Scent is a unique sense, it is not decomposable.
Taste is just a combination of 5 basic tastes, vision is a combination of 3 primary colors, etc.
Taste is just a combination of 5 basic tastes, vision is a combination of 3 primary colors, etc.
Food reviewers don't note the levels of salt, sour, etc. They describe flavors and textures and parings.
But also, I don't buy that taste is just the composition of 5 components. This sounds like a reference to that diagram of the tongue we've all seen. It's as complex as scent is. There's no way you can define the taste of cinnamon by specifying some sort of 5-tuple.
It’s still true that we can only taste salty, sweet, sour, bitter, and umami. All other flavor complexities come from scent simultaneously giving us information. It’s why everything tastes so boring when you have a head cold.
Food also has a universe of possible consistencies.
You can get pretty close to what you're seeing this way.
With scent? Not even close.
Yeah, the only way I can describe scent to another person is to compare it to other scents that I hope we both have a common experience with.
Thanks.
Hearing is quite similar in that there are numerous different length hairs in the ear drum that can sense different frequencies of sound.
Sure, this is a finite number, but for practical purposes it's not really decomposable.