How does mind differentiate between bad and good smells?
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Think of a smell like a bag of candy. Each smell is made up of multiple colored candies. When the smell goes into your nose, it’s like candy going down a conveyor belt. There are cells which are like workers along the conveyor belt who counts the candy that’s the same color as their shirt. Once they’ve counted these candies for a single smell, they’ll bring the total count to their manager. Their manager gets this information and labels it a “smell.” Next, based on how the manager’s mood that day, they will decide whether that smell is good or bad. The manager’s mood can be affected by many things. Current events that the manager saw on the TV can affect their mood positively or negatively. Similar to how you might hear sad news and feel sad, then there might be smells around you that you might just associate with sad (bad). Additionally, the manager might have also have a protocol book that lists specific counts or combinations of colors is a “good” or “bad” smell. This is similar to how your body already have code for what specific smells are good (fats, sugar, etc) and what smells are bad (farts, rot, etc)
long ago your ancestor had a buddy whose brain reacted to a “bad” smell by thinking it was “good”
your ancestor’s buddy ate the bad smelling thing. then he died, never having had a kid.
your ancestor reacted to the “bad” smell by thinking it was “bad”.
he didn’t eat the bad smelling thing.
he did not die.
he had a kid who was the next person in the line who would lead to you, passing on the gene that created the cells that reacted to “bad” smells as “bad”
that’s why your brain reacts to bad smells that way.
similar for good smells.
the brain differentiates between them by a very mysterious process that we really don’t understand, and we think may be governed by quantum mechanics.
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