Re: kidney/urine/taste/smell

[Guest guest]

>additionally, i harbor a

>personal belief in something i might call " radical aesthetic

>relativism " , a non-trivial concept mostly of my own formation, a

>proper explication of which would require reference to many phenomena

>outside the scope of this list, but for our present purposes in the

>domain of food can be distilled to the following without any serious

>infidelity to the original concept: " you can learn to like just about

>anything " .

>

>mike parker

Have you ever read " Selling to the Right Side of the Brain " ?

It was popular a bit ago, but the basic concept

is that the Right Brain makes decisions (based on

emotional, and, I think health concerns) and the Left

Brain justifies the decision. It's been borne out

by research ( " The Man who thought he was a Hat "

is a good one on brain weirdness!).

Soooo ... you eat something like bugs or kidneys,

and your Right Brain says " yecch, people don't

DOOO this sort of thing! " and your Left is

in override mode ( " I read it and it sounds

interesting " ). But once the nutrients from the

bugs or kidneys get analyzed, your Right brain

changes it's mind (so to speak) and says " hmmm...

well it's really, really full of nutrients! " and

starts sending " I LIKE THIS " signals to the Left,

and suddenly your aesthetics change.

But this works in reverse too. If your Right

brain gets signals that a food is harming

you, it can send " I HATE THIS " signals. My

brain is really good at that, and I ended up with

all kinds of food aversions (and some foods

that are Love/Hate foods, I used to love them

and now I hate them!).

Commercials send " social " signals to the Right,

and you get those social signals from your family

too. But nutrient signals, I think, will eventually

override the social signals. And it's a lot more

complex than I'm making it. But IMO it all

boils down to just what you said " You can

learn to like just about anything " . With

the caveat that if it is seriously not good for

you, you might end up being seriously aversive

to it no matter how much you try to like

it (unless it is also addictive, which is a whole

nother issue ...).

-- Heidi

[Guest guest]

@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Heidi:

> and your Right Brain says " yecch, people don't

> DOOO this sort of thing! " and your Left is

> in override mode ( " I read it and it sounds

> interesting " ). But once the nutrients from the

> bugs or kidneys get analyzed, your Right brain

> changes it's mind (so to speak) and says " hmmm...

> well it's really, really full of nutrients! " and

> starts sending " I LIKE THIS " signals to the Left,

> and suddenly your aesthetics change.

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

i really don't think it has anything to do with a left/right

distinction in cognitive specialization. it's generally believed

that flavor (taste + smell) is processed in the orbitofrontal cortex,

on both sides like most things. basic aversions are handled by a lot

of primitive parts of the brain below the cortex, so not related to

the left/right cortical distinctions of linear/spatial,

analysis/gestalt, verbal/non-verbal etc. also, i don't think there's

much in the way of analyzing nutrients and sending this information

to areas that will affect pleasure/decision/etc. i'm assuming that

we only indirectly know the nutritional value of what we eat because

we will get information on how well the systems that depends on the

nutrients are doing, but there would be some significant time lags

and we certainly couldn't pin it down to any one food if we're eating

normal meals with a variety of things. " it must've been those

twinkies and potato chips i ate with the raw organs and glands

yesterday that's making my endocrine system work so well today " ...

i think the left/right thing is being overgeneralized there, where

it's really being using metaphorically in the absence of more

accurate terminology to describe phenomena that are very palpable and

appear to involve some sort of cognitive dichotomy, but which we

really don't understand much at this point in time. it may do more

harm than good to erroneously assimilate too many things to the

left/right distinction, which i imagine many books on the topic do,

although i haven't read the one you referred to.

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

> Commercials send " social " signals to the Right,

> and you get those social signals from your family

> too. But nutrient signals, I think, will eventually

> override the social signals. And it's a lot more

> complex than I'm making it. But IMO it all

> boils down to just what you said " You can

> learn to like just about anything " . With

> the caveat that if it is seriously not good for

> you, you might end up being seriously aversive

> to it no matter how much you try to like

> it (unless it is also addictive, which is a whole

> nother issue ...).

>

> -- Heidi

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

i really don't have a good idea of what the mechanisms for aesthetic

adaptation are, in the food case, but i don't think they follow this

social/nutritional dialectic at all. in this case, i strongly

suspect it's just something fairly local to flavor cortex, which is

probably a few regions in and out of the orbitofrontal cortex, but

not related to social cortex, " how's my bodily health doing " cortex

(which handles the " gluten is the enemy " type judgements), language

cortex, sound cortex, vision cortex (most of our brain), etc.

your caveat is definitely important, though. that's why the

phrase " just about " or " almost " is crucial. i love hedges!

there's not much connection between aesthetic judgements and

something's safety/healthfulness, beyond basic alkaloid sensors on

our tongues and a few simple mechanisms like that. there are plenty

of (slow and fast) poisons that taste good.

mike parker

[Guest guest]

>i think the left/right thing is being overgeneralized there, where

>it's really being using metaphorically in the absence of more

>accurate terminology to describe phenomena that are very palpable and

>appear to involve some sort of cognitive dichotomy, but which we

>really don't understand much at this point in time. it may do more

>harm than good to erroneously assimilate too many things to the

>left/right distinction, which i imagine many books on the topic do,

>although i haven't read the one you referred to.

You are right, of course, it is very much a generalization.

And the book was very much a pop-culture book designed

for sales folk (though it did work, I'm told, to help sell stuff).

The brain has all kinds of pieces and I don't pretend

to understand them (and no one REALLY understands

them yet). I think a lot of it is an extension of Freud's

" conscious " and " unconscious " -- basically the part you THINK

is " in control " is just a small fraction of the whole bit.

I probably shouldn't have used the Right/Left terminology

with this crew ...

But your brain (in conjunction with the rest of the nervous

system) does very fine-tuned food analysis. It has to. Your

body stays at a nice even 98.6, the blood sugar and PH are

tuned exactly, and most animals eat exactly the same nutrients

even if the food is " watered down " . Hormones get produced

or blocked and nerves do interesting communication, but

the end result of all of it is " I feel like eating an apple " .

-- Heidi