Ontologically the notion of *appearance* is a silly (though time-saving) useful fiction. An observer apprehends a physical object. All acts of noticing or paying attention to inanimate objects, which lack the capacity (intention) to disclose themselves, are observational discoveries of the observer. The observer's experience of the encountered object is undergone as one of the observer's existential modes. An observer can either subjectively encounter an object, by chance, or by habit born of familiarity, or by seeking it out and deliberately confronting it. An insensate object does not intentionally disclose itself and decide to appear - it simply exists as it is, devoid of feeling, interest, consciousness and animation.

A sensate object may or may not purposely show itself or be accidentally revealed to others. Some living organisms may unconsciously modify their forms (a flower opening its petals or turning its leaves towards the stimulus of the sunlight etc.) The observer's evaluative physical response to the stimulative photonic bombardment of his or her retina is produced by the incoming quanta of electromagnetic energy as it impacts the eyeball and the appraisal of that neurologically processed energy into an image is engendered by the observing entity.

The observer's sensorium discerns and differentiates the incoming photonic quanta which has been reflected off the surface of the observed object as it arrives (appears) and is presented to the eyes. The brain compares it with templates of previously experienced phenomena.

To make this quite clear - the act of apprehending or comprehending that which is deliberately or unintentionally encountered, is a function of the visual and neurological apparatus and experience of the observer whilst he or she distinguishes the physical characteristics of the encountered object as arriving (detectable) photonic data. The abstract noun *appearance* is a reification of the experience undergone by he who encounters and senses - not of that which is encountered.

*Appearance* simply means the arrival at the eyeball of waves of the sun's electronswhich have bounced off the surface of objects and stimulated the human visual system. The arriving train can only appear at the railway station if there are humans to witness such an arrival. In most cases the perceived insensate object is no more involved in the matter of *appearance* than a tree being spattered with raindrops is intentionally
*engaged* in being rained upon. For the most part inanimate objects are subjectively exposed to such objects as raindrops or photons, whereas many animate objects seek to *harvest* the nourishment of sunlight or rain for purposes of survival or conatus, which is a natural tendency inherent in a body to thrive and develop itself.

When a man or an animal deliberately reveals itself (as from behind a curtain or a bush) the experience of the revealer is one of deliberately disclosing or showing itself with the object of being seen (as a parent animal drawing the attention of a predator to itself to save its young etc. ) If there were no observer or predator there to see a self-revealing object - there would be no (putative) *disclosure* or *appearance.

*Appearance* is a reification - a naive folk-entification of the experience or existential modality of he who encounters and senses some object.