Discovering the What and the Wherefore: Scents and Sensibility

As the first sense to engage the world “remotely”, beyond the boundary of an organism’s body, olfaction delivers news from “over there”. But whereas it adumbrates a space beyond, what kind of space, what sort of world does it proffer? Smell engages the world as a series of pathways laid out on gradients. What is that wonderful aroma and how can I get to it? Eww! What is that and how do I move away? More a path-wise world than a Newtonian one, the space of olfaction is about orienting the animal toward what is meaningful in its environment.

Smell creates an ambiance, an affective and drive-related milieu, and it also strongly evokes memories of such settings. We have learned that body odor elicit feelings of personal attraction and repulsion. And yet, many of these interactions between the olfactory surround and our motivations, our inclinations, our personal history, carry on below the surface of consciousness. As this ubiquitous but often subtle background to our lives, scent has played a prominent role in cultural history.

Participants:
Clare Batty
Associate Professor, Philosophy, University of Kentucky
Research Fellow, Centre for Olfactory Research & Applications at the Institute of Philosophy, University of London
James Bower
CEO, Numedeon Inc.
Computational Neuroscientist
Andreas Keller
Neuroscientist & Philosopher
John McGann
Director, Center for Cognitive Science, Rutgers University
Professor of Behavioral & Systems Neuroscience, Psychology Department, Rutgers University
Dmitry Rinberg
Professor, Department of Neuroscience & Physiology, NYU Grossman School of Medicine
Mark Smith
Carolina Distinguished Professor of History, University of South Carolina
Claude Henry Neuffer Chair of Southern Studies, University of South Carolina

For more info: https://www.helixcenter.org/roundtables/discovering-the-what-and-the-wherefore-scents-and-sensibility/

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