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SilasBarta comments on Bizarre Illusions - Less Wrong
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The investigation documented here led me to reject that initial, more obvious and probable theory.
My question was somewhat rhetorical, in response to your "Why the broad reluctance..."
In fact I read through the thread that you link to and found it quite unpersuasive.
It's true it's somewhat surprising that so many people said they preferred the taste of milkshake. But in reality that's partly a question of context. If you're comparing the taste of sweet things with the taste of non-sweet things, it can depend on what you feel like at the moment. Sometimes you have a desire for sugar, sometimes you don't.
Did you read it all? It wasn't just the milkshake comparison. It was the fact that, if you ignore the question "do you like alcohol?" and simply ask about the supposed implications of liking alcohol, my answers match up with everyone who claimed to like alcohol. Yet I characterize my state as "not liking alcohol", while others characterize it as the reverse.
See the checklist.
Again, the point is to subtract away the influence of factors that can make you like anything. If applejuice made me happy and killed my usual inhibitions, I'd "like it". I might even get over the taste. I might even show off my pickiness about which apples must be used before I will consider to drink it.
But this is a HUGELY different sense of liking than exists for a milkshake. Or milk. Or smoothies. Or mocha peppermint frappucinos. Or any of the other things that I didn't have to consume many, many times to finally decide I like the taste of.
The checklist doesn't seem very strong evidence to me:
"-Think milkshakes are better tasting than the best alcoholic drink." I don't think this. And even for people who do, many people like the taste of some things more than others, without disliking the taste of the latter.
"-Enjoy the taste of alcoholic drinks when it is drowned out with some other flavor." Sure, if it's a good flavor. But I also enjoy the taste of the alcoholic drinks when it isn't drowned out at all.
"-Believe it changes our mental states in a good way." Possibly, but this doesn't show that it wouldn't taste good without this effect.
"-Could not comfortably chug down a alcoholic drink the way we might a milkshake." I think this happens with strong drinks because the alcohol causes a coughing reflex, not because of the taste. But I can definitely drink a beer comfortably just as fast as a milkshake, and I can do the same with wine if a little water is added (and it still tastes like wine, indicating that it isn't a question of taste.)
Okay, I hope statements like this show what I'm dealing with on this topic. We have substances that provoke the choking reflex in people, as your body protests against this substance entering you, just as it would for toxic smoke, cleaning fluid, and engine oil, and yet people casually ignore that and say with a straight face, "oh, what a pleasure it is for me to drink this delicious beverage! Why would not others so enjoy it?"
...then why do I put hot sauce on my burrito?
Do you drink the hot sauce directly? Do you put so much on that it provokes a choking or wincing reaction? Then I don't think it's comparable.
ETA: Oh, one more rhetorical quesiton: Do you act surprised that there are people who aren't willing to pay insane prices to injest burritos with so much hotsauce that they have to suffer through eating it?
Because that's what it would take for me to have the same perplexion as I do about alcohol.
I don't - I'd choke or wince, and I don't want that. But I still like hot sauce on my burrito.
What I am arguing - and I believe this was Unknowns' argument - is that the effect of increasing rate of intake is not indicative of whether a substance is enjoyable at the lower rate of intake. I wouldn't eat a tray of lemon squares, but I'd eat one piece.
Okay, give me a little credit here. I "get" that much -- I mean, even a milkshake will give you a brainfreeze.
The point is (and I admit I've had a hard time expressing it with examples because of the confounding factors), people strangely start to use a definition of "enjoy drinking X" that expands to cover aspects that they admit are very displeasurable. Hard liquors will induce the coughing reflex (the beginning of it), for example, even at very low rates of consumption.
This would seem to dominate the experience, but then, even in the midst of what is quite clearly painful, they enjoy it -- and are somehow able to discern "good" hard liquor from "bad" hard liquor.
Taking the whole experience into account, I can accept that there's a lot to like -- just not the act of drinking.
Might dill pickles be a useful example? I had to be coerced into trying them several times before I came to find them edible, but I enjoy them now, and there's not much if any status involved there.
And hot sauce will induce a burning sensation at even very low concentrations of capsaicin. Like BDSM, sometimes people actually do like that.
I am not surprised when someone does pay to do such a thing to their burrito.
Even if it were very common, and a practice concentrated in the top 10% wealthiest people?
I think it is quite common for people to eat food that is hot enough to cause discomfort or even pain, at least in some cultures. The uncomfortably-hot curry is a British tradition that often goes hand in hand with the consumption of beer. In my non-scientific personal experience willingness to eat (and enjoy) food with levels of heat that cause discomfort correlates somewhat with wealth/status - it can be seen as a marker of openness to experience and embracing cultural diversity.
Mmm... I think I missed something. How I would I stop being not surprised if it were a common practice?
Uh, I mean, why would I start being surprised if it were a common practice [to pay insane prices to inject burritos...]?
I grant the reflex is a way of your body protesting. I just don't think it has to do with TASTE. And I gave evidence for that from the the fact that if it is diluted, it has the same taste, but not the same protest.
Also, this reflex is different from nausea, which I would admit would be a protest to the taste, and if I dislike the taste of something sufficiently, it causes nausea in me. Nothing like this happens with alcoholic drinks.
Dilution doesn't change the taste of a drink, and alcohol doesn't cause nausea ...
And I'm the one that's rationalizing a refuted position?
1)dilution weakens the taste (and the other effects like the choking protest), but it doesn't change it to another taste; 2) I'm not talking about getting drunk, I'm talking about the effect at the moment of drinking it.
Would someone like to make a falsifiable claim about how a person is likely to react to alcohol over their first few instances of drinking it? If so, I'd be willing to be a guinea pig.
The only times I've had alcohol were over a decade ago, and involved either having communion at church or my father insisting that I take a sip of his beer. I've never experienced an alcohol buzz. I dislike being in the kinds of situations in which one would drink socially, but am curious about how alcohol might affect me separately from that. I do find the smell of wine and beer aversive (but not nauseating), which I understand might affect the outcome, but I'd be willing to try them anyway. (I'd been considering trying wine coolers, but, hey, it's for science.)
Given that you don't like the smell of beer and wine, you likely won't like the taste at first either. But some people do like the taste even the first time, so this isn't strong evidence for SilasBarta's position.
You might like wine coolers which tend to be a little sweeter. Actually, one thing correct in Silas's position is that many people like sweet drinks because they are sweet, not because of the alcohol, and they are sometimes unwilling to admit this for social reasons.
Sure, I'd love to make such a prediction, but those who disagree with me know all too well what the result will be and will try to rationalize away the predictable results of you trying alcohol ... oops, too late.
I completely agree with you about wine tasting specifically. But there are those of us who actually like the taste of some alcoholic drinks, even without the psychological effects, signaling, or need to acquire the taste. It doesn't look like your answers match up with that.