Photo credit: Matthias Zomer
by Daniel Fink, MD, Chair, The Quiet Coalition
Do we actually hear silence? That’s the title of a Scientific American article by Shayla Love. Love reports that researchers at Johns Hopkins University did an experiment to study if this is true. It was also reported in the respected National Academy of Science publication PNAS. The experiment showed that the human brain actively perceives silence just the way it perceives noise.
This is fascinating. Perhaps it is a scientific answer to the Buddhist koan, “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” But I think most people don’t want tomb-like silence. Whether when actually visiting a tomb, or in experimental sound-absorbing rooms, complete silence is difficult for many if not most. This essay from Denmark is fascinating. As the writer stated in the last sentence of her essay, “in the end, the silence was a little too loud for me.”
What people actually want is quiet, not silence. Quiet to hear the birds singing outside. Quiet in a restaurant to converse with others at the table. Quiet in public transportation so one does not have to turn up the volume of a personal listening device to deafening sound levels. Quiet in neighborhoods so people can read or watch television in peace, and sleep undisturbed at night.
That’s what The Quiet Coalition and our parent nonprofit, Quiet Communities, Inc. are working toward. I often conclude my blog posts, as I will in this one, with the tag line, “A quieter world will be a better and healthier world for all.”
