Absolute Certainty

Originally posted by sonhouse
Can you show me a situation where two trees fall against one another for whatever reason, that at the time of impact, there would NOT be a generation of pressure waves? That could and would happen on the moon for instance, but if two masses collide even at absolute zero, and there was an atmosphere of ANYTHING gaseous, tell me of any scenario where a pressu ...[text shortened]... n boils down to 'if there is no CONSCIOUSNESS in the forest and a tree falls, is there a sound?'

The point here was that it takes an instrument to verify the existence of the noise, just as an instrument is required to conceive.
We don't have an automated concept machine, we have minds.
Concepts are not produced and contemplated except by minds.

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
The point here was that it takes an instrument to verify the existence of the noise, just as an instrument is required to conceive.
We don't have an automated concept machine, we have minds.
Concepts are not produced and contemplated except by minds.

It takes an instrument to detect or measure the 'noise'.

However the question as asked was whether a noise was created, not if it was detected.

And as I said, assuming that you define noise the way specified, yes a falling tree makes a noise.

We know this because the laws of physics are observed and massively verified to be the same
everywhere to within a huge degree of accuracy.

As such, we can use our knowledge of the physics of the situation to know without a shadow of
a doubt that a falling tree generates sound.

Whether or not anyone is around to hear it.

Originally posted by googlefudge
It takes an instrument to detect or measure the 'noise'.

However the question as asked was whether a noise was created, not if it was detected.

And as I said, assuming that you define noise the way specified, yes a falling tree makes a noise.

We know this because the laws of physics are observed and massively verified to be the same
everywhere ...[text shortened]... of
a doubt that a falling tree generates sound.

Whether or not anyone is around to hear it.

Without a way to detect it, how would you know the noise was effected?
The answer is: you cannot.

Your claim for the laws of physics being observed and massively verfied do nothing to help your claim: the observation and massive verification are all instrument (man, machine or both) dependent.

You are unable to point to a SINGLE instance in which an event occured which was not observed and/or verified by an instrutment of some kind.

Ever.