http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Cymatics

The idea that the science of sound only works if there is someone to listen to it sounds... excuse

the pun... odd to me. The way thunder is produced for example. Whether one listens or not the sound

will occur... after all one 'hears' sound when one is not listening for it... one becomes conscious

of it as it invades the senses, whether one likes it or not. So the tree falling in the forest will

make a sound regardless whether there is someone to note the sound... it is cause and effect and

is not dependent upon a listener or hearer.

For example one can remotely record the sound and the one can play it back. One may turn down the

volume, but the effects that cause the sound are still there and the sound waves can be viewed on a

monitor.

The word 'sound' is merely a tag to describe a climax to a series of events. That climax will occur

regardless of a receptor to acknowledge it.

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It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. Aristotle

You make it easy for me, JJ. Yes!

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"Before I speak, I have something important to say."Groucho Marx

So, Persniffe,
can you tell me,
if old Ukko really exists or not?

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I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.

intel wrote;
The Idealists got turned over by the materialist and realists but have made their return with the question, where are "you" (as opposed to your body), when asleep?
As I, me, myself, are the end result of years of programing by what I have seen, heard, learnt, analysed, memorised and deduced, all of which is stored in my brain, then my body is nothing without my brain.
To me the brain never sleeps,[oh, how I long for the days of my youth when a deep, pain free night of slumber came as regular as the sunrise].
If it were possible [probably desirable ] to get a brain transplant then my body would respond to all the experiences of the new brain.
I, as I am now, would cease to exist, assuming they discarded/destroyed 'my' brain.

When I am asleep, I am still in my entirety, my brain does not leave me, therefore 'I' am with my body, always.

When the alarm goes off in the morning I respond, I don't have to wait for 'me' to return from where ever. I would wake up instantly to the sound of a baby crying, a dog barking, a door slamming, etc.

Even my computer is an extension of 'me'. The list of favourites, the letters on file, the photographs, they are my thoughts, my memories, my personality. Just because I turn it of at night does not move the content,[I am sometimes of the opinion that gremlins do strange things to it in my absence, .]
If someone deletes all the information,etc. from the hard drive, then the computer would no longer reflect my 'personality', but, it would acquire that of it's new user.

As I am typing this, I can 'hear' my own thoughts. If I am reading a book, my mind registers the sounds of actions. Others cannot 'hear' what is in my mind. Can we therefore say that we 'can hear without making sound'.

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RULES ARE FOR THE OBEYENCE OF FOOLS AND FOR THE GUIDENCE OF WISE MEN

Geeman opined that sound only exists in the mind

Your no-challenge comment makes no sense to me and it mirrors comments in an article in Wikipedia.

Let’s carry this reasoning to its logical conclusion. You seem to be arguing that if a thing is not

perceived through the senses it does not exist… so what we observe through sight then is also only

there if we see it? For example a lightning rod is only in the mind if it is not observed? Visual

effects only exist if there is someone to see them? I think that is nuts… in fact an old chestnut.

It is like the facile argument that if there is no one to observe an event it does not happen. Or

that the trees in a forest only exist if someone is there to observe them.... or that we do not

really exist we only think we do.



If all humans perished at once sound would still exist… sound waves would complete their action

ending in sound and the trees in the forest would still exist.

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It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. Aristotle

This is Bishop Berkeley's fault largely. The fallacy lies in the assumption that something subjective (my perception of a tree for example) cannot also be objective ( an actual tree with or without a perceiver). It hasn't much to do with the tree in the forest which is just a differentiation between the definition of a noise and a sound- the latter requiring ears or similar. Berkeley's main agenda was to require a God
as necessary for our perception of the Universe. Odd as some of his views seem from our standpoint, they are no stranger than some modern cosmological theories such as Hugh Everett's many worlds theory.

