When we think about human perception, we focus on vision and overlook the sense of smell. However, studying olfaction can provide essential insights into how our sensibility and experiences shape our perception of the world, not the least of which would be to change our most common and unquestioned metaphor of human understanding - to see is to know (or more commonly tuned phrases like - pics or it didn't happen.)

A mind-boggling insight (in the best sense of boggle) is that the input received by our senses does not solely determine our sensory experience. Olfaction is a fine example of this as it is shaped by subconscious bayesian inference, independent of language, yet still shaped by culture. Different cultures may have different vocabularies for describing smells or may place different values on certain smells, and the experience can be very different for two individuals based on their backgrounds.

While our priors and cultural background heavily influence our detection and categorization of odors, smell is not entirely dependent on them either. Most curious is that our noses can detect a wide range of aromas, even if we don't have a word for them yet. The ability to snoop novel phenomena suggests that a fundamental sensory capacity that underlies our ability to detect smells, even our ability to name and categorize them, is more than just culturally and linguistically mediated. Olfaction gives cause to rethink our model for all human sense and perception.

So why do we have so many words to describe what we see, yet so few to relate to what we smell? I don't know, and it's complex and composed of several factors, one of which is the historical and biological prioritization of human vision over our other senses. While sight is largely uniform, on a day to day level, scent is highly variable, environmentally dependent, and complex, making it challenging to categorize and describe. When the experience is different for individuals language will have limitations when it comes to describing the differences, and is more likely to fall back to the commonality - a wine might be fruity instead of a more exacting category.

By studying olfaction and exploring these questions, we can better understand the nature of human perception and the relationship between sensory experience, thought, and language. We can also gain insight into how our cultural background and experiences shape our perception of the world. Fundamentally, and I hope to make this show – and make this claim, smell asks us to change the metaphor of understanding from "seeing" objects, metaphorical or physical, to "snooping" or "discerning" our philosophical perspectives. Instead of calling something out, we can suggest and include the possibilities of other views that just might be experiencing something new and valuable to our interests.

I read a work by A.S. Barwich - 'Smellosophy What the nose tells the mind', that correlates well with this show. I don't have the book now, but I recall thinking about olfaction as a philosophical challenge at the time, and drawing parallels with sight, specifically color perception. I'm looking forward to the show, to bring these ideas back to the surface.

Thanks for a great talk!
Three questions that I’m curious about:
1. Do games like ‘Follow your nose’ help to develop children’s olfactory literacy?
2. Is there any kind of ‘compensation’ that develops in other sensory channels in case of temporary loss of the sense smell (like in COVID)?
3. Can human smell recognition ability be automated the same way as visual recognition?

Cultural Variability: Research has shown that the ability to distinguish scents can vary significantly across cultures. This suggests that olfactory perception is not only biological but also influenced by cultural practices, language, and environmental factors.

Conceptual Frameworks: Olfaction challenges the idea that certain concepts must be learned before we can detect or appreciate them. Studies indicate that people can recognize and respond to certain odors without having specific words or concepts to describe them, suggesting a more innate or primal level of perception.

Language and Description: The disparity between the richness of vocabulary for visual experiences compared to olfactory experiences raises questions about how language shapes perception. This difference suggests that our sensory experiences are influenced by the linguistic categories available to us, prompting discussions about the relationship between language and thought.

Philosophers typically prioritize vision in discussions of perception, which may lead to a lack of understanding of how olfaction influences our experiences and cognition. By studying the sense of smell, we can gain deeper insights into how we perceive the world, form thoughts, and develop language. Olfactory experiences can shape memories and emotions in ways that visual experiences may not. The ability to distinguish scents varies across cultures. Some cultures may have a rich vocabulary for smells, while others may not prioritize olfactory experiences. There is a debate about whether we need to learn specific concepts to detect odors. Some argue that our sensory systems can identify scents before we have the language to describe them. The discussion features insights from Asifa Majid, an expert in olfaction, highlighting current research and perspectives on these topics.

I’d love to hear Asifa Majid’s insights on how language and culture shape our ability to recognize and describe scents. The idea that we might smell things we can’t name yet is especially intriguing—does language limit perception, or do we just lack the right vocabulary?

This exploration of olfaction is fascinating! It makes me wonder if our scent perception is as meticulously cataloged as a Pokerogue Dex, where every creature and ability is documented. Perhaps a similar systematic approach could unlock the hidden language of smells. It's like playing Pokerogue ; you initially only recognize a few moves, but with experience, you develop a deep understanding of the game's nuances.

While I do truly appreciate the leaning toward humor, which we need more of these days!, I also feel quite strongly that a show on the human philosophical implications of smell should have taken more seriously and given far more attention to a couple of things that were only just barely mentioned, and otherwise glossed over:

1) Contrary to the opening debate, smell is perhaps one of if not the most critical sources of input to our decision making for survival. As Asifa noted, smell is our first warning of a gas leak that could kill us. It is also, as another guest noted, a means of detecting if someone is ill, and thus might make us ill too if we share their water glass or just the air they are exhaling. Smell is also how we determine if meat is rotten, which could also make us very ill and may in some cases kill us. Thus, sense of smell is an incredibly important tool of survival, and therefore contributor to our evolutionary success.

