If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it,

Discuss any topics related to metaphysics (the philosophical study of the principles of reality) or epistemology (the philosophical study of knowledge) in this forum.
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If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

yes
129
66%
no
67
34%
 
Total votes: 196

Tfindlay
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Post by Tfindlay »

Belinda wrote:I think that the tree does not fall in the forest if there is nobody(bug, sparrow or human) to whom this would have any meaning.

The corollary of what I think about this is that without consciousnesses that make meanings, nothing happens.
I don't agree that without meaning there are no things or events. It is things and events that we make meaningful by embedding them in the context of our experiential and inherited history. Our consciousness has evolved from non-conscious processes.
Belinda wrote:
I'd go further though and say that vibrating air is a meaning and therefore presupposes consciousness.
Are you saying vibrating air has meaning even if no living thing experiences it? I can't agree with this. For the phenomenon of vibrating air to mean something it must be given meaning by a conscious organism experiencing it.
Flikissimekado
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Re: Sorry it's so long!

Post by Flikissimekado »

Mark wrote:
Flikissimekado wrote: If Schrödinger disagreed, but nobody was around to hear him, did he still have a point?
Can you, with this quote, prove that he didn't have a point?
Not from my position; on the contrary I was relying on your position to confirm without proof that he did in corroboration with my opposition. As I mentioned I'm fairly fond of flippancy...apropos of which, (though only on the superficial grounds of minor wordplay potential, whereafter I'm ingenuously interested in hearing more):
Tfindlay wrote:Meaning is that which makes a difference.
And the meaning of 'Meaning' doubly so; I reiterate a sincere interest and, given the lack of inflection as yet available in the medium of chatroom typeface, can only ask that you eschew any inference of belligerence in your reading. If it helps I sounds a little like a female Colin firth in full blither, or, If you're a fellow Brit, think Boris Johnson animating the body and mind of a liberal female brunette...my point, characteristically long-winded, is that I am essentially a cheerful chappy...ess...and my penchant for verbose nit-picking is not to be interpreted as in any way pugnacious. Anyway, to the point in hand:
How do acts that 'affect other things (like picking a flower or stepping on a stick and breaking it)' confer meaning on our lives? Are you attributing some cosmic order of consciousness to the natural world, wherein any act with physical consequences is inherently registered and therefore in some way meaningful? Or is it rather that the physical consequences of such acts, whilst not impacting on consciousness themselves, may be perceived after the event whereupon they become 'meaningful' (which here I would posit, erm, 'means' something different again; the fact of a broken twig's 'meaning' to one who finds it already broken seems to me to suggest the inductive powers of the finder before it bestows a more existential meaning on the breaker)?
In any case can we be certain that our external impact is the sole component of a meaningful existance? what about personal fulfilment? or a relationship with a hypothetical deity? or indeed the pursuit, shared or otherwise, of understanding or enlightenment? Many ritualistic/meditative practices implicitly concerned with 'meaningful' living involve some degree of isolated contemplation whether it is a week long spiritual retreat or a lifetime locked in silent conference with a perceived higher power...
Tfindlay
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Post by Tfindlay »

Flikissimekado wrote:
In any case can we be certain that our external impact is the sole component of a meaningful existance? what about personal fulfilment? or a relationship with a hypothetical deity? or indeed the pursuit, shared or otherwise, of understanding or enlightenment? Many ritualistic/meditative practices implicitly concerned with 'meaningful' living involve some degree of isolated contemplation whether it is a week long spiritual retreat or a lifetime locked in silent conference with a perceived higher power...
External impact is not the only kind of difference possible. The critical issue with meaning is that some conscious being must detect a degree of difference. The degree of difference is essentially a subjective experience relative the importance of the difference to the individual detecting it. If one believes one has grown psychologically, presumably this belief would ensue from the observation of differences in one's own attitudes, thoughts, and behaviors. In the end the significance of a perceived difference is fundamentally subjective.
Tfindlay
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Joined: August 31st, 2010, 9:33 pm

Post by Tfindlay »

Flikissimekado wrote:
In any case can we be certain that our external impact is the sole component of a meaningful existance? what about personal fulfilment? or a relationship with a hypothetical deity? or indeed the pursuit, shared or otherwise, of understanding or enlightenment? Many ritualistic/meditative practices implicitly concerned with 'meaningful' living involve some degree of isolated contemplation whether it is a week long spiritual retreat or a lifetime locked in silent conference with a perceived higher power...
External impact is not the only kind of difference possible. The critical issue with meaning is that some conscious being must detect a degree of difference. The degree of difference is essentially a subjective experience relative the importance of the difference to the individual detecting it. If one believes one has grown psychologically, presumably this belief would ensue from the observation of differences in one's own attitudes, thoughts, and behaviors. In the end the significance of a perceived difference is fundamentally subjective.
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Felix
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Post by Felix »

We covered the floor of said forest with a very thick layer of foam, then set up our exquisitely sensitive recording devices and left. Later we returned and checked our instruments. No sounds could be discerned. We therefore concluded that the tree made no sound when it fell. However, towards the end of the recording, we did hear a faint high-pitched scream, which we later determined was made by a species of butterfly native to that area.

