Savoring Imagination: A Reflection on Wine

Attempting to learn about wine through YouTube and Google reminds me of a thought experiment I came across on Ted-Ed on physicalism, called Mary's Room. You see, it's a thought experiment where one argues (or you may not) if a scientist who knew everything possible about color, but could only see black and white, would learn something new if they could see color.

Most people would agree that, yes, you would learn something new.

And wine reminded me of that. Sometimes I like to apply the analogy of Mary's Room on other subjects, like how I would learn a lot more on working a chemistry lab set-up than simply reading about it, but wine is on another level.

One of my first restrictions is a legal problem: I have a few more years until I can sample wine. But don't forget, you have additional financial restrictions too, as after all, wine, and different kinds of it, is expensive. Hence, the least I can do right now is read about it and observe it when I get the chance. Smelling too is something I should try. Most of the time, I don't think I bother myself with smelling what I drink (unless it's spoiled milk), but focus on the sensation in my mouth.

For my readers under 21 years old out there, for example, what does it even mean, when a wine has a "creamy" texture? Or of a chocolate note? By the way, I'm referring to wines other people describe to have notes of cocoa; I'm not talking about wine made as a blend of red wine and chocolate or cocoa deliberately, though that must taste interesting too. Of course, I'm closer to describing such sensation to myself—the mind experience, combined with the taste and/or smell of such chocolatey flavor—than Mary trying to work out what her mind perceives "blue" as. Yet ultimately what my mind, and yours imagines, still remains bounded by our experiences—for me that's the taste of chocolates with liquor inside, and the aroma in a chocolate store. Yet the true, intricate, fine-grained details and exquisite flavor I read about, are sensations my mind has yet to unlock and will now anticipate.

I would say it's certainly a bit discouraging, but also a wondrous thing, knowing how there are still so much you can experience.

And to sum it up, I learned a new word too: Qualia, which google defines as a "subjective, individual experience of conscious perception".

Certainly wine is just that.