I can say, if I like, that social insects behave like the working parts of an immense central nervous system: the termite colony is an enormous brain on millions of legs; the individual termite is a mobile neurone.
Lewis ThomasRead
The act of smelling something, anything, is remarkably like the act of thinking. Immediately at the moment of perception, you can feel the mind going to work, sending the odor around from place to place, setting off complex repertories through the brain, polling one center after another for signs of re recognition, for old memories and old connection.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote compares the process of smelling to thinking, highlighting the brain's active role in processing scents and memories.
In this quote, Lewis Thomas illustrates the intricate relationship between our senses and cognition. He explains that smelling is not just a passive experience; instead, it engages the brain in a dynamic manner, triggering memories and associations. Each time we perceive a scent, our mind actively searches for connections and meanings, much like the process of thinking. This reflects how deeply intertwined our sensory experiences are with our mental processes.
Themes
SmellThinkingMemoriesBrainPerception
In practice
Example use cases
In discussing the power of memories tied to scents at a psychology seminar.
More from Lewis Thomas
All quotes →I suggest that the introductory courses in science, at all levels from grade school through college, be radically revised. Leave the fundamentals, the so-called basics, aside for a while, and concentrate the attention of all students on the things that are not known.
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I maintain, despite the moment's evidence against the claim, that we are born and grow up with a fondness for each other, and we have genes for that. We can be talked out of it, for the genetic message is like a distant music, and some of us are hard-of-hearing. Societies are noisy affairs, drowning out the sound of ourselves and our connection.
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Science is founded on uncertainty. Each time we learn something new and surprising, the astonishment comes with the realization that we were wrong before.
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It is the very strangeness of nature that makes science engrossing. That ought to be at the center of science teaching. There are more than seven-times-seven types of ambiguity in science, awaiting analysis. The poetry of Wallace Stevens is crystal-clear alongside the genetic code.
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In the fields I know best, among the life sciences, it is required that the most expert and sophisticated minds be capable of changing course - often with a great lurch - every few years.
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