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"Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon" Suzanne Ertz

I think someone has understood my question at last.
But still I await not our own personal opinions but some sort of "official" scientific source/consensus on whether vibrations only officially (or whatever the word) become sound if they strike an eardrum. I can see arguments both ways. But all of them seem to hang on how one blurs the meaning between "sound waves" and "sound".
I don't think light is a useful parallel as by definition, light is defined as a vibration. The parallel would be to "sound waves" which are also defined as vibration.
I think we have established several times that "sound waves" exist regardless of an observer. That restates the fact that vibrations/pressure waves of a certain frequency exist whether an observer is present.
I am still not convinced whether the technical definition of "sound" is only used when referring to an observer. So, has somebody got a grade 12 physics textbook around? I was hoping someone would look for a chapter heading in an accepted textbook entitled "Sound" and then tell me what the first paragraph says when defining it. Looks like I'll have to go to the library which, with all the cuts, is an inconsolable distance away.

Thank you pedro for saving my typing about the idealist fallacy.

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"The voice of the majority is no proof of justice." - Schiller

intelfam wrote:

Ray41 wrote:

intel wrote;

When I am asleep, I am still in my entirety, my brain does not leave me, therefore 'I' am with my body, always.

When the alarm goes off in the morning I respond, I don't have to wait for 'me' to return from where ever (Do you not? ). I would wake up instantly ( to be truthful Ray41, I am not convinced of that) to the sound of a baby crying, a dog barking, a door slamming, etc.

Thanks for the contribution Ray41 - it was only an aside really. And I apologise to you for sloppy language, using "I" "you" when I really meant was "Your conscious sense of self" or conscious self-awareness. What that (separate) question was about is the one troubling neurologists, your actual "sense of self" seems to disappear when you are asleep. It only appears when you wake. There is no person laying there saying "I am asleep" - that watcher is not around until you wake, however instantaneously. I guess, if this raises enough interest we should have a topic on the problem of consciousness - but it would probably run for ever.


I think that whether such a topic would run for ever or not would be the basis of another topic that would run forever

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"Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon" Suzanne Ertz

All I can glean from this is that in order for a person to experience any of the five senses they need 'receptor's'

In order to hear we need ears that work, my don't, industrial deafness, hearing aids assist but not that well. Therefore sound registers differently with me as compared to someone with perfect hearing.

Sight works the same way, needs receptors to convert waves so my brain forms a picture. A blind man cannot see the trees, but they are still there.

Smell needs receptors also, but, I know several people who have lost their sense of smell, but I can still smell odours.

Touch, again needs receptors, doesn't mean if it cannot be felt then it doesn't exist because I can feel things.

Taste works the same way as the other 4 senses. There is lady near us who cannot taste food. That does not mean there is no taste.

What I am trying to explain is, that all those five senses exist, they do need receptors/nerves to the brain to make them what 'we have decided to call them'.

Sound, for want of a different name, still exists. It is the end result of a process. Can a tree hear, see, taste, smell,touch, no, but all these are available to us because that is what we call the end result of the process which we have available to us.

Now that I have completely confused myself/painted myself into a corner so to speak, I am going to bed to see if my sense of self disappears.

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RULES ARE FOR THE OBEYENCE OF FOOLS AND FOR THE GUIDENCE OF WISE MEN

Ray,

That is a very logical way to describe the five senses. I shall remember that for another occasion.

There are devices out there to rid one of "nuisance" creatures in the yard by emitting sounds we humans can't hear. They illustrate them as graduating arches moving away from the machine out in the yard to "hit" the animals ear. We can't see it or hear it only the animal does.

There are whistles that one blows to call a dog that only a dog can hear, yet they come running.

Don't know if this help or means anything but it is what I thought of when I read this.


peace out, >^,,^<

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The poor object to being governed badly, whilst the rich object to being governed at all. G.K. Chesterton

Hmm. OK. I think you meant the comparison to WP as a jibe, but I honestly find it rather flattering.... It actually comes from my reading on cognitive psychology, which is, I imagine, where a lot of the WP stuff comes from as well--at least in terms of verbage. I don't know to which WP article you might be referring, but even though that site gets a lot of disrespect, I find it one of the more useful resources of the 21st century.

