If a tree falls in the forest..you're gonna hate this one.

Imagine my name is Dylan, and I hone razors. Let's say I hone 10 razors per day, and I've been honing at that rate for 10 years. I have shave tested every razor that I've ever honed, and 99% of them passed the shave test on the first try and were deemed shave ready. I now sit down and hone your razor for you and, without testing it, I tell you that it is shave ready. Is it? Do I have justification to say that it is shave ready? Can it be proven that it is or is not shave ready without testing? What if 100% of my razors were shave ready on the first try? What if 50% were?

Falling tree = kinetic energy
kinetic energy + ground = movement stopped
movement stopped = energy dissipated as a wave in the ground and sound in the air

Yep, I study engineering :P

Then some will say: A noise is something that someone can hear.

Animals hear WAY better than we do. And if a tree fall, some birds will start flying around and small animals will run the other way, even if there is no human around.

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Originally Posted by holli4pirating

Imagine my name is Dylan?

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Shouldn't be too difficult ;)

Ok, so, you would have a working hypothesis that the razor is shave ready, based on all prior evidence.

Every time you hone a razor, that's basically what you form, that's what you take to the sink when you shave test it. Your hypothesis is either proved correct or incorrect.

In this scenario, there is a test. There is not one for the tree thing.

It's interesting, seeing as you mentioned you don't believe in relativism that your truth that the razor is or isn't shave ready, is relative to you. It does not mean it will be true for me.

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Originally Posted by gregs656

Shouldn't be too difficult ;)

Ok, so, you would have a working hypothesis that the razor is shave ready, based on all prior evidence.

Every time you hone a razor, that's basically what you form, that's what you take to the sink when you shave test it. Your hypothesis is either proved correct or incorrect.

In this scenario, there is a test. There is not one for the tree thing.

It's interesting, seeing as you mentioned you don't believe in relativism that your truth that the razor is or isn't shave ready, is relative to you. It does not mean it will be true for me.

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The fact that there is a test is irrelevant if you consider a scenario in which you do not apply the test.

As we all know, shave ready is a relative term - when I say a razor is shave ready, I mean that it meets my definition of shave ready. This holds, whether truth is relative or not.

So, am I justified or not? How many razors do I have to have honed, and what must my success ratio be for me to say that the next razor I hone will be shave ready on the first try? How many and what percent if I wanted to sell razors without testing them? How many and what percent for you to be willing to bet your life that my razor is shave ready? (Maybe higher/"real" stakes will change how someone views this.)

Sorry I'm here late and I did not read the entire thread, but I saw somebody say that depending on the observer, the activity (sound, energy, etc) both happens and doesn't happen.

Philosophically, the implications of the question are very Cartesian (remember, I think, therefore I am?).

Physically, on a small enough scale of observation, the implications are also Cartesian.

"Things" can both happen and not happen at the same time.

This may be a little bit off topic, but considering the nature of the question (does something happen if it is not observed, or blocked from observation, does it still happen), I would bring up the double-slit experiment.

Double-slit experiment - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Originally Posted by billyjeff2

Back in my college days I took a number of philosophy courses. One of the questions we studied had to do with the age old question of whether, if a tree falls in the forest and there's no one around to hear it, does it makes a noise? I ended up convinced it does not.
As my professor would say: "Care to discuss?"

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Ahh the old George Berkeley question..
reminds me of this:
YouTube - fresh prince in bel air, western philosophy

Sound is defined as :

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Vibrations transmitted through an elastic solid or a liquid or gas, with frequencies in the approximate range of 20 to 20,000 hertz, capable of being detected by human organs of hearing

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The free dictionary

I think sound is being confused with communication by some here. Communication requires someone to receive the message. Sound just needs to be capable of being heard (not heard necessarily). If a deaf man stands was standing close enough to the fallen tree to feel all the vibrations, but didn't hear it, does it not make a sound?

The fact that we observe something does not make it so, either. We see stars in the night sky every night that burned out millions of years ago (according to scientists). So, some of the stars no longer exist even though we "see" them... Human observance or nonobservance is not required for something to "really" happen.

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Originally Posted by Rawaz

Ahh the old George Berkeley question..
reminds me of this:
YouTube - fresh prince in bel air, western philosophy

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:roflmao:roflmao:roflmao How big is the tree ?

Just an observation. Interesting how the aim of western philosophy is to make you think yet Zen koans are designed to make you stop thinking :)

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Originally Posted by holli4pirating

The fact that there is a test is irrelevant if you consider a scenario in which you do not apply the test.

As we all know, shave ready is a relative term - when I say a razor is shave ready, I mean that it meets my definition of shave ready. This holds, whether truth is relative or not.

So, am I justified or not? How many razors do I have to have honed, and what must my success ratio be for me to say that the next razor I hone will be shave ready on the first try? How many and what percent if I wanted to sell razors without testing them? How many and what percent for you to be willing to bet your life that my razor is shave ready? (Maybe higher/"real" stakes will change how someone views this.)

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Right, it's kind of important that you do the test. If you don't do the test, you will never have all evidence to support or oppose your hypothesis.

Until you do the test, it's an educated guess. Now, I would say that, in many ways you are justified. I don't know about you but it's been a long time since I've put a razor to my face if I didn't think it would shave.

The rest would change from person to person. The important thing though, is the running hypothesis idea.

Also, if a definition is true for you, and not for me, it is not an absolute truth. It's relative.

To be honest, I have my doubts about the validity of the entire question... These philosophers are an insalubrious lot...

YouTube - Bruce's Philosophers Song

:D

The way the question is posed, there are three possible answers. Yes, it makes a noise, no it does not make a noise, and it neither makes nor does not make a noise. These seem to me to be conditional answers.

Given you take the question literally, the answer would be yes it makes a noise.

Given you take the question allegorically, the answer would be maybe yes, maybe no - depending on the underlying meaning you take from the question.

Given you are off with the fairies, your answer would be it neither makes nor does not make a noise.

We can discount the third answer as obviously coming from a crazy person. That leaves the first two choices. The answer "yes" appears in both the literal and allegorical cases. Further, the probability of a "yes" in the allegorical case is non-negative, although it may be small.

Therefore, integrating across both conditions, we clearly see that "yes" occurs more frequently than "no". In other words, the value of the answer that maximises the condition space imposed by the original question is "Yes".

Therefore, the answer to the question is most likely to be yes.

James.