Does the tree make a sound if nobody’s listening?

If a tree falls in the forest when nobody is listening, does it make a sound?

No, it doesn’t.

The falling tree makes vibrations in the air. And they become sound if, and only if, there’s someone to hear it.

The sound emerges only when vibrations relate to a hearing apparatus and a brain that perceives them.

Sounds are not of the world. They exist only in the relationship between that which makes the sound and that which perceives it.

All perception is relational: seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting, smelling. The perceived cannot be separated from the perceiver. The perceived is in the relationship between two signals: that of a vibration and that of a brain that makes sense of it.

The other does not exist separate to me. The kind and unkind, the loving and unloving, the scary, the impressive, the formidable, the good and the bad are all in the relationship between who I am and what I’m perceiving.