Philosophical challenge: Does food really have taste?

[MindOverMatter]

Before we experience taste, such a thing has to go through a series of bio-chemical processes within the human brain before we ever get to know anything about it. In reality, we have no idea whether or not we trully expereince things exactly how they are in the real world (if there is such a thing).

Instead we get a representation “manufactured” by the brain, or rather a reassemblence of data which supposedly gives us real time expreriences of the outside world. The brain must be one excellent piece of equipment considering the speeds it would have to work at in order for our concious states to be coherent and continuous. But do we trully experience the taste of something; or rather, could it be just an error or an invention of our imagination? Aso; could empirical-science ever answer this question, or rather is this one of sciences “limits”?

I’d like to see people’s responses and ideas to this question.

God bless.

 

[Luke_Arredondo]

Well, the way you put the question, it implies more than food not having taste. What you’re really hitting at is the Kantian distinction between the “thing-in-itself” and the “thing-as-experienced.” The first is referred to as the noumenon, the later the phenomenon. What he said was that things exist, somehow, in reality, but we only know them as experienced. We don’t, then, actually know what anything is like, but only how it is experienced, by the way our mind shapes the experience according to a priori categories of time, space, etc.

So, if he was right, then you are almost certain that we can’t be sure if food tastes like we think or if it is only our mind.

On the other hand, the Thomistic/Aristotelian tradition would have us believe that our bodies are made to know reality. That is, we can’t know anything unless it is through our bodies. Hence, they are designed in such a way as to inform us about reality. If they’re right, then that food probably does taste as we think it is.

So it’s all up to which philosophical tradition you think gets it more right on. Kant’s is very convincing in many ways, but questions can be raised as to the universal design of the human mind, whereas Aquinas/Aristotle is more practical and common-sensical, but questions can also be raised about the spiritual intellect’s aptitude to abstract intangible universals from a tangible reality.

 

[Green_Tea]

Two possible answers to your question, from two different perspectives:

(1) “Taste” is an electro-chemical process in the brain. When we say “foods have taste” all we mean is that when my brain says “you are eating” it also says “mmm, salty.”

(2) Rejection of representationalism; affirmation of the intentional structure of consciousness. We sense things, not representations.

 

[Malperdy]

It’s worse than you think! In the ancient world they said: De gustibus non est disputandum. That is, there is no accounting for taste, or there can be no argument concerning taste. I believe Kant reaffirmed this in his writings. And, ‘taste’ here can be used for aesthetic taste as well as gustatory taste. The idea is that one’s taste is one’s own, meaning that one’s experiences are private to oneself and, strictly speaking, cannot be shared by another.

To push the notion a bit. When I see a green lawn and you see the same green lawn we have no difficulty in communicating verbally about it. We understand the descriptive terms used, and what the colour words mean. But, we cannot say, strictly say, that my experience of a patch of green is exactly equivalent to your experience of the same patch of green. And we don’t have to. We manage very well to understand one another despite being uniquely perceiving individuals.

 

[Dameedna]

Two possible answers to your question, from two different perspectives:

(1) “Taste” is an electro-chemical process in the brain. When we say “foods have taste” all we mean is that when my brain says “you are eating” it also says “mmm, salty.”

(2) Rejection of representationalism; affirmation of the intentional structure of consciousness. We sense things, not representations.

Good Answer.

I agree with the 1st, and don’t really understand the 2nd.

I just read a great book on Brain Plasticity. It highlighted the fact that we don’t actually “see” with our eye’s, we “see” with our brains.

A collection of various electrical impulses, will end up with us “seeing” something with the brain. It is actually becoming possible to “see” without the eye, but with other sensory (name removed by moderator)uts.

We have taste, smell, touch, hearing and sight.

The sense of touch, has been used to produce the 'experience" of sight. A collection of electrodes covering a persons back, will pulse in a certain way in accordance with what is going on in an individuals environment. These electrical “impulses” feed into the brain.

Amazingly, the brain is able to read those impulses, and turn them into sight. With a huge, clunky maching attatched to a person’s back, they are able to “see” a person in front of them. They are able to see that the person is holding up a book, and that they have a pony tail in their hair, and even the identity of the person.

IE…the eye does not see, it simply provides (name removed by moderator)ut information. ANY of our sensory (name removed by moderator)ut devices, can do the same, in theory.

Does food taste? our brain say’s it does…that’s what it means for us to be human. Our only understanding of taste, is what our brain actually tells us.

So yes, food does “taste”…Taste being completely subjective to human sensory (name removed by moderator)ut and brain mechanics.

In my lifetime, the blind will be able to see, through a mechanism other than their eyes, just like a choclear implant allows a person to hear, without the mechanics of an eardrum.

Cheers

 

[JimG]

IE…the eye does not see, it simply provides (name removed by moderator)ut information. ANY of our sensory (name removed by moderator)ut devices, can do the same, in theory.

This is what a Thomist would call “appearances” or “accidents”–the sense perceptions are not the thing in itself.

 

[Hastrman]

This is what a Thomist would call “appearances” or “accidents”–the sense perceptions are not the thing in itself.

Technically it’s what a Thomist would call the apprehension of the appearance/accidents, since they do in fact exist. Whether or not we are perceiving them correctly is another question, and Thomism answers, “In the absence of evidence to the contrary, we must assume we are.” It’s called “methodical realism”–proceed under the assumption that your perceptions are accurate unless you have some reason to believe they aren’t (as, for instance, when you reach for something and miss it, then you know your depth perception isn’t accurate).

 

[Spirithound]

But do we trully experience the taste of something; or rather, could it be just an error or an invention of our imagination? Aso; could empirical-science ever answer this question, or rather is this one of sciences “limits”?

The concept of “truly experiencing something” is perhaps a noun-phrase with numerous potential referents, but it seems to me that “tasted” (of the gustatory disposition) is not merely an error or an invention of our imagination. Empirically, we may observe this by blindfolding a subject and then feeding him various substances. If lemonade is always sour, and tactilely is indistinguishable from chocolate milk, and our subject correctly identifies the lemonade as sour, then we can be sure that first, his imagination is not inventing anything, since he does not know what he is tasting, and further, it cannot be an error since he will always come to the same conclusion, and errors, I believe, have a sense of randomness to them.
Therefore, we may conclude that “taste” is something inherent in the consumed substance.