Link to the Stuart Firestein conversation.
I enjoyed the conversation of smelling the past and future very much. I know I smell things everyday that remind me of some kind of experience but don’t often consciously think about this phenomenon. It is also thought provoking that these memories really only are associated with emotional experiences. I would be curious if other senses, like sight, work in this same way. I certainly am reminded of things that have emotional connotations to me due to something I see fairly often. However, I think it is possible that seeing something is more likely than smelling something to also remind me of nonemotional experiences. In particular, seeing something on the street could remind me of something I learned in a class. Maybe seeing someone drop their keys reminds of learning about the Theory of Gravity, for example. To me, this seems more plausible than a smell triggering a similar type of nonemotional memory. But, I may be overestimating how often sight has triggered this kind of memory for me, as it is not something I consciously think about. In either case, it would be interesting to explore if different senses are associated with memories in different ways.