Can I film the police with no reason?

[shellsuit]

If someone with multiple personalities threatens to kill himself, is it considered a hostage situation?

 

[GingerBeerMan]

I can confirm that it does, I was sat in my office alone earlier and let a post lunch stinker rip. I love the smell of my own farts though.

Doesn't everyone like the smell of their own farts?

 

[PILTDOWN MAN]

Nope, a quick grab from Wiki says "sound is a mechanical wave that is an oscillation of pressure transmitted through a solid, liquid, or gas, composed of frequencies within the range of hearing and of a level sufficiently strong to be heard, or the sensation stimulated in organs of hearing by such vibrations.[1]"

Note it doesn't say "that is then heard" but strong enough. So the tree would create a sound because the oscillation would still be there.

I sort a agree with you, a deaf person can see sound as can we by standing to the front side of a large concert speaker you can physically see the sound waves.

 

[Aadam]

So being a translation of vibration. Is noise, sound? Tinnitus sufferers hear noise in their heads but do they hear sounds? Again when we dream we "hear". You could pass it off as just the imagination but could all sound be this. What you hear could be something completely different to me, our interpretation can be the same due to the way we learn from a young age. Its the same as attempting to describe colour to a person blind from birth.

When you talk in your head, is there sound? No. Tinnitus is the perception of a sound in the ear or head that isn't produced by an outside source. It's the same as when you dream. You don't hear, you think you hear, perception. There's a difference between the receptors in your brain translating a vibration into a recognisable sound that when presented to more than one person is the same, to you dreaming a sound, since you're the only one imagining that noise. Someone next to you wont hear the sound you're thinking or dreaming of.


We hear the same thing. It's not different. The same as sight, we all see the same (apart from the colour blind). It's not as subjective as some people believe.

 

[TheJasperCo]

Wrong.

Moving particles only become sound when there is an ear to receive them and transmit them to the brain to recognise it. The falling of the tree will ONLY produce vibration of the air. If there be no ears to hear, there will be no sound.

It's simple science.

'Fraid not. Sound is a form of energy, so whether or not there is someone in the area at the time makes no difference, the sound will still be there - just no one will be around to detect it. There may well be pigeons and deer and badgers in the forest that will pick up these vibrations as well, so there's got to be some sound there.

 

[Bold Seagull]

the sound will still be there - just no one will be around to detect it

Yes, you have kind of got it, but not quite prepared to make that final conceptual leap. Before any living creature existed that tree makes no sound, there is no such thing as sound because all the falling tree creates is vibrations and oscillations through air, liquid or solid. The energy is in the oscillations not the sound. These oscillations only become sound when heard by some kind of organ which processes the information in the brain, or a device that converts the information into an audible output.

Sound does not exist without the ability to hear. The oscillations and vibrations exist, but these are only sound when heard.

 

[Kalimantan Gull]

Yes, you have kind of got it, but not quite prepared to make that final conceptual leap. Before any living creature existed that tree makes no sound, there is no such thing as sound because all the falling tree creates is vibrations and oscillations through air, liquid or solid. The energy is in the oscillations not the sound. These oscillations only become sound when heard by some kind of organ which processes the information in the brain, or a device that converts the information into an audible output.

Sound does not exist without the ability to hear. The oscillations and vibrations exist, but these are only sound when heard.

hang on, a few posts above you "sound is a mechanical wave that is an oscillation of pressure transmitted through a solid, liquid, or gas, composed of frequencies within the range of hearing and of a level sufficiently strong to be heard, or the sensation stimulated in organs of hearing by such vibrations."

Therefore a sound doesn't have to be heard to be a sound

 

[Billy the Fish]

Disagree!

Complete absence of any ears will not stop the sound, as a microphone could still detect.

Any vibration of the air is sound - the ear is merely a mechanism to convert the vibration into a signal the brain can translate to "hear" the sound.
Bit like the arguemnet of a dog whistle - does it make a sound? Hell yeah, we [humans] just can't hear it.
And, just because you didn't see something, doesn't mean it didn't happen.

All we are lacking is proof / evidence.

It's not sound though. There is no such thing as sound, there is only an interpretation which our brain makes out of particle vibrtion. A tape recorder records particle vibation and the result is the sam - our brains still have to interpret it.

Also, it's been proved that particles have a level of consciousness and behave differently under human observation.

