What sense would you miss the least?

Statikk HDM · #1 04-30-2002, 08:17 PM

If you knew that you wwould lose one of your senses but you could pick what sense to lose, what sense would you pick?

morphius · #2 04-30-2002, 08:22 PM

I would miss the sense of taste the least, because everything else is so important, and I could do without this sense if I had too..

Danny · #3 04-30-2002, 08:23 PM

*casts his vote for See* Not sure why, but I think that that is the one I would be most able to cope with the loss of... I'd freak out whatever I lost, but Sight is probably the easiest overcome...

Gluk Schmuck · #4 04-30-2002, 08:25 PM

Taste. I need the rest of my senses.

Statikk HDM · #5 04-30-2002, 10:20 PM

I agree with dan. Did I just type that? Holy jumpin' mother of God in a sidecar with chocolate jimmies and a lobster bib! I need taste and love music and listening to standup, etc. sight just wouldn't both me that much. Reading would suck though, I don't think the internet comes in braille form

DarkHoodness · #6 04-30-2002, 10:30 PM

You missed one out!
The ability to smell.
I still would of chosen taste, though. It's the less important of all my sences.
- DH

abe22 · #7 05-01-2002, 03:09 AM

I would miss taste the least. The other senses I use to much.

Sydney · #8 05-01-2002, 05:18 AM

I choose taste. Unlike the other senses, loosing the ability to taste actually has its benefits. Your motivation to eat unhealthy foods will cease; the only pleasure to be derived from eating will become the satisfaction of hunger and the mild amusement of experiencing the different textures food has. Hopefully the only taste it removes is that associated with the tastebuds, as I wouldn't want to live if I didn't have other kinds of taste.

Teal · #9 05-01-2002, 09:06 AM

Seeing as taste is primarily associated with smell, Would getting rid of taste eliminate smell as well? If not, then I choose taste...

Fazerina · #10 05-01-2002, 02:53 PM

:

Originally posted by Danny
Sight is probably the easiest overcome...

The easiest? Wow... From these options I'd miss my sight the most. I think it'd be the hardest to overcome. Music is very important to me. I play the guitar myself and I'm always listening to music, so it would be very hard for me, if I suddenly lost my ability to hear, but if I should choose between it and my sight, I would definitely keep my sight. Ability to touch, well okey... I first thought just about "touching", but really ability to touch as a whole is probably the most important sense to humans as well as to most of the other animals, so it's more important then sight. The one I'd miss the least, is taste.

Hopefully, I'll never lose any of these, though...

Whistling kettle · #11 05-01-2002, 03:03 PM

Losing one of your senses is not very jippie (not

). I think that I'll miss taste the least.

RoN_Rancor · #12 05-01-2002, 04:54 PM

I would choose my sense of smell, even though it is not listed. I use this sense the least, due to allergies. When I do smell something, it is usually bad. If I had to choose from the other four, I guess I would choose taste.

Danny · #13 05-01-2002, 08:16 PM

:

Originally posted by RoN_Rancor
I would choose my sense of smell, even though it is not listed. I use this sense the least, due to allergies. When I do smell something, it is usually bad. If I had to choose from the other four, I guess I would choose taste.

To elaborate on what Sydney and Abby have already alluded to: Most things that we call "tastes" are in fact Smells. The only things our tongues are actually able to taste are Sweetness, Saltyness, Bitterness, and Sourness (that right, Abby?). All other tastes are detected by the nose. Therefore, if you lost your sense of smell, those four tastes would be all you could taste...

MudokonOddball · #14 05-01-2002, 10:35 PM

Taste. Although chocolate would be dearly missed, it would be great to be able to eat brussel sprouts and not worry about the taste or smell, wither. Oh, and robitussin would be a wonder medicine!

munchman · #15 05-01-2002, 10:55 PM

i would miss the sense to see

pinkgoth2 · #16 05-02-2002, 09:55 AM

If I absolutely had to choose, I would pick my sense of taste. But I don't want to loose any of my senses! They're all precious to me, they're part of me, I experience the world in all it's glory and non-glory through them! I wouldn't trade one of my senses for 100mil $.

*paranoid and afraid look* Donn take 'em away from me! x_x

- TyA

Teal · #17 05-02-2002, 10:11 AM

:

Originally posted by Danny
The only things our tongues are actually able to taste are Sweetness, Saltyness, Bitterness, and Sourness (that right, Abby?).

Eh, basically yes, I think (I'm not entirely positive about taste... maybe no chemists are, and that's why medicines always taste so godawfully foul...). The tongue has receptors on it that are able to sense different functional groups on compounds (like acid (-COOH), alcohol (as in -OH, not vodka), ester, etc. Salts are in inorganic chemistry, and they taste... well, salty.) As there's actually not a huge number of different functional groups around in organic chemistry, there's also comparatively few tastes. Smell works on a different basis, I think it senses the whole molecule, or something...

