If a tree falls in the forest and there is not one there, does it make a sound?
Here is an old paper I wrote that may help you alittle with forming a good theory and understanding your beliefs about what happens when a tree falls and no one is there. I wish you peace of mind from your dilemma.
Persistance and Resistance of Existence
by Sealhunter
Bertrand Russell’s “The Problems of Philosophy” is fifteen chapters and ninety six pages in the copy I have with introduction by John Skorupski. Fifteen chapters, ninety six pages consisting of arguments, ideas and theories that by books end had me question and still questioning everything I thought I knew. This little brown and white book with art (or possibly not art) on the front, which may actually not be brown and white if it exists at all, covers many topics from reality and knowledge, to the existence of matter and idealism. One theme is the existence of the external world. Is there an external world? How do I know? Are there any other people besides me? Am I laying in a bed somewhere, electrodes hooked up to my head and this world, my house, my dog, my wife, nothing more than sensory stimuli to make my last days on earth seem fulfilling?
Confused? Good. Now that we are on common ground, I’ll try and figure out if we both exist, or if you really don’t. Hope you’re still here at the end of the paper!
First there is a term that needs clarification. “Sense data” are things such as smell, texture, colour, taste and sound. According to Russell, sense data is what we are immediately aware of. Physical objects in themselves, according to Russell, do not have colour, texture, etc. These things are all perception and separate from the physical object itself. Since colour, shape, texture and so on are each of our individual perceptions, Russell accepts that they slightly vary from person to person. Russell believes the physical object actually creates the “sensory data” and that a cat, a house, a telephone are all sensory data of a physical object that we cannot validly be completely aware and do not themselves possess colour, smell, taste or texture. Russell’s reasoning and arguments continue from the stance that “sense data” is what we are immediately aware of. So if everything is just stimuli and perception, then how do we know anything exists?
Russell’s theory of “sense data” ultimately ends with the impossibility of knowing for sure that physical objects exist. So how can we know the unknown? Hmmm.
Induction! Good try, but no. Induction relates the examined A and the unexamined A with a degree of probability. Since “sense data” is all we have acquaintance (direct experience) with, not actual physical objects themselves, the induction idea doesn’t work, as we have never been acquainted with physical objects, just the sensory data. A perplexing thought soon comes to mind. If physical objects are never experienced, only sense data, then what happens when no one is there to perceive it? Does the object cease to exist? When I go to work, where does my house go? Russell says that because the inference that a chair does exist is the simplest explanation of what we experience and that we should accept it based on that it is the most acceptable explanation. Were the physical objects not to exist, then we could keep milk in the cupboard with little fear of it going sour; to keep ice in our drinks, simply lay down the glass and look away between sips. This simply doesn’t make sense. To say that they do exist, while we are not perceiving them, provides a likely explanation to our experiences.
At this point, I am ready to believe in “sense data” and that physical objects may or may not exist, and even if they do, they may be very different from our perception of them. While it sounds sensible, one statement by Russell really doesn’t work for me. In defending sense data he uses a reference to a table. In different words but making the same point, basically this is what Russell says: you see a table from across the room in low light and it is grey, yet I’m sat at that table at the same time and see it as blue.
The table can’t be both all blue and all grey at the same time, and since both claims are just as legitimate, the difference is perception. While this sounds acceptable at first, I quickly back peddle. What about standard conditions? If the table is blue in normal daylight at reasonable distance for perceiving colour, then I think the table is blue. Russell seems to say that someone who sees the table as grey is just as valid a claim and basically standard viewing conditions don’t exist. I disagree. While I am not ready to make claims and theories about what constitutes “standard viewing” conditions, I am ready to say that I do not believe that a person who wears dark sunglasses has just as valid a claim as to an objects perceived colour. Nor does a man wearing mittens have as valid a claim as I bare handed, to the texture of the table. A table has a different shape from different angles, but I believe if you asked a hundred people to draw a table on paper, they would all be pretty similar, and few would be drawn from angles that demonstrate a table as something other than a top with four legs. While a plain square with no legs also is an accurate drawing with a view from above, I don’t think this what most people would draw, and what most people would draw, I would call standard. I find Russell’s entire argument of the external world to have this type standard vs not standard affect on my belief.
From “standard viewing conditions” I do believe in Russell’s argument that the existence of physical objects can’t be proven but is the most simple, acceptable explanation. As I walk around the room however, and look at it from different angles, I’m not sure that I am completely convinced. I stand on the sofa and view it and I see how his own beliefs changed drastically by the time he wrote Existence of the External World. I get down off the sofa and turn the lights down and I see his idea of physical objects being made of whizzing atoms. Atoms being split, divided, then divided again, down to being actually nothing at all, just waves and charges. I then feel he’s claiming physical objects are something from nothing, and can’t accept that. By Russell’s own standards and his sceptic outlook, I must say that I am not convinced. There is no deductive argument in it therefore there is no truth in it for me. It might be the likely simple explanation, but before I revaluate what seems to be my natural instinct regarding physical objects, I’d like more than ‘it’s the simplest explanation”.
1. To convince means to bring by the use of argument or evidence to firm belief or a
course of action
2. Russell provides no evidence to convince
3. Russell’s argument attempts to convince by claiming “it is the simplest explanation”
4. The simplest explanation is often not the correct explanation
5. For me to have firm beliefs I require more than “the simplest explanation” in absence of evidence
Therefore, Russell has not convinced me of his theory of the external world.
As I finish this paper, I see me understanding Russell’s science of things, but preferring to part ways beyond that. I take the more pragmatic justification that my belief that the external world is real, has served me well, and will continue to serve me well, as long as I believe so. I’ll choose to accept that there is more to it, but not concentrate on that, and get on with my functional life. I believe physical objects exist. I believe they are big and hard, soft and yellow, prickly and smelly. My friends think they are too.
That’s good enough for me.
Demonical. It is impossible to "know" (depending on your definition of knowledge) whether a tree that falls in the forest without anyone there makes any sound. However, based on induction and inference, it is logical to say that it does, but not illogical to say it may not. It is logical to say that the sun will rise tomorrow, but how do we know. Based on experience? History, etc?
If we base it on history, then we say that the sun has risen every other morning, so it will rise tomorrow morning.
Basically, history repeats itself. Soon we are challenged though. The chicken in the barn for example. Every morning the farmer brings her food. Eventually the chicken knows that this morning the farmer will bring me food. One morning the farmer shows up with the axe...
Any assumptions about unexamined events, other than absolute truths Demonical, is nothing more than probabilty based on experience, employing a theory such as the "nature principle" or the "theory of Induction. If we have been witness to a tree falling in the forest, we expect that the same thing happens when we are not there. We can never provide proof that it does, only the most likely explanation that it does, based on the probability from the times we have witnessed it. Evne then it noting more than probable.
Again, good luck in figuring things out old friend
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rifle they would not have a problem with it.
