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

What is the meaning of meaning?

 

The world would exist even if no human was there to see it. What happens on Mars or Pluto daily for example, would happen whether anyone was watching it or not.

 

yes, it makes a sound, but no one hears it as no one is around to hear it

 

Yes, physics still works with or without our presence.

 

The outside observer would have to be outside of our space-time reality. The collapse of the waveform into a particle occurs in our reality. As I understand it, the particle cannot normally revert back to a waveform because it has become established as part of our objective physical reality. Therefore the outside observer is in effect a time traveler from our perspective, and access to our timelines is open in the domain outside of space-time.

Yet the wave must remain in an existence beyond ours if it retains multiple possible outcomes. Hence the notions of many worlds and the multiverse. All possible worlds exist in potential, but the multiverse consists only of the more probable ones that become actualized. Whether or not many worlds exist in fulfillment is a matter of resource issues. Maybe we'll know more if we figure out wherever some quarks are departing to and coming from.

For us, it has decided. There might be at least one other world where it has not yet fallen.

 

Well, he may have found a solution which appealed to him.

Cartesian doubt leads us to think this sort of thing is inherently unresolvable. Our understanding is bound by our senses. It's pretty hard to argue that our experience of the world is fully fabricated, but it's not too hard to argue that there are aspects of it which are invisible to us.

The entire post-modern movement basically rose out of that idea. Modernism told us that we could determine things unbiasedly, post-modernism told us that while that might technically/effectively be true, we will often fail, and it's basically impossible to predict whether we'll fail, even when we're done. For instance, you can rarely see your own biases. Being without bias might technically be possible (although most argue that it isn't), but how could you ever verify that that was the case?

 

Excellent analysis.

You are a great post modern philosopher.

I myself stick to the somewhat earlier modern Empiricists however. Life is easier that way.

Plus I throw in a taste of Romantic Philosophy in the guise of Aquinas.

 

Too much Einstein in this.

I did not like him very much, if at all.

He was right about E = Mc[2] but I don't trust much of anything else he hypothesized.

 

I completely agree.

 

I don't think there are any serious idealists left. There may have been some in Berkeley's time, and the argument may have been aimed at them (I haven't read the context) but the problem of subjectivity is, at least to me, the more interesting interpretation. It basically gives rise to both modernism and post-modernism.

 

I think every step in the history of ideas builds on the ones before. Modernism doesn't require you to believe that it's the last step of the line, nor does any idea before or after it (or maybe they do, but you probably shouldn't do that anyway). I just try to keep up to date with the history of ideas. In 50 years, I'm sure I'd be saying different things.

 

I believe that Philosophy is the most important concept that any of us ever learns and uses in our/their lives.

And I feel it must fit you like a comfortable shoe or boot. No one size fits all.

I love hearing other Philosophers' views, when they are well thought out, like yours are.

 

I agree with you.

However you must remember that American government is built upon the idealism of John Locke. So in some sense, Americans who believe in America are a bit brainwashed by the ideas of Locke, even though they have never heard of him, because they went to public schools all their lives. And so they are idealists.

 

I'm thinking more specifically about ontological idealism, the idea that things are true *because* they are perceived. Locke was to the best of my knowledge not one of those.

 

Science proved that Einstein was correct in suggesting that time runs slower at orbital altitudes, and he earned a Nobel prize for discovering the distinct quantity of energy carried by photons, but I think the expanded knowledge of quantum mechanics came later. Quarks are a modern discovery. [The mathematics-backed recognition of ten dimensions is also modern.] If Einstein bothers you, then you might also get indigestion from entanglement, quantum tunneling, and the realization of inherent nonlocality.

 

Science proves nothing.

Science is only a process of induction based on data gathered from observations with instruments.

Induction is not proof of anything.

You need to study more Philosophy.

 

Locke was revolutionary in that he proposed that ordinary men were equal to royalty and kings.

This was radical back in the 1700's.

 

I don't see what that has to do with ontological idealism.

 

OP

Set up a tape recorder and find out?

 

I don't know. Are pressure variations regarded as 'sounds', before they are heard by something? I have always thought that, unless they are heard, they are not sounds.

Also, the question uses the words "no one", implying personhood. I would think if an animal hears it, it would have made a sound just the same.

 

The ontological premise is not valid.

You/I could conceived of unicorns in our minds but that would not make them real.