We repeated the experiment and got the same results - no butterfly screams were heard in the second recording though.
"We do not see things as they are; we see things as we are." - Anaïs Nin
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Mark
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Re: Sorry it's so long!

Post by Mark »

Flikissimekado wrote:
Mark wrote: Can you, with this quote, prove that he didn't have a point?
Not from my position; on the contrary I was relying on your position to confirm without proof that he did in corroboration with my opposition. As I mentioned I'm fairly fond of flippancy...apropos of which, (though only on the superficial grounds of minor wordplay potential, whereafter I'm ingenuously interested in hearing more):
Why would I want to confirm, when my stand is not to discard? It seemed you were questioning my way of not discarding.
Belinda
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Post by Belinda »

Tfindlay wrote:
Belinda wrote:I think that the tree does not fall in the forest if there is nobody(bug, sparrow or human) to whom this would have any meaning.

The corollary of what I think about this is that without consciousnesses that make meanings, nothing happens.
I don't agree that without meaning there are no things or events. It is things and events that we make meaningful by embedding them in the context of our experiential and inherited history. Our consciousness has evolved from non-conscious processes.
Belinda wrote:
I'd go further though and say that vibrating air is a meaning and therefore presupposes consciousness.
Are you saying vibrating air has meaning even if no living thing experiences it? I can't agree with this. For the phenomenon of vibrating air to mean something it must be given meaning by a conscious organism experiencing it.
Tfindlay , about your first comment, how can things and events be discrete things and events without consciousness?Isn't it only by relating a **** to a (not a ***) that we can identify any thing or event? Therefore I submit that without God, as Berkeley claimed, there is no pre-established existence of any thing or event.

Some people, some pantheists, claim that God and nature are the same, being different names for pre-existing cosmos, but I am not that sort of pantheist. My claim about nature is that it is the sum of all past and future perceptions. Without perceptions there is no cosmos that we call 'nature', not as far as we know.We cannot know that there is any pre-existing cosmos that we call 'nature', because our concepts of nature are not absolute, but are relative to any given state of knowledge or reasoning.
Tfindlay wrote
For the phenomenon of vibrating air to mean something it must be given meaning by a conscious organism experiencing it
I agree. (My previous explanation I admit was unclear). With this, TFindlay seems to be agreeing with me that there is no what I call ' pre-existing cosmos' but that cosmos, to exist at all, requires consciousness.

Tfindlay replied to Flikissimekado
In the end the significance of a perceived difference is fundamentally subjective
.which is consistent with my position on the nature of existence.There is such a thing as social meanings though, which are mediated by language and other arts,and through arts of all sorts we can 'see' each others' meanings as well as we possibly can.I therefore think that art,understood as structures for social meanings, is the key to what religion can be at its best. Art is dynamic: religion is typically stuck in its own outworn doctrines, and religions should be like art, should be arts.

Flikissimekado wrote in reoply to Tfindlay
Are you attributing some cosmic order of consciousness to the natural world, wherein any act with physical consequences is inherently registered and therefore in some way meaningful? Or is it rather that the physical consequences of such acts, whilst not impacting on consciousness themselves, may be perceived after the event whereupon they become 'meaningful' (which here I would posit, erm, 'means' something different again; the fact of a broken twig's 'meaning' to one who finds it already broken seems to me to suggest the inductive powers of the finder before it bestows a more existential meaning on the breaker)?
I think Flikissimekado agrees with me that there is no pre-established, ordered, cosmos, but that ordered cosmos happens 'after the event'. But I go further and claim that there isn't' any event at all until consciousness has created an event out of that consciousness's previous memories plus its inherent categories such as time, space and causality.
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Tfindlay
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Post by Tfindlay »

Tfindlay , about your first comment, how can things and events be discrete things and events without consciousness?Isn't it only by relating a **** to a (not a ***) that we can identify any thing or event?
I see what you mean now. Yes, consciousness abstracts things and events out of the whole and there are no pre-existing independently existing things or events. However, IMO, for consciousness to be able to abstract things and events from the whole there needs to be organization (regularities) within a dynamic whole. Consciousness perceives patterns of dynamic organization existing within the whole. Consciousness does not create these patterns but is structured in such a way as to perceive them as things and events.
there is no what I call ' pre-existing cosmos' but that cosmos, to exist at all, requires consciousness.
I'm not entirely sure what you mean here. Do you mean that consciousness pre-exists and creates the cosmos or that consciousness creates concepts and ideas about the cosmos? My own position is that consciousness requires a nervous system.
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reflected_light
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Post by reflected_light »

What do you mean by cosmos Belinda?
I believe it is a scientifically accepted fact that we are made up of stars, which then must have pre-existed us, and any other forms of consciousness except perhaps that of 'God' (though I mention god because I cannot prove that such a consciousness does not exist and not because I believe it to).

