Rank your senses

Doctor Q

Doctor Q

Administrator
Staff member
The five classic senses are sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. Most of us have all five, although there are some forum members who don't.

Suppose you had to lose one of these senses because of an accident or medical condition, because a crazy billionaire offered you all his money to make that sacrifice, or because an evil wizard cast a spell on you. Which sense would be most important to keep? Which would you sacrifice first?

Rank the five senses from #1 (most important) to #5 (least important).

Mine: 1=sight, 2=touch, 3=hearing, 4=taste, 5=smell.
 
1 = hearing, 2 = sight, 3 = touch, 4 = taste, 5 = smell

I love music and conversation too much to give it up. Although really, you can't taste much without a sense of smell.
 
Balance? (etc. etc.) There are so many 'senses'.

I'd put pain at the bottom of my list (interestingly, there are some people born without pain, who can still touch and feel. But that's another story...)
 
  1. hearing
  2. taste
  3. sight
  4. touch
  5. smell

Although... isn't your sense of smelling tied directly to taste? So if you couldn't smell things, then your ability to taste things wouldn't work as well?

EDIT: to answer my own question:

Have you ever wondered why food loses its flavor when you have a cold? It's not your taste buds' fault. Blame your stuffed-up nose. Seventy to seventy-five percent of what we perceive as taste actually comes from our sense of smell. Taste buds allow us to perceive only bitter, salty, sweet, and sour flavors. It's the odor molecules from food that give us most of our taste sensation.
Click to expand...

(taken from http://www.reachoutmichigan.org/funexperiments/agesubject/lessons/newton/tstesmll.html )
 
Sight and hearing are very important senses, so we'd be inclined to keep them. But there's a tradeoff: society, government, schools, and people in general make many accommodations for the blind and deaf, because they understand those conditions. People without a sense of touch would be pretty much on their own to cope.
 
Difficult. :D

Since I earn my living by creating and seeing it'll have to be:
1. Sight
2. Touch
3. Hearing
4. Any of the rest

But… if I didn't have to earn my bread:
1. Hearing — can't imagine my world without music.
2. Sight
3. Touch
4. etcetera

Hopefully this will just remain hypothetical. :eek:
 
Great idea for a thread.

1. Sight
2. Touch
3. Hearing
4. Smell
5. Taste

Feels weird putting taste last, as I do enjoy a pie and the taste thereof, but people I've known without a sense of smell could only really tell salt and sweet, and so if you could smell you could probably get more pleasure from food, drink, and randomly licking things. ;)
 
Depending on what's in the back of the fridge, there are times I'd be glad not to have had a sense of smell. :eek:

There are certain foods for which smelling is the best part, even better than tasting. For me, Cinnabons and coffee fall into that category.
 
There are actually believed to be 9 human senses.

Of the "classic" five:

  1. Touch
  2. Vision
  3. Smell
  4. Hearing
  5. Taste

People underestimate how important touch and smell are, IMO.
 
1 - touch
2 - sight
3 - hearing
4 - smell
5 - taste

I use touch a lot. I rarely turn my lights on at home and feel my way around a lot. To not be able to feel a hug would be miserable. Sight would be a very close 2nd because it is nice to see what you're touching just in case. While I love my music, touch might compensate for some of it due to being able to feel vibrations. Smell is somewhat important but not as much. Taste... well if you ever saw how I eat my food you'd realize taste probably doesn't come into the picture. :)
 
  1. Hearing - Music is way too important to me and I'm a screamer ;) hah hah I kid...sorta.
  2. Touch - I'm not going to dirty this thread up any more than I think necessary.
  3. Sight - Because what good would my fancy display be if I couldn't see it?
  4. Taste - I love tacos. Case closed.
  5. Smell - If I cannot smell it'd be a good thing really because I'd save a ton of cash by not buying perfume.
 
I'll go with Helen Keller, who said that if she had to give up only sight or hearing, she would give up sight, because being blind takes away the world around you, being deaf takes away people.

So, my order:
1. Hearing
2. Sight
3. Smell
4. Touch
5. Taste
 
jessica. said:
  1. Hearing - Music is way too important to me and I'm a screamer ;) hah hah I kid...sorta.
  2. Touch - I'm not going to dirty this thread up any more than I think necessary.
  3. Sight - Because what good would my fancy display be if I couldn't see it?
  4. Taste - I love tacos. Case closed.
  5. Smell - If I cannot smell it'd be a good thing really because I'd save a ton of cash by not buying perfume.
Click to expand...

1 - Hearing - So I can hear the screamer
2 - Touch - see 1
3 - Taste - see 1
4 - Sight, damn, see 1
5 - Smell - for the perfume

Cheers.
 
Seeing as your sense of taste is directly linked to your sense of smell, it makes little sense to list taste before smell. Lose your sense of smell and you won't really be able to taste anything anymore either. Your tastebuds only handle the basic tastes: sweet, sour, salty, bitter, etc. Anything more advanced than that happens through your nose.

EDIT: Oops, atari1356 already said that. Guess I should have read a bit more closely!
 
1)Hearing
2) Sight
3)Smell
4) Touch
5) Taste

I cannot imagine not hearing loved ones and music.
then without sight how could i play video games...
smell is a big one - I love scents.
 
  1. hearing
  2. touch
  3. vision
  4. smell
  5. taste

Hearing and touch are on the same level, and vision is very close to them. I would very seriously consider suicide if I lost my hearing completely. If I lost my vision and my hearing, I would want to be euthanised.
 
For me, it would have to be...

  1. Sight – as a designer my career kind of depends on being able to see stuff.
  2. Hearing – No music or conversation or stuff? That wouldn't do.
  3. Taste – Tasting nice things is ace, so I would like to keep this one really.
  4. Touch – Not really one that you think of losing, but not being able to feel stuff? That cant be good, surely.
  5. Smell – I have a very, very poor sense of smell as it is (I can only pick up strong pongs, subtle scents are lost on me, so if I were to lose one of the five classic senses it might as well be the one I don't have much of anyway.

If it's all the same though, I'd really prefer not to go losing any at all. Ta muchly.
 
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