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“If a tree falls in the forest and no one is present to hear it, does it make a sound? This clichéd question has been asked to death by philosophers and grade-school teachers, but it also reveals something critical about human experience and, in particular, how we experience and perceive emotion.
The common-sense answer to this riddle is yes, of course a falling tree makes a sound. If you and I were walking in the forest at the time, we would clearly hear the cracking of the wood, the rustling of the leaves, and the monstrous thud as the trunk slammed into the forest floor. It seems obvious that this sound would be present even if you and I were not.
The scientific answer to the riddle, however, is no. A falling tree itself makes no sound. Its descent merely creates vibrations in the air and the ground. These vibrations become sound only if something special is present to receive and translate them: say, an ear connected to a brain. Any mammalian ear will do nicely. The outer ear gathers changes in air pressure and focuses them on the eardrum, producing vibrations in the middle ear. These vibrations move fluid in the inner ear over little hairs that translate the pressure changes into electrical signals that are received by the brain. Without this special machinery, there is no sound, only air movement.
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A sound, therefore, is not an event that is detected in the world. It is an experience constructed when the world interacts with a body that detects changes in air pressure, and a brain that can make those changes meaningful.
Without a perceiver there is no sound, only physical reality.”

#HowEmotionsAreMade