So if there was no cosmos before consciousness, where did we come from?
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Felix
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Post by Felix »

"Do you mean that consciousness pre-exists and creates the cosmos or that consciousness creates concepts and ideas about the cosmos?"

Both may be true, there can be levels/degrees of consciousness, it need not be either/or. At the "highest" level of consciousness, conception and perception are synonymous.

"IMO, for consciousness to be able to abstract things and events from the whole there needs to be organization (regularities) within a dynamic whole. Consciousness perceives patterns of dynamic organization existing within the whole. Consciousness does not create these patterns but is structured in such a way as to perceive them as things and events."

Order and the awareness of order, can you have one without the other? Are they not, as the Taoists say, mutually arising?
"We do not see things as they are; we see things as we are." - Anaïs Nin
Tfindlay
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Post by Tfindlay »

Both may be true, there can be levels/degrees of consciousness, it need not be either/or.
How could consciousness pre-exist the cosmos. Isn't consciousness a product of neural processes?
At the "highest" level of consciousness, conception and perception are synonymous.
I suppose you could say that. It depends on how you define conception and perception. However, I would agree that there is no such thing as an immaculate perception.
Order and the awareness of order, can you have one without the other? Are they not, as the Taoists say, mutually arising?
Presumably, there was order in the universe before life and awareness came along. Actually, for awareness to arise there would need to be some sort of pre-existing dynamic order capable of evolving into organisms with awareness.
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Felix
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Post by Felix »

"How could consciousness pre-exist the cosmos. Isn't consciousness a product of neural processes?"

Well, in my mind, the term awareness is not synonymous with consciousness. There is awareness and there is self-awareness - actually degrees of self awareness. I was saying that awareness (however dim) could have always existed, it is not the product of evolution, although self awareness - increasing self-awareness - may be. Or conversely, awareness may be a devolution (step down) from self-awareness, as certain eastern philosophies suggest.

"I would agree that there is no such thing as an immaculate perception."

:lol:
"We do not see things as they are; we see things as we are." - Anaïs Nin
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Rajaroux
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Post by Rajaroux »

There is nothing real in our perception. Language is a gross interpretation, feelings more subtle. In language we reference past experience to communicate in generalities, a long way from the present. The eyes search for patterns recognisable against past visual input and is most often a long way from the present even when the input is only light speed time in the past. Sight is also way too busy to remain present. (If a photon of light fails to land on the retina, does it exist?). Hearing, the interpretation of vibration in the air by the consciousness, similarly is far from the present. Confusion arises when we identify with our perceptions, when we think the interpretation is real. The cosmos is. Our interpretation is only interpretation, but it also ‘is’, and part of the cosmos. Consciousness is made of cosmos, not something made of something not cosmos. So our presence is with consciousness itself, not the illusionary world of interpretation of objects.
If what we interpret as (WWIA) a tree, (WWIA) falls, it (WWIA etc.) causes air to vibrate. If we are nearby we interpret the vibrations and name them ‘tree falling sound’. Does the tree MAKE a (WWIA)sound for us to interpret or not interpret? Yes. This is not a question about whether our interpretation is happening or not, but seems to be because we are asked to imagine something having not been interpreted, so are held in the mind trying to objectify a nothing. This is a question whether the cosmos ‘is’, without interpretation. The answer is not in the imagery, nor is it in the story created by consciousness, but in consciousness itself included within cosmos, all parts of the bigger picture. The present, or ‘happenings’ are inevitable, interpreted or not.

If a man is talking in a forest and there is no woman to hear him, is he still wrong?
Enjoy what is before it isn't.
Tfindlay
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Joined: August 31st, 2010, 9:33 pm

Post by Tfindlay »

The answer is not in the imagery, nor is it in the story created by consciousness, but in consciousness itself included within cosmos, all parts of the bigger picture.
Agreed. Consciousness is not separate from that of which it is conscious.
Well, in my mind, the term awareness is not synonymous with consciousness. There is awareness and there is self-awareness - actually degrees of self awareness.
I agree with the distinction you make between awareness and consciousness. To me consciousness implies self-awareness as opposed to the type of awareness that a clam probably has. For this reason I would say that clam consciousness is an oxymoron but clam awareness makes sense. :wink:
Kookaracha
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Post by Kookaracha »

If the tree exists and falls then it must make sound. I take it that we are assuming that the tree did exist and that the discussion here is about whether or not sound was made.

Sound (large scale vibrating molecules in some physical medium - large scale because all molecules vibrate but not perceived as sound!) must be made whether or not there is a detection system such as ears or some other recording mechanism present. The perception of sound is related to the frequency distribution of those vibrations.

Sound does not require life to appreciate it to exist.
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