yekke2: There are philosophical implications to the question – that are validated, in fact, by technical explanations of the phenomenon. Technically, sound waves needs to be processed by aural receptors before you can call it sound (because the waves that are in the air are actually changed by your ear, creating what you hear.) This ties into an issue that a large body of philosophy is concerned about – human perception and reality.
But really, unless you like them from the purely analytical perspective, such conundrums are best summed up as “the finding of bad reasons for what we believe upon instinct.”