In any case, on to the response itself:


I am not arguing that if a thing is not perceived it does not exist. I'm arguing that perception is different from reality. The thing that leads to the perception does exist, but its form as perceived is the product of all the wetworks in our heads between perception and the thing itself. Sound is an internal process of the mind processed through the various aforementioned biological structures. Comprehending sound as external requires learning. That doesn't mean that the "primary effect" (sound waves in this case) that leads to the perception doesn't exist. Sound is the product of that primary effect.

This is born out by recent advances in technology. Blind and deaf people who have regained their sense (or had one artificially recreated for them) do not immediately see or hear. Their brains have not yet learned to process the new input into sense data. People who get implants often (later) describe the data that comes from the device as a sort of persistant, random buzzing. Soon that buzzing starts to take on particular characteristics. Those who have regained VISION do not have SIGHT. They must learn to use their vision in order to SEE.

Is this merely a matter of semantics? Sure, I guess it could easily be described that way and then discounted were someone so inclined. I don't think so little of semantics, though, so I have trouble seeing how that's much of a counter argument. What's more, I don't think we learn much from that assessment. There's no greater comprehension of reality in claiming terms are broader than they need be, and I don't think we learn anything about either the internal or external worlds from such a characterization.

Geeman wrote:

Just to clarify something here: The original question was "[D]oes the word "sound" require hearing?"

Several folks seem to have focused a bit more on the introduction and responded as if it were an existentialist question. That's not what the question was really going for.

Also, I don't really understand the apparent disdain for semantics. I've always found this a strange objection when it gets raised in public. "That's just semantics!" Semantics is the study of meaning in language. When people disregard semantics as somehow less valuable or not worthy of attention (on a dictionary discussion board...) I find that position untenable. Can't one respond with just as much value that the argument that something is "just semantics" (or something similar) is itself the product of semantics? I think it's even a rather poor semantic argument as it seems to employ a poor comprehension of the word "semantics" in the first place.

I agree with you, Geeman, but I must ask if you have identified any "semantic ambiguities" as such.

I am of the opinion that these play a big role in signifying alternative meanings to words chosen specifically because they have a particular appeal.

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Job 33:15 "In a dream, in a vision of the night, When deep sleep falls upon men, In slumberings upon the bed;" Theology 101 "If He doesn't know everything then He isn't God."

Dreamy I find it hard to take you seriously since your recent posts in which you claim

to converse with God on a daily basis and he speaks audibly to you. You also make the claims to have

visions and dreams from God.

Your attack on me through a post to Geeman is disingenuous and does you no favours but is in line with

your odd claims to have a special relationship with God. Show a little courage and make your point to the

one you are really directing yourself.

NB See the post 'Personal Conversations with God'

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It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. Aristotle

That seems to be somewhere near how I was thinking, Geeman you have clarified, where I have confused, the issue Thank you

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"The voice of the majority is no proof of justice." - Schiller

I haven't insisted on anything my friend. I asked for a definition from a physics textbook, if you read my posts.
I do not have access to a reliable physics text. I have, I freely confess, played devil's advocate where folk have made statements with no reference to reliable sources, but that is not "insisting".
I was not keen on relying on Wiki because some of the folk who edit do not use words in their strictest meanings. Also many, like yourself, make statements with no reference to source. Sound is a wave, of course it is. But, my OP does not question that. All acoustic vibrations are waves. Fortunately, Geeman, giving references, is making a more tenable argument for perception as playing a part in restricting sound to a particular range of the vibration spectrum. Please come off your high horse and help me with a reliable reference.

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"The voice of the majority is no proof of justice." - Schiller

Lest we all forget the title of this thread;

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/niggle

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"Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon" Suzanne Ertz