Philosophers on Coffee
Posted: Thu Aug 11, 2022 3:51 am
Probably about 15 years ago, at work I used to read the BBC news site - and in the science section a Uni study was done on the coffee and its affects on the human body. Interestingly, the entire Uni group after the study was complete, apparently they all gave up drinking coffee.
Re in the article, the futility of attempting to describe the aroma of coffee leaves me to question what of the senses permits us to more easily describe using language the qualia sensation that we are experiencing?
The standard recognised five being: ...sight, smell, touch, taste, and hearing.
I think things that we observe via sight are easier to describe, than that of smell. Perhaps taste is easier to describe than smell. Sounds seem fairly easy to describe - but ultimately everything is relative, in that to describe any of these to someone that has never had access at all since birth to one of these senses, would make the task extremely difficult.
Years ago a teacher suggested explaining to someone that had never experienced sight how to 'vision' red by describing the touch sensation of heat, and then blue for something you'd find in your freezer - I don't think that would have helped a blind person to equate the colour spectrum, but therein is part of the problem. At least if someone has all the senses, yet has never experienced the aroma of coffee, you can correlate other similar smells - coffee has an earthy type of smell combine with essenses of xx and xx...bla bla bla..
ps. I love tea - rarely drink coffee. Twinings Earl Grey and also their Lady Grey - no milk - no sugar...mmm having one right now.