A Rational Cosmology: Sound as an Objective Relationship

Essay XLI

This is Essay XLI of Mr. Stolyarov's series, "A Rational Cosmology," which seeks to present objective, absolute, rationally grounded views of terms such as universe, matter, volume, space, time, motion, sound, light, forces, fields, and even the higher-order concepts of life, consciousness, and volition. See the index of all the essays in "A Rational Cosmology" here.

Classical physics has confirmed that phenomenon known as "sound" is made accessible to the human perception by means of electromagnetic waves. This, while true, is an empirical observation and rightfully belongs to the specific-observational sciences.

However, even had sound not been made manifest by means of such waves, rational cosmology's insights concerning this phenomenon would have nonetheless been the same ones as this treatise shall put forth. The core understanding of sound that cosmology presents must necessarily underlie all accurate specific-observational studies of this phenomenon, namely, that sound is a relationship among entities.

The wave nature of sound phenomena aside, there is another, far more fundamental and incontrovertible manner in which the fact that sound is a relationship can be identified.

First, sound requires entities to exhibit. There can be no melody without the instrument or electronic device (disk player, computer, stereo system, etc.) that emits it.

Moreover, sound requires entities to receive. There can be no melody without the vibrations in the eardrums of the listener who hears it. Indeed, the waves that the emitting device will induce in the surrounding air molecules will continue to exist, but, absent an interaction with the auditory apparatuses of human listeners, the requirements for producing the pitches that men describe as "sound" have not been met, as the sound waves must cause the human eardrum to vibrate and thus stimulate nerve signals to be sent into the brain so that the latter might interpret them as a melody.