vix86 wrote:
I think maybe you misunderstood my statement. I am not really saying anything about human vs other animals, but I think you know that. Within the context of my post though, where I was explaining differences, in those things humans do differ between each other. Yes, every human has the same set of organs, but when you start getting down to stuff like the concentration of neuron receptors in the hand or other parts of the body, the concentration of taste buds, etc. These are differences that are occurring between humans due to changing genetics.
Ah, yeah, I mentioned animals because it touched on my issue with the vegetarian moral mindset I was talking about a few pages back. The whole "Do animals feel pain?" thing.
Really? How would we know if someone see's red as being redder? In fact lets step and use something you just said. If you saw Red as Blue while everyone was seeing it the right way, how would know? I mean, you've grown up experiencing the world where the sky is red and apples are blue, to you this is all you have known and this is what you believe the world is. Theres no way you can pull your brain out of your body and stick it into another body and double check that you really are seeing things exactly the same. Eventually someone might realize that something is amiss when you're color selection seems a bit off. You are picking things that match with that you're red, but its blue for everyone else. Likewise the colors that other people pick to match with blue would seem off to you. You could go your entire life without realizing this because people just think you are eccentric. Hell people can go their whole life without realizing they are color blind. So unless you had special glasses to swap the colors your saw, you're experience of the world would always be 'handicapped.' But how does this tie into veggies?...
The color analogy has two directions. Either everything about colors is switched, so that not only do I see red as blue, I also see blue as the "danger/anger" color, and I associate it with blood, and due to all of this, my appreciation of art and everything else remains unchanged compared to someone who sees those qualities in red. In that case, the difference is only semantic - it can be said that our color experience is reversed, but while technically true, it doesn't change anything at all. It isn't detectable because it has no actual effect. The difference might as well be in a meteor flying in space where it's written "human A sees red, human B sees blue" - same level of effect, same level of provability (provided we can't track down the asteroid and it doesn't crash on Earth). This is my response to a "how can you talk about my experiences" statement - it may be that your experiences are different, but if they are not provably, observably different, then likely the difference is only symbolic.
The other direction is that I experience red as blue, but my associations are to some extent unchanged; so that your blue, my current red, is my current "danger" sign; on the other hand, acquired associations will probably remain the same - I might see the sky as red, but I'll still associate your blue, my red, with the sky (that would be some bleak existence, seeing the entire sky as oppressive and danger-emanating). In that case, it would be provable to differing extent depending on the severity, because it does have an effect on the experience of the person affected. It's also not something that happens often, so it doesn't matter for the most part. If there are people who can't change their taste configuration, and people who can, one of those groups is probably the exception and one the norm. With the existence of foods that are seen as "acquired taste" and with more people preferring their national kitchen to those of other peoples', I assume most people adapt to the tastes that are common around them.
Malleability isn't the point here really since much of what has been said so far has been more like this:
I don't really understand why meat eaters eat meat, I mean after all Veggies taste so much better than meat any way
Anyone can adapt to something new but if the thing they are trying to adapt to isn't pleasing why should they. I could adapt to living in a room that constantly smells like shit but it doesn't mean I want to because I don't like the smell of shit. But maybe for you, the smell of shit actually smells closer to flowers in spring.
I felt you were saying that people can't adapt, which is what I'm replying to - it's the thing that I disagreed with. I completely agree on the motivation bit - if you don't want to adapt to the shit smell (and the smell of shit doesn't seem to provide any benefits on adapting; on the contrary, it has drawbacks if you get used to it), then you don't have to. Getting used to a new palette does take some level of motivation and thereby energy; if the benefits aren't worth it, or if they're worth it but you can't motivate yourself anyway, the answer is obvious. I don't disagree here.
Likewise, when you bite into a salad with carrots, lettuce, celery, peppers, you can taste it all and the wonder flavors and you go "Mmm, its like an orgasm in my mouth!!" But then Johnny the meat eater who has never been fond of veggies comes along and takes a bite and just says it all pretty much tastes the same to him. There really isn't a multitude of flavors there for him and that's probably because his tongue can't pick those flavors apart like maybe yours can. So when you're trying to convince him to change his diet based on veggies being superior in taste, he's sitting there thinking "What the hell is this person talking about? Veggies have NO taste."
"I don't like X now" is no evidence for "I can't adapt to X".
I agree that people can acquire a taste for things that they didn't like at first, but that doesn't mean it ever becomes incredibly pleasant.[...] I mean, I suspect most people like candy/chocolate without ever needing to "adapt" to it, and would say the taste of it is pleasant; but I doubt something like beer/coffee would ever conjure the same level acceptance.
Do you like your home cooking? Your national kitchen? What about other national kitchens? Isn't it weird that, if full taste adaptation doesn't exist, people are born genetically predisposed to the cooking of the environment they were born in? Why does my grandmother always say that military service will cure my pickiness? Is it that people who were forced to eat anything and everything in the military return and start pretending that they like the stuff they ignored before but were forced to eat for a few years? Why would they do that? If they were forced to learn to tolerate it, but still prefer their "true" favorites, why don't they go back to predominantly eating the stuff they liked before the military, with everything else, the stuff they only tolerate or mildly like, mostly abandoned (and consequently un-adapting to it)?
Last edited by Fadeway (2012 December 09, 2:01 am)
