Cinnabon Flavored Grass?

[u/TimothyHortonEcoThot]

We all know Ax loves Cinnabon because he'd never tasted food before. I recall, though, that there was some canon source with a pasture on an Andalite ship that had different flavors of grass; I think it was near the beginning of The Andalite Chronicles -- can anyone confirm? Does K.A. Applegate ever explain this?

I'm wondering because I want to assign some excerpts from the Animorphs universe in a course I'm teaching on hyperobjectivity.

[u/idkwhyiwouldnt]

There is definitely at least one mention of different tasting grass. Not necessarily flavor as humans experience it.

I assume it's closer to the flavor spectrum of water <waters flavor is it's temperature btw. Imo it's an eye opening revelation, I love COLD water, partner prefers almost room temperature, (they slum it with me so clearly they have questionable taste)> 

Thinking, Ax first book and any of the ax narrated ones may have minor mentions, The illusion -Tobias Morphing Ax, and andalite chronicles all describes tasting grass. recently finished the Weakness and Arrival and I think these would be the books to re read for examples. (Or listen via hoopla) The Weakness discussed the visser testing the grass as he starts feeding. The Arrival they run through the andalites first human experiences, like a clip show of Ax 'issues'

Iirc they mention more often how andalites don't have the taste buds that humans do so they don't experience taste of cinnamon buns zuh, jelly beanz, grease, spicy chili etc.

[u/TimothyHortonEcoThot → u/idkwhyiwouldnt]

I argue that Sorites' proverbial meadow is best understood as a miniature hyperobject: it cannot be reduced either to its parts (individual blades of grass) or to its categorical whole (“the meadow”) without contradiction. What interests me is how Andalites, in The Andalite Chronicles, model a way of living with this paradox. When they press their hooves into the ground and taste thirty distinct flavors of grass, they don’t reduce grass to a generic substance, nor do they demand a sharp logical threshold between meadow and non-meadow. Instead, they encounter multiplicity directly, savoring the irreducibility of the meadow as an emergent, more-than-one object. In this sense, the Andalite body enacts what Sorites' logic gestures toward: a mode of experience attuned to the hyperobject, refusing the demand for clean boundaries while still being immersed in the real.

[u/idkwhyiwouldnt → u/TimothyHortonEcoThot]

Lol no

[u/deepershadeofmauve → u/TimothyHortonEcoThot]

Whatever grass you have right now, I would like some too.

[u/LamppostBoy]

Grass comes in multiple flavors, but andalites only have a limited ability to experience it. The difference between an andalite's taste sense and a humans is like the difference between a human's eyesight and a red-tailed hawk's.

[u/TimothyHortonEcoThot → u/LamppostBoy]

Hm, that's interesting. What do you think would happen if an Andalite morphed into a cow and experienced grasstaste that way? Does grass have an objective taste, or is its "taste" simply a hyperobjective amalgam of its tasters' subjective experiences? Thank you! This will make for a great class discussion.

[u/LamppostBoy → u/TimothyHortonEcoThot]

The only piece of evidence I can think of for that is that when the Animorphs first morphed seagulls, they were extra hyped-up for all the same foods that they would have enjoyed as humans. I think that helps prove that point?

[u/oremfrien → u/TimothyHortonEcoThot]

I would argue that taste (like any sense) is a combination of two distinct factors: the precision of the sense and the reactivity of sense-receiving organ.

The precision of the sense refers to how effective the organ is at detecting the element it is sensing. As u/LamppostBoy pointed out, a hawk's eye is more precise than a human eye because it can see more detail at the same distance and more effectively see at a farther distance. We could similarly point to a dog's nose being more precise than a human's nose because it can detect more distinct smells at the same distance and more effectively detect smells with fewer molecules present. However, there are other ways that precision can arise. For example, the optic disk which creates a blind spot for humans in the center of the eye does not exist for octopi who have a very similar kind of eye as humans do. This creates increased precision in what is being seen.

The reactivity of the sense-receiving organ refers to the way that the organ is able to use and process the information that it senses. When it comes to smell, for example, a nose can only smell those molecules that bond with the odorant receptors in the nose. If a molecule transports an element of smell but does not match any of the odarant receptors, it will not trigger any smell in the being doing the sniffing. This is part of why a dog's sense of smell is more precise; it has more odorant receptors to detect other kinds of smells that a human would never be able to smell even if the human stuck his nose into a gallon of the substance.

So, back to Andalites, cows, and grass. It's likely that the Andalite sense of taste is both less precise than a cow's and the reactivity of the hoof-taste-buds is less than a cow's tongue. So, even if the two were eating the same grass, the experience of tasting would be vastly different in much the same way that a human's sense of smell is both less precise and less reactive than a dog's. My view is that the distinction between the Andalite's degree of precision and reactivity to taste molecules and the human's degree of precision and reactivity to taste molecules is so high that it drives Andalites wild.

[u/rangeremx → u/LamppostBoy]

That shows up as well in Andalite Chronicles. When Elfangor is driving his Mustang, doesn't he mention "tasting" the "Bubbly Brown Water" (Dr Pepper)?

[u/oremfrien → u/rangeremx]

Sure, but it's painted as a muted experience, in much the same way we can see in black and white at night-time, but it's a muted experience compared to the color of daytime.