If a tree falls in the middle of a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? Cognitive psychologists would overwhelmingly resound "no"! For a sound to exist one would have to perceive it, and with no perception, there are only unsuspecting molecules being moved. The movement of said molecules could theoretically be perceived in any way. With sound being the sensation excited in the ear itself. If there are no ears or sort of input to take in the vibration of air, there is no sound.
While another argument deal with if an tree cannot exist without a being perceived, this does not not help with our problem at all, and we would not ever say that a particular tree behind us no longer exists because it is now outside our field of view. The falling tree existent or not, produces vibration of air.
Inundated with science-fiction, the first draft of this post was flooded with entries by Ray Bradbury.My preoccupation with his short stories are parallel with this young woman's love for him. This list, assembled in ascending order, are recommended short stories for you. Some come from renowned authors, others from pseudo-anonymous Internet authors. I hope you find them as fascinating, thought provoking, and impactful as I have. If you have any recommendations of your own, feel free to post them in the comments.
Ray Bradbury - Pillar of Fire - When his grave is disturbed, a man who died four centuries earlier rises from his tomb to infiltrate a utopia. On my own, I do not know if this story exists to serve any sort of metaphorical purpose. It is simply bad ass, and I daydream musical interpretations of it. Unable to find a file of it on the Internet, it is the second entry in Bradbury's science-fiction anthology S is for Space, and it follows an equally amazing story Chrysalis (reminiscent of Johnny Got His Gun, now come to think of it).
David Sedaris - The Santaland Diaries - Now a tradition for NPR's This
American Life to play every Christmas time, this story cannot be found
online, however audio transcripts read by Sedaris himself are plentiful. The actual text can be found in the back of Barrel Fever.
Ambrose Beirce - An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge - Made into a Twilight Zone
episode, this classic short story is set during the Civil War, where a
man is about to hang for being a Confederate sympathizer.
George Orwell - Shooting An Elephant - A metaphor for imperialism, Orwell's essay is an account of an experience he (probably) had while being stationed in Burma.
Ray Bradbury - The Pedestrian - Originally I wanted to post The Tonybee Convector, but I have a penchant for dystopias instead utopias. Perhaps the two stories belong together, as together they display Bradbury's love anddisdain of what the future could be.
A random entry from the ASSTR- The Alt.Sex.Stories Text Repository is an archive of virtually every adult
story posted on the Internet, dating back to the aforementioned Usenet
group, Alt.Sex.Stories. One cannot possibly imagine the bizarre "erotic"
fantasises posted here. To say that Freud would have had a field day here is a
gross understatement.
Many of the articles on this website would not have been possible without access to sholarly, peer reviewed journals. Being a university student makes journal access 1,000 times easier, as there are hundreds of walls set in place for sholarly journal access due to large bloodsucking publishing companies whom universities and colleges pay millions of dollars to a year. Open access can't come soon enough! In a year I'll be out on my ass, and my fortunate opportunity will have passed on by. I have compiled a short list of alternative ways to access scholarly journals without necessarily being a college student. Please comment if this proves helpful to you in any way, or if you know of an alternative method. /r/scholar - is probably the easiest way to access whatever you're looking for. It is a community of redditors who have journal access, and will find for you whatever journal article you need. If you currently have journal access, consider "paying in" to the system with the hope that others will do it for you in the future. If you are going to post there, read the guidelines on the right of the page. Get in touch with your nearest university library - My host institution has gratuitous requirements for obtaining a library card. This will grant you journal access in the library, and perhaps e-journal access. It may sometimes be possible to get journal access just by using the library's Internet to access the databases. This probably works best with public institutions.
Get in touch with your former university or college - Nazareth College was willing to set me up with my old .edu email address even though I transferred four years ago. Many schools will not let you keep your student email after graduation. I found that I was also able to use my library account. Although this may have been a fluke, it's worth the phone call. Directory of Open Access Journals - requires no membership or fees.
Your local library - has a list of databases you can access with a library card there, once again just a phone call away. They may get you copies of journal articles through inter-library loan if you cannot access the digital version of the article.
Google Scholar - Provides a search of scholarly literature, although is very limited in that it may only pull up certain pages of the journal article you are trying to read.
arxiv - is Cornell's open access archive of physics, mathematics, computer science, Biology, Finance and Statistics journal articles.
A piece of pop-science that you may be fammilar with (and irks me to no end) is this small snippet from Children of Men:
Besides Strawberry Cough, it seems as if this is the only part of the film anyone remembers. The statement is wrong essentially. Explosions and the ringing sounds are motifs throughout the film, and with an attitude, the viewer is given the impression that loud sounds will make it so that they will never hear certain frequencies again. Yes, the ringing in your ear means that the hair cells in your ears are breaking. No, you are not going deaf.
This piece of pop triva is usually passed on by the same people who in the same breath call the cochlea the "co-chell-a". It's co-clee-a"... not a California based music festival. These hair cells, which reside in the cochlea, break when exposed to loud sounds. They also break over time which is why every one in a while yo will hear a faint ringing in your ears, and the reason why the mosquito ringtone can exist. In such an instance, you will not ever hear that frequency again. However going to a concert will not damage your hearing long term, just for the next few days. Operating a jackhammer every day will. Studies reflecting this have been around since the eighties.
My psychology 100 textbook explained the issue like so: Imagine these hair cells as a carpet. Sometimes you walk on it, you place furniture on it, and you might rearrange the furniture for a day or so. All of this leaves imprints in the rug that go away fairly easy. However there will always be an impression of where a sofa had sat for a year or so, and over time the carpet will begin to age as well. You will always be able to see where that sofa was for so long, and it will never return to the original state. Such is the case with your cochelear hair cells.
Daniel Kish wears prosthetic eyeballs. Legally blind, he produces short, sharp clicks with his tongue in order to navigate. He can describe the architecture of buildings one thousand feet away, and describe the distance, size, shape and texture of objects without touching them by using echolocatio . He can dance, ride a bike and even roller blade.
By having two ears, we are able to have the same sort of depth perception that we have with vision. We also hear better than we see. This is why it is so easy to have certain three dimensional illusions. For example we can see a shape in three dimensions on a computer screen, but we will always know it is an image. Meanwhile you will never see a shape that is behind you, but you will hear it.
The processing of these clicks takes place partially in the visual cortex. It is typical that regions essential for visual processing take on new roles in the brains of blind subjects. After all a piece of folk psychology that we are all familiar with is that blind people have exceptional hearing. And while I want to write this off as an example of the marvelous plasticitic brain, the truth is also that blind people must practice this skill, because they rely on it so much more.
