blacksun
 dooooooooood I'm like soooooo high
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Reply 22 of 61 (Originally posted on: 05-12-07 12:34:38 PM)
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Quoted from anaemic_royalty:
Quote: To extrapolate from past evidence that trees in general make sound does not produce knowledge of this tree making sound. It makes it seem very likely that this tree will make sound, but it does not prove anything.
Sure maybe nothing can be absolutely 100% proved beyond any possible doubt, but reasoning like that is pointless, because it can be used for anything and there's not much to say about it.
It's like arguing that hey, santa clause COULD be real and the earth might be flat!
Like ety said, the point of this riddle is probably more like "if no one hears it, is it still a sound?".
I think the question is useful in establishing that it is impossible to know what is outside of human experience. Of course we all believe that the tree makes a sound, but nobody knows, even within the assumptions that our senses tell the truth and things actually exist. We simply do not have knowledge of this particular tree, beyond its existence.
The earth is directly observable as being approximately spherical. Under this reasoning, Santa Clause could be real, but the tree falling is a more artistic example.
The "if no one hears it, is it sound?" question is lame. Sound is often defined as mechanical vibrations through an elastic medium. The question doesn't specify whether animals are around to hear it, either. This is only a very small part of the question.
Quote: Even if we can't be sure whether anything we "know" is correct or not, or even whether the world exists at all, the methods we have come up with by using our scientific models have been shown to work, and have obviously been used with great success in all fields.
Therefore trusting in the power of science to be a useful instrument of making sense of the world is justified.
I agree. Science is often accurate, and the tree should make a sound - but science can only prove something through direct observation.
Quote: Yes, it makes a sound. Sound is just one of the many forms of energy released when an action takes place.
How do you know?
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