06 APR 2015 by ideonexus
Scent on an Airless Planet
Scent seems to have all the disadvantages and none of the advantages, as a long-range sense. However, under special circumstances even a modified nose may fill the need. In a story of my own some years ago ("Uncommon Sense," Astounding Science Fiction, September 1945), I assumed an airless planet, so that molecules could diffuse in nearly straight lines. The local sense organs were basically pinhole cameras, with the retinal mosaic formed of olfactory cells. Since the beings in question were ...
1 An species of space whale could smell over long distances, but scent would get swirled and pooled by gravity wells along the way.
30 JAN 2015 by ideonexus
The Sensation of Pressure
We feel pressure on our skin, when we place our hand over the outlet of
a bicycle pump, for example, as a kind of springy push. Actually,
pressure is the summed bombardments of thousands of molecules of air,
whizzing about in random directions (as opposed to a wind, where the
molecules predominantly flow in one particular direction). If you hold
your palm up to a high wind you feel the equivalent of pressure -
bombardment of molecules. The molecules in a confined space, say, the
interior of a... 1 
notes
notes24 DEC 2013 by ideonexus
Umwelt
In 1909, the biologist Jakob von Uexküll introduced the concept of the umwelt. He wanted a word to express a simple (but often overlooked) observation: Different animals in the same ecosystem pick up on different environmental signals. In the blind and deaf world of the tick, the important signals are temperature and the odor of butyric acid. For the black ghost knifefish, it’s electrical fields. For the echolocating bat, it’s air-compression waves. The small subset of the world that an ...Folksonomies: perception senses
Folksonomies: perception senses
David Eagleman on how each species of animal senses only a small portion of the world, and assumes that small fraction is the entire world.
24 DEC 2013 by ideonexus
Multisensory Integration
In sensory perception, multisensory integration is the rule, not the exception. In audition, we don’t just hear with our ears, we use our eyes to locate the apparent sources of sounds in the cinema where we “hear” the voices coming from the actors’ mouths on the screen, although the sounds are coming from the sides of the theater. This is known as the ventriloquism effect. Similarly, retronasal odors detected by olfactory receptors in the nose are experienced as tastes in the mouth. T...Folksonomies: perception senses
Folksonomies: perception senses
1 notes
notesBarry C. Smith describes how our senses collaborate, our hearing with our sight to read lips and our sense of smell with taste to enhance one another.
27 APR 2013 by ideonexus
Molyneux's problem
I shall here insert a problem of that very ingenious and studious promoter of real knowledge, the learned and worthy Mr. Molyneux, which he was pleased to send me in a letter some months since; and it is this:- "Suppose a man born blind, and now adult, and taught by his touch to distinguish between a cube and a sphere of the same metal, and nighly of the same bigness, so as to tell, when he felt one and the other, which is the cube, which the sphere. Suppose then the cube and sphere placed on...
1 A blind person, familiar with a cube and sphere by touch, is made to see. Without touching the objects, would they be able to distinguish them by sight?
16 APR 2013 by ideonexus
The Sensory Database
Both technological sensors and enhanced biological
senses come equipped with databases of scanned
“signatures” that make it easier to identify whatever
the user is sensing (in the case of bioware, these databases
are stored and accessed via the character’s
mesh inserts). For example, infrared sensors feature
databases listing the heat signatures of different
animals and items, making it easier to identify such
things. In relevant situations, apply a 20 modifier
for identifying targets ...SF idea that cyber-implants would be linked to a database of identifiers. Similar to how the nose is a library of molecules, with dogs having longer noses and therefore a larger library of molecules they can identify in their database.
05 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Lenses Supplement the Infirmities of the Senses
The next care to be taken, in respect of the Senses, is a supplying of their infirmities with Instruments, and, as it were, the adding of artificial Organs to the natural; this in one of them has been of late years accomplisht with prodigious benefit to all sorts of useful knowledge, by the invention of Optical Glasses. By the means of Telescopes, there is nothing so far distant but may be represented to our view; and by the help of Microscopes, there is nothing so small, as to escape our inq...Folksonomies: perception senses
Folksonomies: perception senses
Telescopes and Microscopes allow us to see what our eyes cannot.
31 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Human Senses are Not Independent
The human senses (above all, that of hearing) do not possess one set of constant parameters, to be measured independently, one at a time. It is even questionable whether the various 'senses' are to be regarded as separate, independent detectors. The human organism is one integrated whole, stimulated into response by physical signals; it is not to be thought of as a box, carrying various independent pairs of terminals labeled 'ears', 'eyes', 'nose', et cetera. Folksonomies: categorization senses
Folksonomies: categorization senses
1 notes
notesThey work together, yet we erroneously conceptualize them as distinct from one another.
30 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
The Illusion of Taste
When carbon (C), Oxygen (o) and hydrogen (H) atoms bond in a certain way to form sugar, the resulting compound has a sweet taste. The sweetness resides neither in the C, nor in the O, nor in the H; it resides in the pattern that emerges from their interaction. It is an emergent property. Moreover, strictly speaking, is not a property of the chemical bonds. It is a sensory experience that arises when the sugar molecules interact with the chemistry of our taste buds, which in turns causes a set... 1 notes
notesWhen we taste sweetness, our tongues are not responding to the C, O, or H, but to the molecule.
03 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
There is No "Smell Pixel"
There is no way to interpolate between two smell molecules. True, odors can be mixed together to form millions of scents. But the world’s smells can’t be broken down into just a few numbers on a gradient; there is no “smell pixel.” Think of it this way: colors and sounds can be measured with rulers, but odors must be looked up in a dictionary.Odors are not analog, they must be looked up in a dictionary.
