Folks around here don't handle ambiguity well, and are treating your comment like it's wrong, rather than basically correct except for a harmless conflation of an algorithm for something with the thing itself.
Ah well.
> sinusoidal frequency domain decomposition of sound waves is a key mechanical phenomenon exploited by our hearing system, leading to in effect a frequency domain transformation of the temporal pattern of compressions and rarefactions that we term sound. https://uncommondescent.com/video/hearing-the-cochlea-the-fr...
That one has a video.
Your case is roughly as incoherent as one which claims that a thrown ball does not perform Newtonian physics. It doesn't have to.
Now that we've disposed of the nonsense that cochlear response is not meaningfully modeled with Fourier analysis, interested parties might have fun with research into all the ways this model is not perfect. I've got a paper loaded in my reader claiming it's actually wavelet analysis, for when I have time and inclination to read it.
You are right. My apologies for the conflation.