Saturday, July 23, 2016

taste of onion



Begin with the senses, for example, taste. An old raw onion provides a vivid taste experience. There's also the taste in the mouth. How does your mouth taste right now? There's so much bacteria in there, maybe it tastes like very old Munster cheese.

Over the past few thousand years, many models of experience have been discussed. Sense organs contact sense data. The tongue tastes an onion. Taste data is transmitted to higher functions of the brain which unify the sensory point instants into a form. Another mind function assigns the word onion to the form. On top of that, one could make a subjective judgement. Do you like the taste; do you not like it; or are you indifferent? Sometimes one might turn one's reaction into a moralistic platform proclaiming that old onions are bad and should be tossed. Or one might decide they have interesting possibilities in certain culinary preparations. Or to the artist, perhaps an old onion has a kind of beauty evoking impermanence, decay and the cycle of nature.

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