hearts like tongues

[fflo]

That's a taste bud.

Contrary to the old textbook diagrams you may recall, it seems each taste bud is capable of registering/transmitting all of the 5 taste sensations. But there are only 5 of those. I thought there were 4, but there's something called "umami" (Wikipedia says it's sometimes called "savory"). It's got something to do with the responding to salts (such as MSG) of glutamic acid, a type of amino acid. Our tongues may or may not be like those of rats with this one (it looks like we don't know), but the brain and synapses and stuff like that there are involved. G-protein-coupled receptors, as with 2 of the other tastes---bitter and sweet---come into play with umami. Then there are also salty and sour.

Anyhoo, discounting what smell may add, all the complicated taste sensations we experience are (still thought to be) made up of just those 5 fundamentals.

If one were to posit that there are just a handful of fundamental emotions that work the same way, what do you think they are? The one that got me to thinking of this notion was the feeling of mourning.

Comments

Cool thing to think on

[dreampower.livejournal.com]

I like this. I think the 5 basic emotions, if we had to bake it down to just 5, would be:

1. Love
2. Fear
3. Joy
4. Sadness
5. Anger

Honeslty, I don't know if that could make all the rest up or not with that combo, but that is my best guess. It seems kinda close to me. OH, but maybe you need both sides of the emotion to really make it work. Would that be cheating

1. Love/ emptiness
2. Fear/ contentment
3. Joy/ Sadness
4. Panic/ control
5. Anger/ calm

No, I don't think that works quite as well. Go with my first list. Wow, this is really tough, but how fun for an afternoon.

Chow

Re: Cool thing to think on

[fflo.livejournal.com]

hey, dreampower --- thanks for playing. i like your stab at spectra/dichotomies. agree maybe it's not as good as the other list, but it was also something to think about.