"If a Tree Falls in the Forest..."

I happened to chance upon a swan feeding in the surf at sunset. I was reminded

of the question "if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there, does it

make a sound..?" I was the only one to witness and photograph the swan, and to

experience the beauty of that particular moment...Does "beauty" only "exist" if

our eyes or our lenses are there to experience/record the moment?

Well, the 'noise' made by a tree is only a 'noise' if theres an eardrum there to vibrate and create the 'sound' our brain 'hears'. No eardrum, no 'noise'.

 

But as for 'beauty' - well thats way too subjective - another viewer present might hate swans and loathe sunsets. And not record it.

I think those things we name "swan" and "surf" and "sunset" exist regardless of whether we

are there to experience or record them. I think "beauty" is a human concept that wouldn't

exist without us. So, the "thing" that is beautiful does not depend for its existence on human

experience but its beauty does. And, of course, one person's "beautiful" sunset will be

another's awful end to another day.

John, sorry, you were writing your response while I was writing mine, so I repeated a small

part of what you had to say.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_interpretation

 

"In the Copenhagen interpretation, a system stops being a superposition of states and becomes either one or the other when an observation takes place." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger's_cat

Thats ok Fred.

 

However I did stop myself from going down the Quantum route but Geoff's off and running! This'll be an interesting thread....... :-)

A funny thing happened on the way to the forum. A philospher fell and the trees laughed.

Is your question; "Does beauty exist if there is no one there to interpret it as beautiful?"

First post didn't seem to work - must have the corollary, "If a response is typed in a forest and no one is there to submit it, does is get posted?"

 

Anyway, sound is a propagation of a mecahincal disturbance through a medium such as air, so as long as there is such a medium in that forest in which the tree falls there will be sound regardless of whether there is anyone to hear it. Hence sound intensity is a function of sound pressure level, a physical not psychological measurement.

 

Of course if ther is no person or other critter around the soudn won't be *heard*.

 

This is one of those old trick questions that hinges upon confusing the meanings of the physical sound and the associated percept, hearing.

Ellis Vener, "Is your question; 'Does beauty exist if there is no one there to interpret it as beautiful?'"

 

Nicely put.

 

The "tree falling" question leads directly to the Quantum discussion or the observer's roll in reality (IMO) - and as they say, "that's been done".

 

Ellis' phrasing seems more profound to me.

 

Is the answer just a trivial "yes"? (directly from "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder")...

"I was the only one to witness and photograph the swan, and to experience the beauty of that particular moment...Does "beauty" only "exist" if our eyes or our lenses are there to experience/record the moment?"

 

I was the only one to witness my full kitchen sink this morning, and to experience the beauty of that particular moment. Others present may not have been appropriately attuned to recognize the beauty.

 

Beauty can escape even witnesses.

"Does "beauty" only "exist" if our eyes or our lenses are there to experience/record the moment?"

 

What makes you think that your judgement of beauty is of any value? What makes you think that there are unalterable ideals and standards of beauty that make your question applicable across time and geography?

As a sololpsist, I regret to inform you that the swan etc. did not exist as I did not see them. Neither do you, sorry.

A sololipsist perhaps, but apparently not a spellellest.

As you will cease to exist when I stop thinking about you...there, done (solipsist it is)

There need not be "unalterable ideals and standards of beauty" for the question to make

sense. On the other hand, it's not a hard question to answer. Without a mind to perceive it,

there is no beauty, just as there is no color without eyes and brains to perceive it. There are

only different wavelengths and intensities of electromagnetic radiation. Color is a mental

phenomenon, as you can easily see when you consider that color perception is not constant

but varies with conditions. (Hence the need for tungsten filters to help us capture the colors

we thought we saw.) Beauty is also a mental phenomenon. Which is precisely why it can

never be subject to unalterable standards.

When I read this, I instantly thought of this...hope it helps

 

The Rhodora

 

In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes

 

I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods,

 

Spreading it's leafless blooms in a damp nook,

 

To please the desert and the sluggish brook.

 

The purple petals, fallen in the pool,

 

Made the black water with their beauty gay;

 

Here might the red bird come his plumes to cool

 

and court the flower that cheapens his array.

 

Rhodora! If the sages ask thee why

 

this charm is wasted on earth and sky

 

Tell them dear, that if eyes were made for seeing,

 

beauty is it's own excuse for being;

 

Why you were there, O rival of the rose

 

I never knew:

 

But in my simple ignorance I suppose

 

the self-same power that brought me there, brought you.

 

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nice poem Nicole. Thanks for sharing. In college, I would have been drunk and this would've been an interesting question. My attitude now is that everyone knows there are "swans & sunsets" or similar scenes all over the place that no one sees. If you want to label them as "unseen beautiful things" or "things that might have been considered beautiful had they been seen", it's just a matter of semantics. If you continue to think about this question, keep in mind that the swan saw the sunset and possibly its own reflection in the water. So it would have counted as beauty by either interpretation whether you were there or not. :)

 

Glad you got to see it and photograph it.

Vince, I think swans cannot conceive of beauty. I think "beauty" is a human formulation for

things that WE perceive in the world. With only a swan and a sunset there's no beauty, just

atoms and molecules in various formations.

I wouldn't be too smug about that swan's aesthetic capabilities. Have a look at a new book

by James and Carol Gould (he's a Princeton ecologist) called Animal Architects, which makes

clear that at least some birds (for instance, bowerbirds) have something like an aesthetic

sense. It requires mind to perceive beauty, but it doesn't necessarily have to be a human

mind.

 

On the other hand, the swan's concept of beauty might be entirely inaccessible to us. As

Wittgenstein said, "If a lion could speak. we would not understand him."

With the sound, no, but in the case of beauty, yes, since it's in the eye of the beholder.

You know what, I wish I could take credit for that poem but what can you say, I'll probably never come close to creating anything that compares with an Emerson poem.

 

It may sound funny, but this is a question that can move beyond just idea's of perception and even quantum thoery or physics but right on into the spiritual. Science can only deal with things quantifiable (honestly, everything else is just theory) but can't explain (and isnt meant to) the PURPOSE behind any of what we experience as "this world." Science can only tell us what nature DOES, it cannot tell us WHY. (i.e. where concience comes from, or faith or any other intangible emotion that cannot be measured. Why do elephants mourn? It doesnt improve their survival.)

So if you believe in God, it may be sensible to say "what is beautiful IS beautiful whether you were there to see/hear/touch or otherwise experience it or not."

Well, if you can travel faster than the speed of light with a really long lens, you can still photograph it! But hurry!

William, I didn't intend to be smug. That's why I said "I think" twice in the three sentences I

wrote. I try to be respectful of everyone's opinions and not to be dogmatic. It was intended

merely to be my opinion, with no particular attitude.

I'm sure I'll be much better looking in a photograph no one can see. ;-)