Well, if we're going to get all quantum about it, then what about the fact that making an observation changes the thing observed. So if a tree falls and nobody is around to hear it, then it makes a different sound than if someone was there.

Of course, who's to say that the tree even fell at all. I say it is both fallen and standing until someone walks in the forest and checks :)

Schroedinger's Tree? "Ex libris un peut de tout"

Well, then:
• If the act of observing changes the thing, then all observed things are not their true value or original state;
• If the act of observing changes the thing, then acting to observe a False thing makes it True? Acting to observe a Nothing makes it Something?
• Because one acts to observe whether something exists, and doesn't find it - then the observation destroyed it?
• If the observing act can be said (somehow) to conclude the thing didn't exist, doesn't the act of attempting to observe establish it's speculated existence to the degree that one tried very hard to observe it? It's there because we suspected/believed enough to try? (Observing Nothing Makes Something, and the Quality of the Something is organized by the attempt to observe it? (ala, Brin's "The Practice Effect"))
• Can the attempted observation of Nothing then Cause Something? Creation...
• Is an attempt to observe or understand or 'know' knowledge therefore destructive of the knowledge itself?
• Why haven't one of these tomes been written?
  • "Observation and Sensitive Dependence", or,
  • "Observation, the New Environmental Vector".
• egads

Therefore, refraining from observing preserves the Natural State and this becomes the new banner slogan for Greenies the world over?

The certainly always extensible speculation. lol

Just thought I'd come back and rattle old bones...

Bear in mind that the simple question is whether a sound is made...at all...regardless of the changes that may occur due to the presence of (or lack of) an observer.

Beer is not my thing...but then again, not much is now that I think about it.

======================
Sean Shrum
http://www.shrum.net

Ah, yes...the classic "In space, no one can hear you scream" tactic.

In the abscense of air, then, NO, the tree would not make any noise...which begs the question...

"What's a tree doing in a vaccum?"

======================
Sean Shrum
http://www.shrum.net

It's enjoying the peace and quiet, mate. No hoards of philosophers standing around it waiting for it to fall...

Socrates:     Go on - give it a push.
Wittgenstein: That'd be cheating - it's got to fall from Natural Force
+s.
Marx:         Let's all push together...
Aristotle:    Sod this - let's go down the pub instead.
[download]

All together now. "Aristotle Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle..."

:) Ben.