Tuesday, December 13, 2011

If a tree falls in a forest and no-one hears it, does it make any sound?

It is a classical question to which I have been thinking for days now. Will it make a sound or not?

I am a science student and science says any two bodies which collide do make a sound due to the vibration caused whilst they were colliding. So yes! They do make do a sound.

But on the other hand the philosophical bent of my mind says it can be both yes or no. Yes as per science but no cause there is no one to prove it. Its true that the falling things make sound but how can we know for sure that this particular tree made a sound.

Thinking more and more about it, a point come to me. Till date whatever discovery science has made it has relied on man and his five senses. Whatever we see, hear, taste, feel and smell has been discovered or built. But does it mean that FACT which lies beyond the veil can be realized by these five senses? Can there be more to known things?

Searching on google, I found some exciting thing. FACT can be described in 3 ways:

1. Knowable
2. Unknowable
3. Never Knowable

This means that some fact is knowable such as we will always fall towards the ground, sugar is sweet, boiling water is hot etc. But there is some more fact which is knowable but yet to be found which is described by unknowable. Never knowable fact can never be known by realizing on our own 5 senses.

So coming back to the original question:

If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound?

My answer is simple it can be never known unless until we rely on our five senses. It is never knowable.

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