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

... things cannot exist-in-themselves without any reference to human beings.
That conclusion had been argued by Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason.

Read up Kant's CPR to get an idea of what he is talking about.

Not that I'm 'picking' on you (well yes I am; you're my arch nemesis here, but nonetheless), I just want to give you some advice. And to be fair to Kant, since you've already read up on it, you should probably show us that, by including an example from Kant to go along with what you're typing. You can even keep it short, something along the lines of: "of a noumenon... we can neither say that it is possible nor that it is impossible." or "noumena... have no assignable positive meaning."

Not that I'm 'picking' on you (well yes I am; you're my arch nemesis here, but nonetheless), I just want to give you some advice.
And to be fair to Kant, since you've already read up on it, you should probably show us that, by including an example from Kant to go along with what you're typing. You can even keep it short, something along the lines of: "of a noumenon... we can neither say that it is possible nor that it is impossible." or "noumena... have no assignable positive meaning."

See Post #108 above, thus is why I did not repeat.

The relevant chapter from the book, CPR

TRANSCENDENTAL DOCTRINE OF JUDGMENT
Book II(ANALYTIC OF PRINCIPLES)
CHAPTER III
THE GROUND OF THE DISTINCTION OF ALL OBJECTS IN GENERAL INTO PHENOMENA AND NOUMENA

"arch nemesis"?
No wonder I find your previous replies very unpleasant.
To acquire incremental knowledge effectively, you should
not incorporate any personal psychological feelings into
your psyche. That would be a win-lose approach for you.
If you find someone's post not to your liking, just ignore
it. There is no need to add any silly remarks.

See Post #108 above, thus is why I did not repeat.

"The concept of a noumenon is thus a merely limiting concept, the function of which is to curb the pretensions of sensibility; and it is therefore only of negative employment.
Kant - Critique of Pure Reason"


Ok, but where is he saying, "there's no such thing as a thing-in-itself" (just to be fair to Kant)? Could he be saying it is unknowable, escapes understanding? (That's what he's saying; It was a rhetorical question.)

Ofcourse, Tree falls and makes sound. But To you, it sounds like 'sound' only if you have an ear drum to respond to that vibration in the air. If you were not in the forest in the time it fell, you can think of it as it didn't make sound but it made sound, is truth because somebody was there in the forest and he heard it and for him, it made sound and that's truth to him because his ears heard it.

Uh...I think the question about the tree falling in the forest assumes that no human or animal was in the vicinity when the tree fell. If one believes the brain creates conscious experience, given that the "sound" is a subjective experience, in the absence of brains in the vicinity of the falling tree, the subjective experience of the sound of the tree falling does not exist. Thus, there is no sound when a tree falls in a forest if no one is there to hear it.

PG

See Post #108 above, thus is why I did not repeat.

"The concept of a noumenon is thus a merely limiting concept, the function of which is to curb the pretensions of sensibility; and it is therefore only of negative employment.
Kant - Critique of Pure Reason"


Ok, but where is he saying, "there's no such thing as a thing-in-itself" (just to be fair to Kant)? Could he be saying it is unknowable, escapes understanding? (That's what he's saying; It was a rhetorical question.)

Note sure if I had said
"there's no such thing as a thing-in-itself"

You quoted my statement,

... things cannot exist-in-themselves without any reference to human beings.
That conclusion had been argued by Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason.

Here is the extended point,

The concept of a noumenon is thus a merely limiting concept, the function of which is to curb the pretensions of sensibility; and it is therefore only of negative employment.
At the same time it is no arbitrary invention; it is bound up with the limitation of sensibility, though it cannot affirm anything positive beyond the field of sensibility.

The above singular paragraph is rhetorical and you would
need to read up the book to made a fair judgment on the point.

Maybe the question is, do all elements exist for sound to be made, when a tree falls in the woods? The answer is yes. All elements needed for sound to be created by the falling tree exist independent of human presence. So the results of the combined elements interacting with one another create ______. Humans call it sound. The fact that a human isn't present to describe the result of the event does not change the laws of nature.

