Poll: Which are you willing to give up?
- Thread starter Astoria
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Smell. It's either smell or taste that are the least useful, and I rarely eat things I can't stand. However, if I lose my sense of smell then I can't smell all the bed smells... farts, pertol, BO etc.
It was a toss up between smell and taste for me. While I love food and I love savoring food, smell's just more useful.
I already don't have a sense of smell, but I DO have a sense of taste. Nevermind if you think that makes no sense. It is a fact of my life. So, my answer is smell, because I already have.
what he said.WolfThomas said:
the "five senses" really needs a revamping, since it was first proposed (i think) by Aristotle. pretty brilliant for ancient Greece, since they had no way to know that touch and hearing wear the same thing, or the same for smell and taste. actually pinning down the senses gets messy.
but i guess my answer would be taste. smell and taste serve the same purpose (keep me from eating rot and poop). but one requires i put it in my mouth. no thanks.
Taste is the only not related to spatial awareness, if I lost any others, I'd be less able to understand my surroundings, and besides, the tasted quality of food has far more to do than with flavor sensing. Texture, smell, presentation, etc. I could still enjoy food without taste.
taste. then i could eat like a frickin health machine without batting an eye (although alot of your taste is depicted from your sense of smell, so i dont think id be able to eat some things..)
but still, if i could i would purposely give away my sense of taste, its so useless (other than things tasting really good.)
but still, if i could i would purposely give away my sense of taste, its so useless (other than things tasting really good.)
Oh wow. This is a tough choice.
Um... I guess I would have to go with smell. I'd think that would be the least important sense for me as my nose is usually stuffy most of the time.
Um... I guess I would have to go with smell. I'd think that would be the least important sense for me as my nose is usually stuffy most of the time.
Hearing ... I'm a musically oriented person, and I use sound to diagnose various equipment or mechanical errors ... and find talking on the phone to people I haven't seen in a while quite evocative...
But if I have touch, then I can still pick up vibrations. I can feel my phone go off with a text message. I can still pick up the thrum of my engine through the steering wheel or bars (and pedals, and seat...), or just touch it ... maybe with a glove. I can make up glasses with a rather basic little pulsing EQ thing so I can pick up on loud noises I may not otherwise feel.
OK, the "hearing your way around a corner" thing kind of goes, I wouldn't get someone calling for help or trying to page me on the site walkie talkie, shouting a warning, etc, but I think we'd get by. If you have sight and touch you can muddle through without.
Besides I use earplugs for enough things. And it's high time I learned to sign and lipread, as I've been meaning to for years. Almost all visual media comes with captions ... well except youtube. But damn if google don't come up with an automatic captioner in the next couple years, along with their translator.
But damn would I have a hard time getting used to a loss of either olfactory sense, and they're about as vital for avoiding danger. I've spat out unexpectedly "off" food before, smelt something burning before I could see or hear it...
Second choice would be .... oooh now you're asking. Vision - as you can get devices that basically give you human sonar these days, from basic clickers upto fancy things that present a synthesised version of a camera feed (you may not get enough to drive with, even if you're highly synaesthesic, but walking around unaided wouldn't be out of the question), screen readers (and text message readers!) and the like? Smell, as I could then at least still get the taste clues that something's bad (misplaced sourness, bitterness, even sweetness...)? Taste, because if you're ultra careful with your food and are sure no-one's going to posion it/you won't accidentally try to drink antifreeze at some point it wouldn't actually be that necessary?
Touch would be a hard one. You'd become the most clumsy person in the world. And you can still get by without vision or sound, in a way, if you can feel your way through.
But if I have touch, then I can still pick up vibrations. I can feel my phone go off with a text message. I can still pick up the thrum of my engine through the steering wheel or bars (and pedals, and seat...), or just touch it ... maybe with a glove. I can make up glasses with a rather basic little pulsing EQ thing so I can pick up on loud noises I may not otherwise feel.
OK, the "hearing your way around a corner" thing kind of goes, I wouldn't get someone calling for help or trying to page me on the site walkie talkie, shouting a warning, etc, but I think we'd get by. If you have sight and touch you can muddle through without.
Besides I use earplugs for enough things. And it's high time I learned to sign and lipread, as I've been meaning to for years. Almost all visual media comes with captions ... well except youtube. But damn if google don't come up with an automatic captioner in the next couple years, along with their translator.
But damn would I have a hard time getting used to a loss of either olfactory sense, and they're about as vital for avoiding danger. I've spat out unexpectedly "off" food before, smelt something burning before I could see or hear it...
Second choice would be .... oooh now you're asking. Vision - as you can get devices that basically give you human sonar these days, from basic clickers upto fancy things that present a synthesised version of a camera feed (you may not get enough to drive with, even if you're highly synaesthesic, but walking around unaided wouldn't be out of the question), screen readers (and text message readers!) and the like? Smell, as I could then at least still get the taste clues that something's bad (misplaced sourness, bitterness, even sweetness...)? Taste, because if you're ultra careful with your food and are sure no-one's going to posion it/you won't accidentally try to drink antifreeze at some point it wouldn't actually be that necessary?
Touch would be a hard one. You'd become the most clumsy person in the world. And you can still get by without vision or sound, in a way, if you can feel your way through.
I've always wondered what it would be like to be blind. I, of course, don't want to be, but all the same for this kind of hypothetical exercise I'd say sight.
Yeah yeah, you can say taste/smell, but that's kind of cop-out in my mind. Why not just say you'd cut off your left pinky toe and save those senses instead? Eating meals that taste not better than a bowl of unflavored oatmeal for the rest of your life seems almost worse than losing a more primary sense.
Being blind though, and having all of your other senses highten as a result would be really revealing as to the type of person you really are. Having to use your hands and other sense to see; now that's hard to imagine. As would be picturing the world - I wonder how a blind person views the world in their mind, especially ones who've been blind since birth and never seen colors, trees, shapes, etc...other than in their minds eye.
Yeah yeah, you can say taste/smell, but that's kind of cop-out in my mind. Why not just say you'd cut off your left pinky toe and save those senses instead? Eating meals that taste not better than a bowl of unflavored oatmeal for the rest of your life seems almost worse than losing a more primary sense.
Being blind though, and having all of your other senses highten as a result would be really revealing as to the type of person you really are. Having to use your hands and other sense to see; now that's hard to imagine. As would be picturing the world - I wonder how a blind person views the world in their mind, especially ones who've been blind since birth and never seen colors, trees, shapes, etc...other than in their minds eye.