Thread: If you were forced to lose one sense forever, which would it be?

You would have to define the different senses we could choose from first, as it's not always readily apparent which senses are distinct.

taste (tongue)
sight (eye)
hearing (ears)
touch (all of body)
smell (nose)

My sense of smell. It gets embarrassing to ask people to turn off electric airfresheners and it feels weird to say something smells nice, only to have other people look at me like im delusional.

Taste. The only other viable choice would have been smell (losing any others is a big handicap), but since food would still lose it's flavour then, it's better to go with taste.

Taste. A fair bit of what we "taste" in food, bears a lot on smell.

Almost everything you taste in food is based on smell. The actual taste receptors on your tongue are pretty rudimentary, they can only detect six basic things. The chemical receptors in your nose are far far more complex; in fact so much so that nobody really understands how they work at the moment. What people call 'taste' is basically just smell.

I'd lose my sixth sense yo

I think I'd go for taste too.

Taste as it would cure my fussy eating.

Smell

Originally Posted by mcwillis

Taste as it would cure my fussy eating.

This is precisely why I hate taste

I think I made a poll about this once. Well it was "what would you be least and most willing to lose."

I suppose I'd choose taste since it's the most useless, and might even help a bit to keep me from overeating.

Originally Posted by Dianeva

I think I made a poll about this once. Well it was "what would you be least and most willing to lose."

You did? I do not remember this :/

ah well, mistakes are made.

Originally Posted by Dianeva

I think I made a poll about this once. Well it was "what would you be least and most willing to lose."

I suppose I'd choose taste since it's the most useless, and might even help a bit to keep me from overeating.

You did.

I would probably go with taste, but hearing would also be okay. I have a wonderful mind, and I already have somgs memorized note for note, and I know my kids voices. If I lost it...well, I wouldn't be as upset as losing sight.

Originally Posted by Solarflare

You did? I do not remember this :/

ah well, mistakes are made.

It was a long time ago so it doesn't matter. I was just mentioning it.

Originally Posted by Dianeva

It was a long time ago so it doesn't matter. I was just mentioning it.

Oh okay

I was thinking taste...but I'd rather go with nociceptin (pain sense). I'd give up my sense of feeling pain.

HA! TRICKED YA THERE! You thought I'd say one of the "five" senses, right? Well...the human body does not have only five senses. We have about a dozen or so, just ask Harvard Medical School.

The feeling of pain is one of the most important. I'd never give it up. You need to feel pain to know that damage is being done to your body so that you can stop its cause or prevent it from happening again. People who lack that sense have a lot of problems and end up dying earlier due to muscle problems caused by not knowing when the muscles are being strained, etc. Are you sure you wouldn't go with taste?

Yeah, I realized that was a problem, I was just expanding others' horizons (i only learned a few months ago that we actually have more than five senses).

Either way, whatever sense you give up will cause problems. Especially something that seems as unimportant as smell - but there are studies that show, smell directly affects your mood. Even smells that aren't perceived by you are picked up by the brain and affect your mood. As for taste, well, it's directly related to smell and please don't quote me on these figures as I'm not positive, this is from memory, but I think it was something like -- if you lose 80% of your taste, you will also lose 20% of your smell sense.

I'd never give up vision, it is a true blessing. Also, in a college class I took about the brain (it went SO in depth, the brain is freaking amazing), senses were of course part of it. I learned that humans actually have a distinct "touch" receptor that is different than the normal touch receptors and separate from pressure and heat.

There are receptors in our skin that respond directly to the TOUCH OF SOMEONE YOU LOVE. That is why it feels one way when your friend touches you, and another way when your lover touches you.

In order of preference lost:
1: Taste
2: Hearing
3: Sight
4: Touch
5: Smell

Yeah, as much as that sounds weird, I love my sense of smell. Grant sometimes it senses some terrible things, but so does sight. Also, I would hate giving up taste, but really, it's the most useless. it's merely there for pleasure now. Not like in the past where it was there for a reason.

Even if smell would partially go away with taste, I would still gladly give it up.

Isn't it that taste goes away with smell? I've never heard of smell going away with taste.

Thermoception. I figure that I have a decent grasp of what's hot and cold... enough of a grasp to know not to touch something without having to touching it first. So I'd say thermoception. Just in case I'd carry a tissue that I'd wet with saliva to see if it sizzles when it touches something, or freezes to something. If it's not cold enough to freeze a wet cloth to it, or to make it sizzle/steam then I can probably touch it.