#AC

This will be my contribution to this month‘s ‘‘Argument‘‘ Challenge.

In this blog I will try to give a valid argument trying to answer the question:

‘‘If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?‘‘.

The answer I will give here will probably not be what you expect however, because I am going to argue that it in fact does not make a sound. Read the blog before you judge however, you might be surprised.

Just to clarify, my argument will be very different from the ones which the 18th century anglo-irish philosopher George Berkeley (1685 - 1753) gave for why it does in fact not make a sound. I am mentioning this since people always associate this question and particularly this answer with Berkeley.

My argument here will go more in the direction of people like Ludwig Wittgenstein, aswell as certain discussions in contemporary ‘‘philosophy of color‘‘.

That said, now what will my definition of ‘‘sound‘‘ be for this argument?

Well you see, I can‘t start with that, because that is pretty much the very thing in question, if I started with that I would pretty much presuppose the answer to my very question.

My argument for why the tree falling when no one is around to hear it in fact does not make a sound is thus the following.

In what follows ‘‘P‘‘ will stand for ‘‘premise‘‘ and ‘‘C‘‘ will stand for ‘‘conclusion‘‘.

Argument:

P1) If there are 2 different conceptions of ‘‘sound‘‘, then only 1 of those 2 different conceptions of ‘‘sound’‘ can actually be ‘‘sound‘‘. (p -> q)

P2) There are 2 different conceptions of ‘‘sound‘‘. (p)

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C1) Therefore, only 1 of those 2 different conceptions of ‘‘sound‘‘ can actually be ‘‘sound‘‘. (q) (from (P1)(P2))

P3) If only 1 of those 2 different conceptions of ‘‘sound‘‘ can actually be ‘‘sound‘‘, then ‘‘sound‘‘ is either a physical phenomenon or a mental phenomenon. (q -> (r v s))

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C2) Therefore, ‘‘sound‘‘ is either a physical phenomenon or a mental phenomenon. (r v s) (from (C1)(P3))

P4) If ‘‘sound‘‘ is a physical phenomenon, then ‘‘sound‘‘ can not be heard by us. (r -> ~t)

P5) ‘‘Sound‘‘ can be heard by us. (t)

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C3) Therefore, ‘‘sound‘‘ is not a physical phenomenon. (~r) (from (P4)(P5))

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C4) Therefore, ‘‘sound‘‘ is a mental phenomenon. (s) (from (C2)(C3))

P6) If ‘‘sound‘‘ is a mental phenomenon, then a tree that falls in a forest where no one is around to hear it does not make a ‘‘sound‘‘. (s -> ~w)

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C5) Therefore, a tree that falls in a forest where no one is around to hear it does not make a ‘‘sound‘‘. (~w) (from (C4)(P6))

Explanation:

When we ask ourselves the question ‘‘What is

’sound‘?‘‘ then we do that because we are able to hear ‘‘sound‘‘ (at least the people who ask themselves that question). The ‘‘sound‘‘ we hear is necessarily a mental phenomenon however and not a physical phenomenon, because if it were a physical phenomenon we could not hear it. Objects can not hear, only subjects (humans, animals…) can hear, since only they have mental phenomena.

The mistake of the physicist is to confuse the question ‘‘What is ’sound‘?‘‘ with the question ‘‘How is it physically possible to hear ’sound‘?‘‘.

Pretty much no one would disagree that in the external world there exist ‘‘accustic waves‘‘ which are the ultimate reason why we hear the ‘‘sound‘‘ we do. The mistake however is to claim that the ‘‘accustic waves‘‘ themselves are the ’‘sound‘‘. They are not the ‘‘sound‘‘ itself, but only the reason we hear the ‘‘sound‘‘. If anything you could call ‘‘accustic waves‘‘ something like sound* (accustic waves), but sound* (accustic waves) is not the same as ‘‘sound‘‘. The reason we are even asking all of these questions to begin with is due to ‘‘sound‘‘, because we hear it (at least those of us who aren‘t deaf).

To confuse ‘‘sound‘‘ and sound* (accustic waves) is a conceptual confusion and a linguistic confusion.

When we ask the question ‘‘If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?‘‘ we are interested in ‘‘sound‘‘, not in sound* (accustive waves). To answer that a ‘‘sound‘‘ exists even when no one at all hears it is to go off-topic and to change the goalposts of the discussion, because that is not what we were talking about. It is a mistake that arises out of confusing ’‘sound‘‘ and sound* (accustic waves).

Some might say I am being pendantic right now or that I‘m purely talking about ‘‘semantics‘‘. I am however not talking purely about ‘‘semantics‘‘, since ‘‘sound‘‘ and sound* (accustic waves) are demonstrably not the same thing. To put it in aristotelian , sound* (accustic waves) is the ‘‘efficient cause‘‘ (causa efficiens) of ‘‘sound‘‘. Similarily to put it in kantian , sound* (accustic waves) is the very ‘‘condition of possibility‘‘ of ‘‘sound‘‘.

You could potentially go in a different direction than me on this issue and claim that the answer to the question ‘‘If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?‘‘ is a purely definitional issue, where the answer depends purely on how you define ‘‘sound‘‘. In that case you would turn the question into a sort of philosophical ‘‘pseudo-problem‘‘ however, not because the question can not be answered or is meaningless (which isn‘t the case), but because in that case it is not a genuine philosophical question at all, because you can answer it quite literally by choosing a specific definition of the term ‘‘sound‘‘ (as physical phenomenon or mental phenomenon).

This is the reason why I didn‘t define ‘‘sound‘‘ at the very beginning.

As always, I hope you liked this blog and feel free to share your opinion on it, if you want to.