Note sure if I had said
"there's no such thing as a thing-in-itself"

See Post #108 above.

The above singular paragraph is rhetorical and you wouldneed to read up the book to made a fair judgment on the point.

Here's a generous judgement of your reading of Kant: 4.5 out of 10.

Note sure if I had said
"there's no such thing as a thing-in-itself"

See Post #108 above.

I did not extended the point, but the general principle is always, there is no such thing as 'thing-in-itself without any reference to human beings'.

A thing-in-itself implied independence of human beings.

When when we say no thing-in-itself, it also imply, if there is any positive assertion of a thing-in-itself, then that thing-in-itself cannot be independent of human beings (sensibility).

This what Kant meant by negative and never positive in
terms of sensibility.[/quote]

What do you mean by 'they cannot be standalone things-in-themselves'? Even without human understanding of them, why would they not still exist-in-themselves?

That is what the whole issue boils down to, things cannot exist-in-themselves without any reference to human beings.
That conclusion had been argued by Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason.
Read up Kant's CPR to get an idea of what he is talking about. Btw, I am not going into the details of this, as it is too tedious.

The phrase, without any reference to human beings, is not merely confined to human understandings, concepts and thinking,
but cover a complex set of variables of the human self interacting interdependently with the 'external' environment.

This goes right back to my argument that things must exist-in-themselves without human beings, because some things predate man's existence. For example, if you spread the universe's timespan over a year (where the Big Bang occured at 12:01 AM, January 1st), we humans would only be in the last five seconds before midnight, on December 31st. If we are here because of natural selection, then the environment must exist-in-itself, because it predates us humans. This goes back to, as I said before, that if A causes B, or happens before B, then A must be able to exist without B. The exterior environment is A, we are B.

This goes right back to my argument that things must exist-in-themselves without human beings, because some things predate man's existence.
For example, if you spread the universe's timespan over a year (where the Big Bang occured at 12:01 AM, January 1st), we humans would only be in the last five seconds before midnight, on December 31st.
If we are here because of natural selection, then the environment must exist-in-itself, because it predates us humans. This goes back to, as I said before, that if A causes B, or happens before B, then A must be able to exist without B. The exterior environment is A, we are B.

This is an issue of 'retrojection' (past) and 'projection' (future) from the present with reference to human mental states.

I am sure you are familiar with the common sayings;
"Live this day as if it were your last. The past is over. [dead] and gone. The future is not guaranteed.” [mine]
“May the dreams of your past be the reality of your future”
Meaning, the past and future do not exist.

Philosophically, when you speak of the past, i.e. 'things predate humans', you are reviewing the past in your human memory and with reference to human being.
There is no past-in-itself or 'things predate human'-in-itself without any reference to human being(s).

Past (predating humans) and future is time-based and Kant had shown that time and space do not exist in-themselves but are always with reference to human beings.

Even when one can rationalize and conceptualize that 'things predate human', that conceptualization is inevitably made with reference to human beings.

Thus, whatever the reality, past, present or future, it is
always with reference to human beings.

This is more of a physics problem than a metaphysical one. Do we define sound as the presence of sound waves or the presence of a diaphragm to reverberate and a brain to process?

This is more of a physics problem than a metaphysical one. Do we define sound as the presence of sound waves or the presence of a diaphragm to reverberate and a brain to process?

The latter. You can't hear those vibrations in space because there is no gas to be vibrated. If there was gas, you would be able to hear it. Or water, or a wall to put your ear up to.

In other words, vibrations only turn into sound if someone is there to perceive it as sound.

So a deaf man screaming for help is not screaming if no one hears him?

Sound is traveling energy vibrations - If two people share a home and one is a hearing person and the other one is deaf, and there was a home invasion, the hearing person heard it but the deaf person did not - was there a sound????

Sound does not have to be heard to be sound - just like a tree (or anything else) does not have to be seen to exist.

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around does it make a sound? This a common sense question.

The intensity of the sound when heard of course depends on the quality of the receiver(s).