 

[TheJasperCo]

Yes, you have kind of got it, but not quite prepared to make that final conceptual leap. Before any living creature existed that tree makes no sound, there is no such thing as sound because all the falling tree creates is vibrations and oscillations through air, liquid or solid. The energy is in the oscillations not the sound. These oscillations only become sound when heard by some kind of organ which processes the information in the brain, or a device that converts the information into an audible output.

Sound does not exist without the ability to hear. The oscillations and vibrations exist, but these are only sound when heard.

OK, let's try this from another angle. Light and sound are both forms of energy that can be perceived by humans. Just because no humans are around, doesn't mean there is no light, and by extension, there must be sound present as well - if you catch my drift.

 

[Bold Seagull]

hang on, a few posts above you "sound is a mechanical wave that is an oscillation of pressure transmitted through a solid, liquid, or gas, composed of frequencies within the range of hearing and of a level sufficiently strong to be heard, or the sensation stimulated in organs of hearing by such vibrations."

Therefore a sound doesn't have to be heard to be a sound

'within the range of hearing' is the key point as I've said before. The points here are very subtle. In measurable terms inside our existence and knowledge, of course the falling tree makes a sound. We know how to measure sound, we know how it works, what frequencies create notes etc. etc.

But, at a fundamental physical level there is no sound when the tree falls. There is gravity, matter, vibrations, oscillations, but no sound. The sound is only known to exist because of our ability to hear. Without hearing there is no sound. When that tree actually falls it will only be sound when it hits something with the ability to take the energy in the oscillations and turn that information it into sound.

 

[Bold Seagull]

Without the ear, it is just vibration. You only know the dog whistle makes a sound due to the reaction of the dog. Without a dog it doesn't make a sound. Sound is therefore perception. Without perception, you cannot prove it exists.

Light is different as it travels in a wave-particle duality - i.e. photons exist whether someone is there to see them or not. Light is a universal truth, sound exists only because we perceive it.

Of course colour is a different matter, and like sound it is a perception. Light is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) which travels through space carrying radiant energy. Visible light from the EMR is what we are able to perceive. Without our eyes, green doesn't actually exist, it is simply a wavelength of the EMR.

Colour is basically matter the absorption all the other wavelengths of the EMR. A leaf is green because it has absorbed all other EMR wavelength frequencies of the visible light spectrum other than green which has bounced off. Black is the absorption of all light.

Like sound or smell, without our perception colour doesn't exist.

I've sort of answered that, but visible light is actually a small part of Electro Magnetic Radiation which is a form of energy emitted by charged particles. The important part here, is that EMR will travel in a vacuum at precisely the speed of light. It is a universal constant, it exists regardless of perception.

Our experience of our own visible part of EMR, i.e. what we see, is however what we perceive, hence my post on colour.

A sound is the translation of the vibration. A sound is only a sound when heard.

OK, let's try this from another angle. Light and sound are both forms of energy that can be perceived by humans. Just because no humans are around, doesn't mean there is no light, and by extension, there must be sound present as well - if you catch my drift.

See above.

 

[TheJasperCo]

See above.

Ah, there I was thinking I had a great argument all figured out, only to find that it's already been covered in a few posts which I missed. I haven't been won over, but it has made me think about it a lot more.

 

[Brownstuff]

Me and my mates got filmed/questioned and searched by old bill at Birmingham New St station before the Villa cup game
Refused to answer their questions as they wanted to know personal details like address/name etc and our intentions that day (none of their business)
They reckoned they had intelligence that people on the train were carrying weapons
Eventually told them what they wanted to know as it was getting stalement and was wasting valuable pub time but not happy as done nothing wrong neither acted suspiciously
Would've filmed the tossers and asked the same questions back if I'd have had a filming device at the time

 

[Kalimantan Gull]

'within the range of hearing' is the key point as I've said before. The points here are very subtle. In measurable terms inside our existence and knowledge, of course the falling tree makes a sound. We know how to measure sound, we know how it works, what frequencies create notes etc. etc.

But, at a fundamental physical level there is no sound when the tree falls. There is gravity, matter, vibrations, oscillations, but no sound. The sound is only known to exist because of our ability to hear. Without hearing there is no sound. When that tree actually falls it will only be sound when it hits something with the ability to take the energy in the oscillations and turn that information it into sound.

yeah, I think this is just a semantics argument. I would define those vibrations, oscillations etc. as sound, you define sound as our interpretation of those oscillations.

