Kevin Aylward B.Sc.
Overview
This paper provides a short description of an example of memes programming emotional Reponses.
Taste
What tastes bad? Why does something taste bad?
Clearly some aspects of taste appear to be the same for as all. This suggests
a certain amount of hardwired genetic programming to basic tastes. However, it
is also apparent, that many like some foods, and other don't, even between identical
twins. Some like liver, some do not. So, there must be more to taste than hardware
programming. This extra something is meme programming of emotion responses, as
identified in emotions.
Consider the case when an individual is young. Suppose that such individual eats
something, but very shortly afterwards, gets ill. What may happen is that that
it can trigger a dislike for that particular food. The body processing may
attempt to link that food taste with "bad". It makes the assumption
that the food caused the illness. Even if the correlation was incorrect, it may
still do this by mistake..
The reason for this, is that it is very difficult for prior programmed hardware, i.e. genes, to deal with all possible variations in the environment. How do the genes know in advance that a certain taste should be perceived as good or bad?
Evolution solves this problem by making all perceptions and emotions, software programmable by the environment, i.e. memes.
This author has direct experience of this effect. At around the age of 14, the author consumed about two cupfuls of QC Sherry. The author subsequently become as drunk and as sick as one can possible imagine. To this day, the mere smell of QC is inclined to make the author desire to vomit. Sherry is forever off the dinner menu for this author.
See also Emotions
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provided full credit is given to the author.
© Kevin Aylward 2005 - all rights reserved