Klarinet Archive - Posting 000241.txt from 2001/02

From: Bill Hausmann <bhausmann1@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Organs and combination tones
Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2001 22:15:15 -0500

At 07:57 PM 2/7/2001 -0500, Dee Hays wrote:
>I feel like a little philosophy tonight. When that tree falls in the
>forest, it generates a wave front in the air. That wave can be measured by
>a pressure sensitive device. That wave exists whether anyone is there or
>not. However, that is not sound. Sound occurs in the brain when our
>special pressure sensitive device called the ear translates that pressure
>energy into something the brain can process and assign meaning to.

Isn't this just a trifle egotistical? Or humanocentric? Suppose there is
a squirrel in the forest. Would it not be a sound when HE hears it? How
about a grasshopper? Or an ant? For that matter, a mushroom? And even
BEFORE we have assigned a meaning to some random sound (bump in the night,
etc.) it sure as heck was a sound, just an unidentified one.

>One might even compare it to radio. The radio waves, generated either
>naturally or artificially, exist whether or not we have a device to sense
>them. Just because you turn off your radio doesn't mean the local radio
>station stops transmitting it merely means that you have no way of sensing
>whether or not they are indeed still transmitting.

And even if EVERYBODY turns off their radios, the transmitting continues
(until they see the ratings, anyway :-) ).

Bill Hausmann bhausmann1@-----.com
451 Old Orchard Drive http://homepages.go.com/~zoot14/zoot14.html
Essexville, MI 48732 ICQ UIN 4862265

If you have to mic a saxophone, the rest of the band is TOO LOUD!

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