Honey by Any Other Taste is Sweet

Timon’s reflection on honey seems intriguing to some and pointless to others, I remember hearing about his observations and conclusion when I was quite young. The notion that honey only appears sweet, but we can never know for sure, certainly drew my attention for a good ten minutes or so.

The concept Timon sought to convey is that though honey I taste is sweet, and that you taste is sweet, and that John’s grandma tastes is sweet, it does not mean that honey is in fact sweet, and we can never know for sure. I clarify that Timon does not mean ‘Not all honey is sweet’, but instead clarifies that we cannot know whether the honey we just tasted is in fact sweet, regardless of our senses.

Why did my elementary school self lose interest in this concept? It was not because I had more interesting conjectures on which to focus, but instead due to my belief that the hive mind’s opinions we call fact has already dictated that honey is sweet, regardless of who tasted it.  ‘What is good?’ ‘What is bad?’ ‘What is sweet?’ Anything’s descriptor is whatever is agreed upon by a collective opinion formed by our time, our location, our culture, and what we have perceived.

Miracle berries, a type of berry that inverts the ingestor’s taste buds for a short amount of time, may make honey seem sour. A child with an abnormal palette may decide that honey is too vile for lunch. Does this mean the honey is not sweet? I believe not; it means only that the outliers have deemed it not-sweet. And if more were like them, then the opinion would change as a whole and eventually we would agree that honey is, in fact, not sweet. Our opinion as a whole would change, even if we stopped tasting the maybe-sweet honey.