What is an observation and how would you define it?

Answer 1

An observation is a clinical and objective look at an object, phenomenon, or event in which a conclusion is devised.

Example: I looks like a duck, it quacks like a duck, it flies and swims like a duck; it must be a duck.

Answer 2

Observation - The act or the faculty of observing or taking notice; the act of seeing, or of fixing the mind upon, anything.

The result of an act, or of acts, of observing; view; reflection; conclusion; judgment.

Hence: An expression of an opinion or judgment upon what one has observed; a remark.

Performance of what is prescribed; adherence in practice; observance.

The act of recognizing and noting some fact or occurrence in nature, as an aurora, a corona, or the structure of an animal.

Specifically, the act of measuring, with suitable instruments, some magnitude, as the time of an occultation, with a clock; the right ascension of a star, with a transit instrument and clock; the sun's altitude, or the distance of the moon from a star, with a sextant; the temperature, with a thermometer, etc

Answer 3

That's as broad a question as you can ask!

But...it is an attempt to contain, organise and unify various textual phenomena so as to affirm the identity of the self. That's a fairly obtuse way of putting it, but it doesn't really translate into 'ordinary' diction. If you want to see what I mean, perhaps read some deconstruction (Barthes, Derrida) and even look (though sceptically) at post-Lacanian psychoanalysis.

Sorry if that all sounds complicated, but it's not a question that invites an easy answer.

Answer 4

An observation is your minds analysis of a sensory input. Any attempt to define it further is futile.

Answer 5

This question is something which I had seen, which I had consciously noticed, therefore it is something I had observed.
Observation is the act of observing, or keeping consciously in view.