[extropy-chat] Questionnaire on senses

[spike]

> bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of ben
...
> 
> Someone with synaesthetic tendencies like yourself could maybe make
> sense of data presented as smells... Probably much easier to encode
digitally... ben zaiboc


Data via smell.  Extremely low bandwidth I would think.

I have a colleague who was born with nasal passages in such a configuration
that he had no sense of smell, and very little sense of taste.  He was a
busy engineer with his own company, so he never took the time to get it
surgically repaired.  After retirement at age 60 he decided to have it
fixed.  Having never had the sense of smell he had no memories or
associations attached to any odors.  What do you suppose happened?

My guess was wrong, for I would have speculated that he would suddenly like
eating much more and so would gain weight.  Altho he was able to taste food
for the first time, his eating habits did not change much.  He commented
that much to his surprise, most smells were unpleasant to him and he almost
regretted opting for the surgery.  Oops, that wasn't supposed to happen.

spike