Anyway, who says the tree itself cannot interpret those oscillations as sound, in which case there is always something there to hear it!

 

[PILTDOWN MAN]

yeah, I think this is just a semantics argument. I would define those vibrations, oscillations etc. as sound, you define sound as our interpretation of those oscillations.

Anyway, who says the tree itself cannot interpret those oscillations as sound, in which case there is always something there to hear it!

Indeed

Plants may be able to 'hear' others

08 June 2012 by Michael Marshall
Magazine issue 2868. Subscribe and save
THEY can "smell" chemicals and respond to light, but can plants hear sounds? It seems chilli seeds can sense neighbouring plants even if those neighbours are sealed in a box, suggesting plants have a hitherto-unrecognised sense.

Plants are known to have many of the senses we do: they can sense changes in light level, "smell" chemicals in the air and "taste" them in the soil (New Scientist, 26 September 1998, p 24). They even have a sense of touch that detects buffeting from strong winds.

The most controversial claim is that plants can hear, an idea that dates back to the 19th century. Since then a few studies have suggested that plants respond to sound, prompting somewhat spurious suggestions that talking to plants can help them grow.

A team led by Monica Gagliano at the University of Western Australia in Crawley placed the seeds of chilli peppers (Capsicum annuum) into eight Petri dishes arranged in a circle around a potted sweet fennel plant (Foeniculum vulgare).

Sweet fennel releases chemicals into the air and soil that slow other plants' growth. In some set-ups the fennel was enclosed in a box, blocking its chemicals from reaching the seeds. Other experiments had the box, but no fennel plant inside. In each case, the entire set-up was sealed in a soundproof box to prevent outside signals from interfering.

As expected, chilli seeds exposed to the fennel germinated more slowly than when there was no fennel. The surprise came when the fennel was present but sealed away: those seeds sprouted fastest of all.

Gagliano repeated the experiment with 2400 chilli seeds in 15 boxes and consistently got the same result, suggesting the seeds were responding to a signal of some sort (PLoS One, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0037382). She believes this signal makes the chilli seeds anticipate the arrival of chemicals that slow their growth. In preparation, they undergo a growth spurt. The box surrounding the fennel would have blocked chemical signals, and Gagliano suggests sound may be involved.

In a separate experiment, chilli seeds growing next to a sealed-off chilli plant also consistently grew differently to seeds growing on their own, suggesting some form of signalling between the two.

Though the research is at an early stage, the results are worth pursuing, says Richard Karban of the University of California-Davis. They do suggest that plants have an as-yet-unidentified means of communication, he says, though it is not clear what that might be.

The key question is whether the boxes around the fennel plants really block all known signals, says Susan Dudley of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. She concedes that plants make faint noises when water columns in their stems are disrupted, and that hearing functions in much the same way as the sense of touch - which plants have - but wants to see the results replicated before she is convinced that plants can hear. The study, she says, comes as a challenge to botanists to either refute or confirm.

 

[beorhthelm]

Sound does not exist without the ability to hear. The oscillations and vibrations exist, but these are only sound when heard.

all well argued, but you're playing around with technical semantics. the mechanical wave is created whether something is able to perceive that wave or not. "sound" defines the perception, not the physics. the tree falling still makes the waves, and that isnt changed by the presence of a human or other perceptive creature. the question of tree falls making sound is existential, not about perception.

 

[Bold Seagull]

all well argued, but you're playing around with technical semantics. the mechanical wave is created whether something is able to perceive that wave or not. "sound" defines the perception, not the physics. the tree falling still makes the waves, and that isnt changed by the presence of a human or other perceptive creature. the question of tree falls making sound is existential, not about perception.

Existentialism is surely all about empiricism and perception, that's what the whole debate is about!

 

[beorhthelm]

Existentialism is surely all about empiricism and perception, that's what the whole debate is about!

hmmm, probably. i'm likly mis-using "existential" i dont mean it as the "-ism". the sound, the wave, exists regardless of whether it is perceived or not. the original tree falling question was asked in a time before we know what sound was or had proxy devices to record such events, questioning our knowledge of the world - how do we know that the tree made a sound. i know that a tree falling does make a sound when i'm not there.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

Refused to answer their questions as they wanted to know personal details like address/name etc and our intentions that day

If a question isn't answered, does it cease to be a question?

 

[StonehamPark]

If a question isn't answered, does it cease to be a question?

How does one truly define a question?