@Al Shareef
I certainly think the sense of smell is incredibly powerful and, as you pointed out, our most primitive sense. It is strongly related to memory and emotion, probably stronger than any other sense. I also believe aromas of any kind can certainly push the memory of events, places, people, etc, one way or the other, toward good or bad or even indifferent. But humans also have an incredibly developed frontal lobe, which gives us the ability to choose and selectively override the more primitive parts of our brain, especially under normal conditions (meaning non-fight-or-flight type).
What I'm struggling with is if it is actually being suggested that newcomers (or anyone who is willing to spend a larger amount on a bottle of oud) have: 1. underdeveloped frontal lobes and/or 2. overdeveloped limbic systems to the point they have no control but to follow said vendor in a rather cult like fashion?
I have a second theory. People actually prefer the oils of certain vendors over others. They smell x number of oils from different vendors and make educated decisions on purchases based on positive or negative or indifferent olfactory associations with the particular oil or even a particular vendors style of oils.
Another theory. People will make educated decisions on purchases based on both witnessed and perceived personal and business practices of each vendor.
Thanks for taking my question.
There is no doubt that we all have preferences pretty much in everything we do. Those preferences will lead/guide us to our ultimate decision to engage, the engagement can be a purchase, a meal, or a new uniform. There is no question that when we can afford it we will pay for those preferences, based on what we think it is worth.
The sense of smell like any of our other faculties develops over time, as we build our olfactory library of association, our senses become more acute to picking those smells. If a certain scent does not have an association in our olfactory library, we may pick up the smell but not be able to describe it or if we do attempt to describe it, then it will be limited by what is in the olfactory library. From that perspective we can continue to grow the library.
As with regards to brands, brands can have a cult following because when we make association with a brand we also subconsciously assume that it is a part of ones 'attire' or 'look'. You can view some of the rage that goes on in Iphone and Samsung forums, however I agree with you that it does not happen because of an overdeveloped limbic system caused by oudh.
Your two next theories are very real, sometimes as consumers we deal with a vendor not because they have the best product but because of the service they provide. Recently our business went through a IT upgrade, and Microsoft provided such an amazing remote service, that whilst there are niche custom tools for what we do, we continue to take our business to Microsoft for the service they provide us. This is true across all commodities and consumables, service to the consumer, conduct with the consumer and making the customer feel valued will be the pivotal elements that retain or drain customers.
As with regards to your comment on post # 73 "And Al Shareef, what concerns me much much more than the impact of oud on the CNS (which I suspect has much more good than bad), is group mentality theory and how one or two people can lead others to think and believe in a common way, often against what they normally would on their own."
You have definitely missed the worst part of group mentality in the online oudh scene, some of the old timers will tell you, apparently the group mentality was really bad in the earlier days. It again raises it's head every now and then, causes some damage such as the recent closure of BN, then it cools down for a while, then it flares up again.
In the football league full year membership with all the main games is only a few hundred dollars, maybe a couple grand with some favours, and you can see how passionate fans get in those games, here in the oudh scene the values at stake are much higher because of how personal oudh is, or any scent for that matter.
I am vehemently against group and fanboy mentality, because it is one of the key obstacles in the way of our online oudh community to progress forward. In our tradition when we visit friends, oudh is always on the offering. It brings people together and whilst every family has their favourite supplier they are more than happy to try someone else oudh and discuss into the early hours of the morning.
The topic Ammar raised is of specific interest to me, as in our tradition our scholars, for example the great scholar of Madeenah Malik ibn Anas ibn Malik ibn `Amr, al-Imam, Abu `Abd Allah al-Humyari al-Asbahi always had oudh burning in his gatherings 'as it clears the mind and assists learning and retention. There is a lot of study going on currently on the Nonconscious effects of scent on cognition and behavior, here is an abstract from one of the studies, and it is very impressive, because many members feel they can meditate better with Oudh, and I remember Shabby saying that certain Hindi oils assist him when he is studying religious text;
"Three studies explored whether odor can influence people's cognition and behavior without their being consciously aware of the influence. In two studies, we tested and confirmed that when participants were unobtrusively exposed to citrus-scented all-purpose cleaner, the mental accessibility of the behavior concept of cleaning was enhanced, as was indicated by faster identification of cleaning-related words in a lexical decision task and higher frequency of listing cleaning-related activities when describing expected behavior during the day. Finally, a third study established that the mere exposure to the scent of all-purpose cleaner caused participants to keep their direct environment more clean during an eating task. Awareness checks showed that participants were unaware of this influence. The present studies reveal the nonconscious influence that olfactory cues can have on thinking and doing."
One other aspect that I think should be added to this discussion is combined affect of the oudh with the associated story or narrative that vendors put out with the oils.
the impact when a combination of our senses are engaged.