In they end they just extract a single chemical and not the entire bouquet of flavours of a natural strawberry. However, if you ask a small child to taste strawberry flavoured ice cream and identify it is flavour they will get it right more often than not.
It is a good philosophical question, if in a 10,000 years people would still link the strawberry flavour with an actual strawberry, especially if advertising companies slowly tweak the image of a strawberry to look more appetising.
Small children who have eaten candy will also easily identify banana and grape flavors, even though neither has much connection to the fruit today. (Artificial banana flavor is modeled on the Gros Michel variety, which is effectively extinct, and grape flavors on Concord grapes, which are rarely eaten these days.)
Isn't that just by association to past experiences with strawberry-flavoured things?
I remember even as a child saying I like the flavour of strawberries, but I don't like strawberry-flavoured things. I'd eat the fruit, but not the ice-cream.
It is a good philosophical question, if in a 10,000 years people would still link the strawberry flavour with an actual strawberry, especially if advertising companies slowly tweak the image of a strawberry to look more appetising.