Some remarks about our ears

Grice discusses the five senses (and a few Martian others) in "Some remarks about the senses". I counted the remarks. They are 108.

About sound and hear, cfr. (courtesy of R. Paul)

In June 1883 in the magazine The Chautauquan, the question was put.

If a tree were to fall on an island where there were no human beings would there be any sound?

They then went on to answer the query with, No.

Sound is the sensation excited in the ear when the air or other medium is set in motion.

This seems to imply that the question is posed not from a philosophical viewpoint, but from a purely scientific one.

The magazine Scientific American corroborated the technical aspect of this question, while leaving out the philosophic side, a year later when they asked the question slightly reworded.

If a tree were to fall on an uninhabited island, would there be any sound?

And gave a more technical answer.

Sound is vibration, transmitted to our senses through the mechanism of the ear, and recognized as sound only at our nerve centers.

The falling of the tree or any other disturbance will produce vibration of the air.

If there be no ears to hear, there will be no sound.

Or not.

In this this contrast with 'eye':

"If there was an explosion in the sky but no eyes to see it, would it still be an explosion?", etc.

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"If the tea was sour, since it had no sugar, but nobody tasted", would it still be bitter?

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"If she fart*ed, but she was dead-asleep", does that count as one?

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For each of the five senses, a similar conundrum can be devised. Or not.