Observation

I open my eyes and I observe. I tune my ears and I observe. I inhale deeply and I observe.

Observation is the collection of information about the outside world. For a human it involved the senses. Five senses bring information into the human mind – sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste. These senses determine how we perceive the world and what we can know about it. We are limited to what our senses tell us about the world. To a blind man there is no such thing as color. To the deaf there is no pitch or tone. Our five senses may tell us only a fraction of the characteristics of the world around us. When I look at a flower, I see color, I feel softness, I smell fragrance, and I taste plantiness. But, there may be much more to the flower than I can collect with these senses. The flow may contain chemicals that heal sickness, or cause sickness. They may have some relationship with the soil that I cannot determine through my senses. This means that we may be able to expand our knowledge of the flow by creating additional senses.

Research is the creation of new tools for observation. Research may add a sense that can look at a flower and see its chemical properties. They may be able to sense the collection and relationship with the soil. Research senses may understand how the flower works with the sun. Observation need not be only 5 senses. It can include hundreds (even thousands) of other sense tools. We devise each of these to collect data that our bodies cannot and to translate that information into a form that we can see, touch, smell, taste, or hear.

How do we determine which senses should be created for the flow? How do we guess that it might contain poison or medicine? I think there must be two ways. One is to deduce from observational clues. Observation hints that there are properties in the flower that we cannot see. So we contrive methods to extract those properties os that we can see them. This would be deduction … I think. Second, we may have conducted an experiment on a rock because the properties of the rock hinted at other properties in it. We may apply our rock experiments or senses to the flower just to see what happens. We have no hint that the rock experiment will be meaningful to flowers, but we do it anyway just to find out.

If there are properties of the flower that are hinted at, the first method will pursue them. If there are properties of the flower that are completely hidden from ours senses or observations, then the second method may lead us to stumble on them.

Of course the second method is very shot-in-the-dark. If we are lucky we may hit something. If we are not then we may miss a property and never know how close we were to something valuable, but completely hidden.

Observation must be linked with thinking. Experience is a fleeting experience. Without memory and thought, it is gone as soon as it happens. Memory captures the observation for later and repeated replay. Memory also gives us the ability to think about what we sensed. Notice that without memory, observation is sensing. What we call observation often includes understanding and recordkeeping. Memory makes that possible. Observation = sensing + memory + thought + curiosity. Or perhaps curiosity takes this to the step of thought and experiment.

What would we know about flowers without memory behind sensing? Nothing. What would be discover or pursue without memory? Nothing. Observation is more than sensing, it is remembering what was sensed and thinking about it. Observation is very active, not just passive.