Eh, are we getting off topic? Nark.

Let's see, now... I think sight would be the sense I'd miss most (hearing is less important, as while sitting here at this computer I could happily get rid of all the little mobile phones warbling around the room... although that could be fixed by gathering them all up and having a ceremonial stamping-on-noisy-phones session, or something.) After all, it's hard to draw/write/use the internet if you can't see, and if I couldn't write I think I'd go mad. I have to write to calm my brain down, otherwise it gets clogged with a hundred scenaria that demand I write them down, and forgetting them is a pain in the arse...

Hearing would be second on the list, as I love music.

Touch... actually a very important sense. Pain is actually associated to a different system to touch, so would getting rid of touch eliminate pain? Sounds nice on the face of it, but just think what'd happen if you couldn't feel pain... You'd lean against something hot and not realise until you'd burnt yourself severely. You'd be always banging parts of your anatomy on things and getting bruises. And if you got rid of touch, where would the fun in sex be?

Smell... Eh, I like my sense of smell...! If I couldn't smell (and consequently couldn't taste, either) all my lovely incenses and teas and stuff would be pretty pointless. Although it'd be nice not to have to smell what my brother, eh... "fumigates" the bathroom with... (if it's not his leavings that stink the place out, it's them damn "Touch'n'fresh" things - he always sprays them about six times, and by Odd, they stink something awful! You have to hold your breath to clean your teeth, which isn't really conducive to good-tooth-cleaning practice, or else you'll get aerosol poisoning... or something).

Can't I just keep all of them, and donate a kidney instead, or something...?

PinkHaired Mudokon CWR · #18 05-02-2002, 09:52 PM

All of them!!!!

Vykker Sean · #19 05-03-2002, 05:33 AM

i would get rid of touch.

One, Two, Middlesboogie · #20 05-03-2002, 07:17 AM

Id get rid of taste. As has already been pointed out, 'taste' is really mostly smell. Have you tried eating bread while holding your nose? If you do so, you'll find it's utterly tasteless. All the flavour is in the smell. I love bread, and if I lost my sense of taste I'd still be able to enjoy it.

I definitely want to keep all the other senses. If I couldn't see I'd never be able to play a videogame ever again. That's just too depressing to even think about.

I'd hate to lose my hearing as well. No music for a start, but also unable to hear that bus approaching me from behind...

Actually, it might be quite cool to get rid of my hearing, and have a really expensive and really good hearing aid put in instead. As long as I could hear with it at least nearly as well as with normal ears, it'd be great because I could switch it off at will!
But seeing as we're talking about 'which sense would you miss, that implies getting rid of it altogether.

I wouldn't want to lose touch, for all the reasons Teal outlined.

So, taste it is, then. Although, like Teal, I'd rather just donate an organ. Preferable not a kidney, though. You can have my toes; I don't use thm for anything. Or my appendix, or my tail bones.

Silversnow · #21 05-03-2002, 09:19 AM

I'd miss taste the least. I don't really "need" it do I?

Teal · #22 05-03-2002, 10:08 AM

:

Originally posted by Silversnow
I'd miss taste the least. I don't really "need" it do I?

Hm, that's a point... what DO we need taste for? Probably in times past taste was used to see if things were bad to eat - some things taste really foul, but don't smell much (like drugs.

Aspirin tastes awful (well, I think it does, bleaugh)).

And these Strepsils smell rather nice, but they taste grim. :P

Sydney · #23 05-03-2002, 10:17 AM

Our delight in eating sugar is a remnant of our past, in which sugar wasn't plentiful in our diets. In small amounts, it provided us with energy. But in modern times, consumerism provides us with heaps of sugar; they know we love it. That's why there are so many fat people.

paramiteabe · #24 05-03-2002, 10:26 AM

Taste and sight!

BiddaMD · #25 05-03-2002, 10:49 PM

It would have to be hearing....sure I'd miss music alot, but sight and taste are just too good to let go

Danny · #26 05-04-2002, 11:54 AM

:

Originally posted by One, Two, Middlesboogie
So, taste it is, then. Although, like Teal, I'd rather just donate an organ. Preferable not a kidney, though. You can have my toes; I don't use thm for anything. Or my appendix, or my tail bones.

Do you realise that, if you lost so much as a single toe, you would have to spend about 6 months learning to walk again?

One, Two, Middlesboogie · #27 05-05-2002, 05:27 PM

No, I didn't realise that, but it makes sense now that I think about it. When I walk I shift my weight from the heel to the ball of my foot, and then finally to my toes just before I take my foot off the ground. And I do lots of walking out of choice because I enjoy it, so I'd be rather cheesed orf if anything hindered that.
Although I'd still rather have to learn to walk again than lose a sense other than taste. Although taking into account Teal's most recent point, it might be wiser to keep taste, otherwise you might not notice if you'd eaten something that had gorn orf.