so wouldn't that mean a tree falling and nobody hearing it still makes a sound?

yes, of course it does.it makes sound waves wether a person is there or not.

I love this question. In fact it is a question that has been asked for decades. There are two ways to answer it. 1. Physically: the answer is 'yes'. "Sound" is pressure changes in air. Sound is measured by sound pressure level. Thus, when a tree falls it makes a sound because it causes changes of air pressure. 2. Psychologically : the answer is 'no'. Sounds needs to be translated into something meaningful. It needs an ear, a human auditory cortex, etc. I guess we can see that this is more of a philosophical question because we don't really know whether it's the physical that's more important than the psychological. It almost reminds me of the question "is there anybody there when you go to sleep". :)

Yes. A sound heard only by the birds and bees.

This question is actually a psychology question. The answer is No. There is no tree and there is no forest because there is noone there to preceive it to exist. Without perception, the world does not exist. Unless there is someone there to see a tree and realize that it is a tree, it's not a tree. A house is not a tree and a neighborhood is not a forest. In our mind, it is a tree falling in a forest...but to, say, a squirrel or a bird, it is a house that is falling in their neighborhood. So unless a person is there, there is no tree and there is no forest.

I think that you should change your name to timberland!!!!! Because that is what you would hear the sound of timber land!

I have always loved this question. Many users have shared their thoughts, stats, and otherwise senseless humor on this. I say yes it does make a sound regardless of whether or not there is an eardrum for the sound to bounce off of. http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/34517

Yes, not only when the tree impacts the earth, but also the 'woosh' that happens when the tree falling displaces the air and causes the sound.

well yes it does , and the bigger the tree, the louder the sound.

No. Only if there are ears to hear the sound. The fall creates vibrations not sound. The tymphanic membrane transfers these vibrations to the middle ear which registers what we know as sound. Without the ear, there is no sound.

regardless of nobody hearing it, it still makes a sound, in your question you implied it does

Timberrrrrrrrrrrrr

Not that I hear.

Yes, no matter what, whether anyone was around or you were just by yourself, it would make a huge thud !

If a man is shot in the middle of the woods, and no one is around to see him die, are there any witnesses? (code of the mafia)

Yes, the sound just simply cannot be heard.

Yes, its kinda similar, to if you were all alone, hundreds of miles away from people, and you yelled, would that make a sound. Yes, its just people cant hear it.

This is supposed to perplex and confuse us. It's supposed to be unanswerable. On one hand, it seems obvious that a tree falling in a forest with no one to hear it makes a sound. The tree-fall is just the same whether an observer is present or not. In cases where an observer is present, a tree-fall makes a sound. Removing the observer doesn't change the tree-fall. An observed tree-fall therefore involves a sound. On the other hand, there does seem to be a sense in which an unobserved tree-fall is silent. With no one present to hear the sound before it passes out of existence, it might as well not have happened. It's almost as though the tree-fall only creates a potential sound, which, if unobserved, never fully comes into being. I think that this riddle can be answered, that there is no need to be perplexed or confused by it. What the answer is depends on what is meant by the word "sound". Once we are clear on what we mean by "sound", we can say with confidence whether or not an unobserved tree-fall makes one. First, we might have a purely physical understanding of what a sound is. A sound is a pattern of vibrations in the air. It has wave form. It's a kind of purely physical event. Let's call this kind of sound a physical sound. Second, we might have a psychological understanding of what a sound is. A sound is an experience that we have. It is not vibrations in the air, but a creak, a crash or a thud, a mental event. Let's call this kind of sound a mental sound. An unobserved tree-fall clearly does make a physical sound. We can tell a story about how physical sounds come into being—events cause air to vibrate by pushing against it—and this story makes no mention of observers. Whether anyone observes an event, then, shouldn't effect whether or not it makes a sound. We can tell exactly the same story about an unobserved tree-fall creating a physical sound as we can about an observed tree-fall making a physical sound. In this sense of "sound", then, we have every reason to think that an unobserved tree-fall makes one. An unobserved tree-fall clearly does not make a mental sound. The story that we tell about how mental sounds come into being—vibrating air acts on the ear-drum which produces electrical stimuli which are presented to the mind as sounds—does involve the presence of an observer. If no observer is present at an event, then there will be no ear-drums or electrical signals and none of this will happen. No sound will come into being. In this sense of "sound", then, an event must be observed if it is to make a sound, and an unobserved tree-fall will be silent. What this draws our attention to is of far more interest, I think, than the riddle about trees falling unobserved in forests: the amount that we contribute to our experiences of the world. We encounter vibrations of air in the world, but these are presented to us as sounds (in the mental sense). We encounter patterns of light in the world, but these are presented to us as colours. The world in itself is not as we perceive it to be. Our brains 'make up' a significant proportion of our experiences. In a sense, then, trees falling in forests never make sounds, whether they are heard or not; when tree-falls are heard, the sounds are always made by the people who hear the tree falling.

