Yes. The broken being is laying there when I came upon it. I morned because I knew it had once been proud and tall and majestic. But then I saw the life that bloomed out of its death. The home it had become to numerous creatures. The plant life it had nourished out of its decay. It was still beautiful and majestic and proud. It's fall gave way to new life; rebirth. It sacrificed itself to create something new.

And it made a sound when it fell. A guttural death moan as it met the earth. The forest moaned at it's loss. Then the creatures made noise of rejoice as they received the trees solemn offering.

What a wonderful twist on an ancient philosophical question. But i have to say 'unspecific' nailed it.

The fact that the person is deaf and sees the tree fall answers the question. Impressive, since it took us thousands of years to answer the original.

Even in the original, being "witness to the vibrations" solves our conundrum.

When a tree falls, it never makes sound. That's what ears do. The tree merely makes sound waves. An ear is tasked with turning those waves into sound. If there is no ear, there is no sound being made.

But now i'm extremely interested in another question raised by our discourse: If a tree falls and no one sees it, who cares! :)

Yes, it would because logic dictates it to do so. Under the correct circumstances, the tree will give way and fall. As a metaphor, we humans are trees. We build ourselves up to become so high and mighty, but in reality, we're just subjects to natures. We spend years making ourselves stronger and sturdier. We dig our roots deeper and deeper into the ground where we were planted. Then, one day we either grow too old and rot, are chopped down, get burned up, or get struck by lightning, and then we fall, even if nobody is around to hear us. It's peculiar, isn't it?

The answer to this question lies within the question itself.

The tree fell in the forest. I would assume that if I myself tripped and fell, and no one heard me fall, the fact remains that I did trip and fall.

Hence, yes, the tree did indeed fall.

But, having said that, there is a school of thought that says if you put a cat inside a box, and close the box lid, then the cat can be in one of two states; alive or dead.

It follows then that an unobserved tree within an unobserved forest can be in one of many states; standing, fallen, alive, dead, healthy or diseased. Please, don't request I elucidate on this as I have a headache.

Or have I?