In Zen Buddhism, there are any number of puzzles which are essentially nonsense questions. Masters ask their students these questions in an attempt to give the students a puzzle sufficiently interesting and difficult that the student's mind will worry at it like a dog with a juicy bone, quietly turn itself off in the meantime/state-of-being-stumped, and in that moment, when their mind is off, they will achieve (however briefly) Enlightenment. The puzzles are called "koan", and the canonical example is "If a tree falls in a forest with no one to hear it, does it make a sound?". Evidence of 'understanding' a koan is realizing that the question it asks is predicated on something which is nonsense, and doing the appropriate end-run around the problem, á là the solution to the Gordian knot.
I'm not sure your example really qualifies as a koan, since it can be easily resolved by some questions of categorization. If "sound" means "pressure waves in air," then the answer is "yes." If "sound" means "pressure waves in air perceived by a living being," then the answer is "no."
"What is the sound of one hand clapping?" and "Show me the face that was yours before you were born" are more classical koans (although the latter might have to say "conceived" nowadays, what with the availability of ultrasound scans).
I usually consider that one in light of details of quantum mechanics; if there is no observer to detect changes in a system, then the system hasn't changed - the question becomes nonsense because, how does anyone know the tree fell? If no one observed the sound, are we sure it happened? etc.
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Date: 2007-06-26 12:22 am (UTC)The puzzles are called "koan", and the canonical example is "If a tree falls in a forest with no one to hear it, does it make a sound?". Evidence of 'understanding' a koan is realizing that the question it asks is predicated on something which is nonsense, and doing the appropriate end-run around the problem, á là the solution to the Gordian knot.
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Date: 2007-06-29 02:42 pm (UTC)"What is the sound of one hand clapping?" and "Show me the face that was yours before you were born" are more classical koans (although the latter might have to say "conceived" nowadays, what with the availability of ultrasound scans).
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Date: 2007-06-30 12:22 am (UTC)