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Too much serendipity

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Re: Too much serendipity

#41

Post by BurningFrog »

elevatedastalt wrote: post #12

I think it feels serendipitous only if you think of "sweet" taste (or for that matter any taste) as occurring in this giant continuum of tastes where hitting a specific spot on that continuum is probabilistically impossible. Ultimately, we experience tastes thanks to chemical receptors on the tongue, and as long as a substance triggers those receptors we experience a certain taste. Now of course if triggering needs a…

> * it's not that surprising that many different types of molecules might achieve the same effect*

But the point of the post is that only five molecules found by dumb luck have had a useful sweetening effect.

Re: Too much serendipity

#42

Post by GolfPopper »

Sucralose and aspartame are both reliable migraine triggers for me, and have been at least since my early 20s. Stevia and monkfruit are fine. The only other even semi-consistent migraine trigger for me is alcohol.

I've successfully avoided migraines for years by carefully avoiding sucralose and aspartame (and drinking little to no alcohol), but even a small serving of something "sugar-free" and within a few hours I'll get a crippling migraine. In college, I spent a while testing, and the link between both sucralose and aspartame and my migraines was perfectly reliable.

Alcohol in general has been harder to nail down. A single beer won't normally trigger a migraine, while sometimes a single glass of wine or small cocktail will. If I drank to excess it was hard to tell the difference between a hangover and a migraine; I wasn't that invested in social alcohol consumption, so I've mostly just been a teetotaler since college. Absinthe uniquely reliably gives me an acephalgic migraine with aura around 12 hours after drinking.

Edited to add: I've just stayed away from ace-K and sugar-alcohols as a precaution. I'm past the point in my life where I have any real interest in risking crippling migraines for the sake of personal curiosity.

Re: Too much serendipity

#43

Post by wheybags »

GolfPopper wrote: post #40
cubefox wrote: post #22

This poses the opposite question: What might we have missed? Maybe there are some reverse-accidents, some significant random discoveries that, due to their randomness, didn't happen.

There was an SF story I read years ago where the core concept was that humanity had somehow "missed" an obvious power-source/FTL drive, which meant that the "solution" to the Drake Equation is that the galaxy is full of intelligent, star-spanning empires that are effectively stuck at a late-1800s tech level (with starships), because getting to there was easy, and doing all the complex 20th century stuff humanity has…

Do you remember what it was called?

Re: Too much serendipity

#44

Post by kirse »

I think this is because all newly-discovered knowledge inherently reflects the miracle of new life. The point at which an "unknown-unknown" piece of information is birthed into our awareness and becomes a known fact is always going to be a fascinating and surprising story. The excitement of informational peek-a-boo, the pulling back of the universal curtains on a discovery we never expected - we might be a little older, but the reaction never changes. Entrepreneurs call it their business pivot, chemists call it serendipity.

Re: Too much serendipity

#45

Post by fellowniusmonk »

bityard wrote: post #26
cgh wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re stevia, apparently how you taste it is determined by how sensitive your bitter taste receptors happen to be. It’s somehow also related to why some people can’t stand cilantro, for example. For me, stevia is simply sweet with no aftertaste so I guess I’m lucky in this regard.

You are! As one who identifies as keto, I have experience with a wide range of artificial sweeteners. Stevia is one of my favorites but I can definitely taste the bitterness. Which is why I only use it either in combination with other sweeteners (e.g. Erythritol), or in places where only a slight amount of sweetness is desired. Edit: I just had a thought: are we talking about putting it in coffee here? Because the bi…

Monk Fruit/Stevia liquid sweeteners (sans erythritol) are my go to for coffee and any slightly bitter food for this very reason.

Re: Too much serendipity

#46

Post by bordercases »

jdewerd wrote: post #39
johngossman wrote: post #25

I recently learned that anesthesia is the same. Not only has no anesthesia ever been developed except through "serendipity." Not only that, but anesthesia that works for humans also effect a wide range of things including plants and bacteria. But why is an active area of research. There are even speculations that there may be quantum effects involved. Biology and chemistry are insanely complex.

> there may be quantum effects involved Quantum Mechanics is why atoms and molecules exist and form bonds. QM is the physics of chemistry. Without QM, chemistry does not happen. The universe would just be a big churning mess of particles and you would never get little lego pieces that snap together according to repeatable rules that, when repeated, form macroscopic substances of innumerable description up to and incl…

Do you know for sure they meant only those quantum effects which operate near or at the classical limit?

Re: Too much serendipity

#50

Post by ptx »

GolfPopper wrote: post #40
cubefox wrote: post #22

This poses the opposite question: What might we have missed? Maybe there are some reverse-accidents, some significant random discoveries that, due to their randomness, didn't happen.

There was an SF story I read years ago where the core concept was that humanity had somehow "missed" an obvious power-source/FTL drive, which meant that the "solution" to the Drake Equation is that the galaxy is full of intelligent, star-spanning empires that are effectively stuck at a late-1800s tech level (with starships), because getting to there was easy, and doing all the complex 20th century stuff humanity has…

Is it "The Road Not Taken" by Harry Turtledove? The Wikipedia description seems to match. (If so, ChatGPT got it on the second attempt.)
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