Re: A sense of smell

From: boztakang <daniel.mccluskey_at_rL0YLWMQM4whQ2ucf9ZhOPsmchsjl8dyfNA1ootVuqZh5u6bcPwaV0EQtVU>
Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2011 20:47:23 -0000

> Just an FYI - if trolls can distinguish shades of smell to a level of distinction that men can distinguish shades of color, their sense of smell is *WILDLY* more acute than a human's.
>

I was worried that the vision analogy might be a bit misleading... what I am trying to suggest is that trolls and humans have very nearly the same ability to detect that a scent is present, but that trolls are much more adept at drawing relevant (to them) information from the scents they do detect. As opposed to dogs or cave-trolls, who can detect odors where humans (and uzko) simply cannot.

I dont think that the trollish sense of smell really reaches the level of distinction of human color vision, but probably falls between there and a normal human's ability to distinguish flavors. So it IS more "accute", but not more "sensitive" if that makes sense.

In much the same way that a human and a troll restricted to the use of eyesight have pretty much the same ability to see "something" but a human is much more likely to be able to identify what they see and can determine things about it that the troll simply cannot (how blue/green it is)

Thus trolls may well be able to draw the same sort of abstract meaning and aesthetic pleasure from a particular arrangement of rotting garbage, that humans get from a flat canvas with pigments spread over it. (which generally make no sense at all to uz)