Why are flowers "beautiful"?

[JackBean]

I'm not citing Dan, I'm citing you.
My point is, that it doesn't taste sweet because we like it but vice versa. AKA We love chocolate cake because it tastes sweet.

[Crucible]

I'm not citing Dan, I'm citing you.
My point is, that it doesn't taste sweet because we like it but vice versa. AKA We love chocolate cake because it tastes sweet.

Utter nonsense.

[JackBean]

why?

[Crucible]

why?

Because what you say is nonsense if I don't agree with it. That seems to be how you use the word "nonsense", so I use it.

That's why it's nonsense. You can re-read my post about Dan's explanation, for explanation by non- nonsense.
The answer for why it's sweet is because of our brain, not because of the food.

[Cat]

“Beautiful” is a relative term. Thus, flowers are beautiful primarily because of nurture:

A mother says to the baby: “Look how beautiful this flower is!”

Smell and taste are similar. All of us prefer food (both taste and smell) that we were brought up with. While all of us experience taste if “sweetness”, our “likes” of this taste are determined primarily by upbringing. “Too sweet” and “not sweet enough” are all relative to cultural understandings. If it was just influx of sugar translated into liking as suggested by Dan, we should all have similar responses but we don’t.

I don’t particularly like chocolate cake. It was not part of my diet as a child. I find it a bit too sweet. Similarly, when I tasted Indian sweets, I found that I am unable to eat them – way too sweet for me.

Sense of smell is also relative. I figure we register “normal” smell of something as what we are used to and “abnormal” as smell that is NOT associated with object emitting it IN OUR EXPERIENCE. While on rare occasions some people find “abnormal” to be good, in most cases we don’t.

Just to give an example, when I traveled in Europe I found that (in some countries) meat dishes contain too much spice (comparatively) and smell produced does not associate with meat dishes for me. Interestingly enough, even though I KNEW it to be FALSE, my brain seemed to associate spice smelling meat with masked smell of spoiled meat making meals unpleasant. I am sure that everyone living in those countries loves their food proving that association of particular smell to our “likes” is highly subjective.

[Crucible]

Some items can taste too sweet. The food cannot intrinsically be sweet or too little or too much sweet.
We also have sensors for salt, and so we taste saltiness. Some things taste too salty.
Some people like salty better than sweet.
Fewer people like anything that tastes more than a tiny bit bitter.

[JackBean]

the food contains some molecules, which are recognised by receptors in our mouth, right?

[Crucible]

Yes. Molecules that "fit" or "match with" receptors in our mouth.

[aptitude]

Let's take the case of something spicy. There are two mechanisms that have evolved: one is the fact that the food being eaten has evolved the production of capsaicin in order to prevent herbivory. The second one is the body evolving the spicy receptor in order to differentiate between "good to eat" and "possibly poisonous". This is the way I'm looking at it.

[JackBean]

Yes. Molecules that "fit" or "match with" receptors in our mouth.

Now it's little egg/chicken question. We both agree that there are some molecules in food detected by receptors. What was first, the molecules in food which constituent everything alive or receptors, which had nothing to bind to?

[Crucible]

Yes. Molecules that "fit" or "match with" receptors in our mouth.

Now it's little egg/chicken question. We both agree that there are some molecules in food detected by receptors. What was first, the molecules in food which constituent everything alive or receptors, which had nothing to bind to?

The question is not pertinent to the discussion.

[JackBean]

Sorry, I don't understand.