No, it doesn't. It does indeed generate air waves that we would interpret as sound if a person was there. But, without an ear to interpret these waves, there is in fact no "sound", only waves.

It makes air vibrations, but if there are no ears/brains there to hear it, you might say not.

We now know that sound is vibration and can be measured without human sensory faculties - so Yes. However, it was a very provocative philosophical question for hundreds of years and can still be debated by ethereal metaphysicians.

Sure it does. The creation of sound has no dependance on anything perceiving that sound.

Yes. The sound waves still travel through the air, whether there is anyone to hear it or not.

Yeah why wouldn't it make a noise just because someone isn't there to hear it?

Since sound is the result of the compression of air as an object moves through it, then a tree moving through the air would create that compression whether someone was there or not.

It causes vibrations in the air waves, but if there's no ear apparatus connected to a brain to interpret it, you could argue that there's no "sound".

A sound is defined as physical vibrations transmitted through a medium. Under that definition, anything that causes such vibrations makes a sound, whether or not someone is present to perceive it. A "noise," on the other hand, is a subjective concept that requires someone to perceive it in order to judge it as noise or something else (such as music). That's the way I view this particular conundrum. However, I hold that there is an objective reality that exists whether or not we accede to it. That is by no means a universal belief.

I read your other question about the flower blooming, too. Nature is not dependent on human beings, human beings are dependent on Nature. It reminds me of the Shakespeare quote, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophies." So yes, Nature carries on, blooming and dying, in silence and sound, whether we wee humans witness it or not.

Yes it makes a sound. As ComplexlyKate pointed to, nature is not dependant on human assent, whim or presence to do what it does.

Yes. Where there is an atmosphere, anything hitting the ground with sufficient force will make a sound.

i have three answers the first is yes, as far as we know trees don't have minds, it makes a sound if it does have a mind then we have two answers if it is a smart tree, then it will assume that just because there doesn't seem to be anyone around doesn't mean it's not behind it. therefore it will make a sound anyway otherwise the humans might catch on the third is if it's a dumb tree than it will not make a sound because it will forget to. if trees had pain receptors then they would all scream when they fell

hmmm yes

Yes.

Not only does it make a noise but a survivor from lost will also try to shoot it.

I don't know. I wasn't there.

yes, because of the sound waves

Does a bear poop in the woods? Yes to both!

Of course it makes a sound. Some animal, some creature, some being is always around to 'hear' it. We as humans are not so almighty important that sound itself depends on our existence or presence.

ya...the soundwaves are created whether we are there or not...so it would have to make a sound...right?

If it's a wussy, softwood tree, yeah most probably

yes

obviously it does, otherwise you wouldnt ask this question. or would you? hmmmmm oh well it does cuz if it didnt then everything would be silent, like a fox haha.

I asked a deaf man this question and he educated me in sound waves and vibrations. He said he could not hear but could feel the vibrations of a tree falling there for that which sends vibration waves sends sound. So the answer is yes it does.

Yes, it does make a sound. We simply do not hear it becasue the sound waves don't reach our ear drums to vibrate them.

no one will ever know for sure