Why does the Universe exist?

@Leadfoot
There's a car thread I just put up.

nothing has no form .

nothing can not change form , to existence .

because nothing has no dimension , breadth , time ( no ability towards movement) , no substance , no space , therefore no ability to change .

the Universe exists because it has all the attributes , of existence .

the Universe Exists , because it has dimension , breadth , time ( measure of movement ) , substance , space , therefore the ability to change .

The universe exists because humans are able to acknowledge it.

that's about awareness of the Universe.

So what when Humans were not aware of the Universe ?

42 is the answer

42 ?

Check numbephile...

Ah, you have answered the age old question. The tree does not make a sound if no one is there to hear it fall.

Why does the Universe exist?



Do you know why it exists because the super being that you chat with told you?

It certainly makes a shock wave go through the atmosphere with a specific wave length signature. Of course I agree there is no sound without hears and brain. But admitting to that is trivial if you accept the first more fundamental part is true.

I was just being sarcastic with CI's inferring that the universe depends on our perception.

But are you saying it does or it doesn't?

Why, of course!

Here's where I think we go off the rails and all our "answers" relative to this stuff are meaningless, hence why I said we cannot answer the question..

What you speak of isn't "an answer". Its negation. Its the presumed opposite of something. I say presumed because we don't even know if "nothing" exists, not the least of which is that we can't effectively define it probably because we don't know if its true or not.

On the surface level, we might think "nothing" exists as being the spaces in between "something". Yet there might yet still be "something" there. It is the same trouble we get into when we speak of eternity. It is a negation. A presumption. Our first clue should be that it doesn't make sense to our kind of intelligence. Our second clue should be the language, the words we use to explain it..

What is "No Time", what is "No Breadth". Why no time is lack of time and no breadth is lack of breadth!

That depends on what you mean by sound and how far "Berkeley" you are willing to go..

So, most materialists would say that there is indeed sound when a tree falls, but no noise..

Sound being the physical waves created from an objects vibration/movement; noise being the perceptual quality inherent in a percepters perceptual apparatus. Apparently there is no "law" that says sound waves must generate the perception of noise. In fact there are people ("synethesiacs") who literally hear light and see sound..

Others like Berkeley (an immaterialist) would argue that there isn't sound either without a percepter..

Sound waves sure do exist whatever the perceptor is doing he can be sleep for all I care. Now the perception of sound requires a subject unlike the sound waves which only require something making air pressure. A falling tree fits.

I yield to the far superior argument from CI

That's the problem with the question though, that it can be approached from different angles, and people argue past each other when they don't acknowledge that fact.

The phrase "sound waves" refer to those waves that are perceivable by a subject as sound. They are not sound waves if a subject cannot perceive them. They'd merely be waves propagated through a medium.

According to the Merriam Webster dictionary your above statement is incorrect:

From Merriams:
Sound Wave:
longitudinal pressure waves in any material medium regardless of whether they constitute audible sound <earthquake waves and ultrasonic waves are sometimes called sound waves>

I believe something that emits any pressure enough to cause a wave may be called the "sounding" medium. I learned this in physics and was told that this was the technical term for it.

Your point is taken if you think of them as you say, but the definition is different when the phrase "sounding" medium is used. Sounding in that context has nothing to do with our auditory perceptual apparatus, hence the idea that "sound" waves do in fact exist independent of a perceiver..


This second part is important as this doesn't account for the difference between light and sound waves. According to Merriam, sound waves = pressure, light, not so much?

It is my understanding that light and sound waves behave differently/have differing properties and so it seems to me that sound wouldn't be merely waves propagated through a medium without qualification since this by itself would make it indistinguishable from light. I think that "sound" when attached to "wave" is always physical but the reverse is not true, as it is for light..

Any physicists want to confirm?

You're right about that definition of the word "sound."

One of The American National Standard on Acoustical Terminology's definitions is similar:

"(a) Oscillation in pressure, stress, particle displacement, particle velocity, etc., propagated in a medium with internal forces (e.g., elastic or viscous), or the superposition of such propagated oscillation."

It's other definition reads:

"(b) Auditory sensation evoked by the oscillation described in (a)."

We're using the different definitions of the word "sound" especially in regard to the philosophical question, "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"

I think the assumption here is audible or perceivable sound.

Light waves are electromagnetic waves that propagate through a vacuum.