Philosophy and technology

We've all heard the question posed, "If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, does it make a sound?"  I always thought it was a rather stupid question, the compression of air waves caused by a falling object makes sound, it's not really dependent upon a listener, particularly not a human listener as the question seems to imply. Today, however, I had a bit more appreciation for the philosophical nature of the question, which concerns the role of perception in creating reality.

I've been using an iPhone app called MapMyWalk to record my hikes. It tracks the distance, draws a map of the route using a GPS chip in the phone, and even tells you how many calories the exercise consumed. It's my favorite app, I like it a lot, and it gives me a great sense of accomplishment. Well, yesterday it didn't work properly. It was recording distance but it didn't draw the map properly. The result was so disappointing I couldn't bring myself to share it on Facebook. I went out hiking again today and the damn thing wouldn't work at all. I fiddled with it as I walked but finally gave up and just walked. It was a nice enough walk, but I definitely felt that I was missing something.

Based on the time, the terrain, and ground conditions, and the way I felt when it was over, I'm pretty confident we did at least five miles, but I've got nothing to show for it and no way to prove it. It seems less real somehow because it wasn't plotted, mapped, recorded, and shared on the borg-like collective consciousness we know as Facebook.

Mad Max was my hiking companion today and he didn't care that my phone wasn't working, except perhaps when I made him stop so I could mess with it. We covered a lot of ground and both came back pretty wet and muddy, but feeling good and tired. When I got home I downloaded an update to the app and it seems to be working normally now.  So all is well once again, although MapMyWalk has missed out about 10 miles of my hiking over the past two days. Still, I'm fairly confident that calories were burned in the process.