system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why do we associate mint with “cold” and pepper with “hot”?

What quantifies a food as being “cold” / “hot”? Mint and pepper are two examples that come to mind. They are two foods that do not objectively have a temperature, but are for some reason always classified as cold or hot, respectively. Anybody know the answer to this?
gpt
Well, it's not that we "associate" these with hot or cold. The chemicals in that food actually trigger the *same* *nerve response* as actual hot or cold do.

From our brain's perspective, they are identical to "true" heat or "true" cold.

All of the sensations we ever have are just our brains reacting to some kind of stimulus, and there are countless ways to trick our brain into experiencing the "wrong" stimulus. Mint and spice are just two of the more safe, cheap, and common ways of doing so.