Talk:Phenomenon/Archives/2014

Images and captions

This is to notify readers that I plan to delete the image of a match and its caption, "The combustion of a match is an observable occurrence, or event, and therefore a phenomenon." An event can be non–observable. If a dental techinician is giving me an X-ray and over–exposes me, then a deadly event will have occurred and I will not have noticed. An event is not a phenomenon. A phenomenon is the mental image of an external object in the nervous system of an observing subject.Lestrade (talk) 22:32, 22 March 2009 (UTC)Lestrade

Are you addressing the scientific or the philosophical usage? Note that an event need not have been observed to be observable. -- Thinking of England (talk) 04:59, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

When an event is observed, it becomes a phenomenon that could be described to others for observation. ? Dpleibovitz (talk) 00:14, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

The second image (comparing a match burning on earth to one in microgravity) is captioned, "The same phenomenon is observed as appearing differently." I assumed that this must refer to the philosophical usage, but is it appropriate? It seems to imply that the two events differ only in perception, which is not the case here. -- Thinking of England (talk) 06:24, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

It's a candle -_- T3hZ10n (talk) 13:13, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

The problem with phenomena is what it is being attributed to. If we talk about the candle burning phenomenon, then the two images represent the same phenomenon. If we talk about the shape of the flame and its colouring, we are observing several different phenomena. One can then investigate the shape aspect, and separately, the colouring aspect, and whether the same explanation is responsible is irrelevant to the concept of phenomena. I think the candle image caption text should be changed. Dpleibovitz (talk) 00:14, 28 March 2014 (UTC)