2) Our modern world, particularly in just the last few years, has become flooded with synthetic fragrances, most of which include a very similar soup of highly persistent chemical compounds and many of which include one or more neurotoxins. In the case of Fabreze “air freshener”, the inclusion of a known neurotoxin is actually very intentional (considered by Proctor & Gamble to be an innovation in helping us to avoid smelling nasty things, like the trash we forget to empty. They also say on their website that you should not use the product if you have pet birds [they will die]). As one of the guests early in this episode noted, the neurotoxins from synthetic fragrance can now be found nearly everywhere on our planet—-even detectable at the top of Mount Everest. But, one need only go to a typical grocery store, open a package from Amazon fulfillment, our go out to hear a band playing at a local music venue to be bathed in far more significant quantities of synthetic fragrance. Most of it comes from cleaning, laundry, and “air freshener” products. This is not only readily measurable, but currently rated as THE number one source of indoor air pollution. And, much of that is off-gassing from the laundered clothes that people are wearing.

Unfortunately, because these chemical compounds are now so ubiquitous and our olfactory system is evolved to protect us from eminent threats, we acclimate within hours or less—-unconsciously learning to ignore the soup of chemicals we are swimming in. It is for this reason that most people today are nearly or completely unaware of these things, perhaps noticing them only when they step into the isle of cleaning products at a retail store. And, many people are thus happy to buy and use heavily perfumed products containing a long list of untested and unregulated chemicals that will, without their being aware of it, end up polluting the air in their home, entering their lungs, and coating their skin (the latter being mainly but not solely the result of fragranced laundry and personal care products, particularly fabric softeners added to a clothes dryer).

The major philosophical question this presents is how and why we accept our world being pumped full of unregulated toxic chemicals, including many known neurotoxins, simply because our sense of smell, which is meant to protect us from threats, has become accustomed to it? Have we forgotten that the point of bringing a canary into a coal mine was that the demise of the canary (as with pet birds subjected to household “air freshener”) means we had better get out ASAP before we succumb to the toxicity that took the bird down? There is plenty of science documenting the problematic chemicals included in the majority of widely distributed synthetic fragrances. So, why, just because we have become accustomed to this stuff, and thus much less aware of it, do we allow it to be included in large numbers of consumer products? Have we become slightly insane at a societal level in that we are happy to keep doing something, even though we know it’s bad for us? Do we not want to admit we’ve been duped by the large corporations that synthesize, peddle, and promote fragrance for consumer products?

As an intelligent listener, I couldn’t help but be struck by how successfully this episode managed to mostly avoid these very significant present day philosophical questions related to our sense of smell. Is this too difficult a topic for intelligent people to talk about on the radio?

After having been initially impressed with TCM's post of 4/11/25 above by its expression of grievance as though at the complaint department in the virtual philosophical boutique, my view upon further consideration has surprisingly deepened by an inescapable interpretation in confirmation of what Hegel was pleased to call the "cunning of Reason", which refers to a latent instrumentality of individual goals in the service of patent collective ones resulting in a rational historical teleology in progressive material realization.

The two neglected themes can be summarized as first, that the olfactory faculty constitutes a naturally occurring means of self-preservation in humans and most other mammals, and second, that generating artificial stimulants to this faculty releases toxic pollutants which can poison and kill their users. Putting both together, one can assert that the faculty of smell which assists in survival of the organism will kill or sicken it if produced artificially. Because therefore smell can kill if faked, it carries the seeds of its own destruction by the same properties which made serviceable its creation, namely the preference for pleasant smells over unpleasant, when the appearance overrides in importance what's doing the appearing (or the "thing in itself"). In the case of artificial production of pleasant smells which otherwise occur in nature, the original oder-emitter is gone and is replaced by a toxic generator of its imitation. Smells become idols amidst the departing flight of their sources, erected in order to farcically announce their continued presence.

And the same holds for the closely related sense of taste. Artificial flavors can poison what their non-artificial counterparts nutrify. But upon the negation of reality by its false appearance, the reality is reasserted in the opposition to concealment of its existence by the imitation of phenomena which control the reference extension of a preference, as the unity of the thing with the phenomena which reveal it. The negation of its negation equals its revelation, and the thing itself escapes the dismantling of the structure of its topical reception and preservation because determination of the falseness of its grounds is based on the (re-)discovery of its initial or original truth. In the smell case, survival of the organism can be reasserted after being repressed by artificial fragrance-manufacture emphasizing a narrow range of appearance-preference. The faculty of Reason, or Knowledge-possibility from concepts alone without the aid of experience, which is attributed to humans, (at least in traditional rational psychology), creates in a way a situation where this particular species becomes an instrument of the thing and human beings a mere site at which the truth of things evolves through its appearances. Annotation by post-provider TCM of smell-serviceability for survival and its contradiction by the elimination of what is originally smelled can therefore be understood as an example of Reason's "cunning" by reason of the subject which bears the rationality-predicate becoming an instrument of the truth of the thing, to wit, in this case, the sense of smell in humans. In this relation and in terms of historical progress Hegel said somewhere (the citation currently escapes me but perhaps someone could assist) that in history only people get hurt, while Reason comes out just fine. The panorama of ruins which constitute the horizon of its study must therefore include the current exposure of artificial fragrances and flavors as destructive to human health in revelation of the nutritional worth of the their sources upon which they are modeled.

Is this story compatible with the design of the referenced post above, the boldness of which could not fail to garner the semiological bloom of interest in an object upon which one ardently attends?