Placebo effect

[goldisheavy]

The placebo problem Big Pharma is desperate to solve

 

I thought some of you might enjoy this one.

[steve]

The placebo effect is a beautiful thing. It reminds us how powerful perception is.

It is not limited to medicine, it's very effective in the spiritual/religious realm as well!

Just watch all the videos of no-touch healing and martial arts.

It's all the same thing!

It's beautiful.

 

[goldisheavy]

The placebo effect is a beautiful thing. It reminds us how powerful perception is.

It is not limited to medicine, it's very effective in the spiritual/religious realm as well!

Just watch all the videos of no-touch healing and martial arts.

It's all the same thing!

It's beautiful.

 

 

 

My thoughts exactly. I don't think placebo effect is fake or bad or anything like that. What is known as "placebo" is a natural healing effect that could be tapped into by various means. I look forward to more investigations. It's kind of odd how for a while the pharma industry thought of it as something that just gets in the way of research and has no other purpose. Talk about bias. We all see what we want to see, including the scientists.

[Seth Ananda]

Dont forget the negative effects, called 'Nacebo'.

They can work together Like in the woman given Placebo Chemo who slowly got better but still lost all her hair and had all of chemo's expected side affects.

 

I love Placebo

 

The BBC docco (i think BBC) Called 'Placebo and Nacebo' is the best thing I have seen on it so far.

 

It can also be a good cop out for the Industry when they fail and an alternative therapy works. I often wonder why though it didnt placebo the person better in the first case with western medicine... as that is where their faith was originally.

[松永道]

Thanks for the article,

 

I formally studied western medicine before switching focus to classical Chinese medicine. One of the major reasons was the placebo affect.

 

There was an interesting course back in college called, "The History and Philosophy of Scientific Revolution." One of the highlights for me was going into depth on the patterns of paradigm shift. Universally, one though paradigm would explain everything it could, save a few nagging questions - and those pesky little problems would be the rabbit hole into a new paradigm. 19th century physicists believed they would soon close the book on physics, work out every rule, they just had to figure out two little things: the motion of light and the mechanism of radiation. Of course, light problem blew the doors open into the new paradigm of Eistein's relativity. The radiation problem was the wormhole to quantum mechanics. Amazing.

 

I recognized the placebo effect is one of these problems in medicine. Scientists work away at the biochemical, material side of things - and I'm not saying it's time wasted - but the new paradigm resides in the immaterial.

 

Classical Chinese medicine, like many other tradition medical systems, never made much distinction between the material and immaterial body - it was just the body, whole. So it seemed like a good place to start. What a shame, much of the western medical establishment spends so much effort trying to discredit these systems instead of investing money wisely.. into researching these systems. Not just the herbs, acupuncture, or other techniques, but the systems of thought and observation that underpin traditional medicine.

 

The big thing in China now is "Zhong Xi Jiehe," basically TCM and Western Medicine merged. But to this point, the medicines are, at best, used side-by-side. I think a real merger will result in more than the sum of its parts. To truly realize the depth of tradition medical thought through modern technology and analysis - I believe it would be a landmark achievement for our species. A genuine spiritual science. And the ramifications would spread well beyond medical application.

 

It could be a very interesting time to be alive, assuming the human spirit doesn't get crushed by dollar signs.

 

SYD

[goldisheavy]

What a coinqidinq. I was just about to add an article for the "Nocebo" effect, Seth.

 

http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2009/...her_way_too.php

 

Very interesting stuff.

 

松永道,

 

I completely agree with you with one slight difference. While it's annoying that the "Western" establishment likes to poo-poo traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), there may be a good side-effect of that attitude in the long run. In the long run we may end up with a fresh and independent look at the issues without carrying over the biases of TCM. This may broaden our understanding. This doesn't mean TCM is bad or ineffective at all. I believe there is a good chance that an independent perspective on mind-medicine will benefit TCM too.

 

I really like what you say about the paradigm shifts.

Edited October 2, 2009 by goldisheavy

[Birch]

Dont forget the negative effects, called 'Nacebo'.

They can work together Like in the woman given Placebo Chemo who slowly got better but still lost all her hair and had all of chemo's expected side affects.

 

 

I liked that you mentioned side "effects" and side "affects" in your post about placebo (which is also a pretty cool band;-))

[松永道]

松永道,

 

I completely agree with you with one slight difference. While it's annoying that the "Western" establishment likes to poo-poo traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), there may be a good side-effect of that attitude in the long run. In the long run we may end up with a fresh and independent look at the issues without carrying over the biases of TCM. This may broaden our understanding. This doesn't mean TCM is bad or ineffective at all. I believe there is a good chance that an independent perspective on mind-medicine will benefit TCM too.

 

I really like what you say about the paradigm shifts.

 

Traditional medicines definitely shouldn't get a free pass. Like you say, they all have their biases. But a comparative study and analysis of these systems save us from having to reinvent the wheel. Considering these systems represent thousands of years of accumulated study, we'd really be throwing out the baby with the bath water.

 

What a merger of traditional and modern medicine means to me is more than the synthesis of two systems. More like a man and woman coming together to have a child. One part mother, one part father, and one part something new.

 

But I wrestle with how the two can come together. The great strength of western medicine is objective measurement. Tools yield the same results no-matter the user (so hold our current paradigm anyway). And these tools then are the foundation of it's scientific community. The great strength of TCM turning yourself into a tool. Personal cultivation turns the practitioner into a living laboratory. But the system is necessarily subjective. Even if, theoretically, two doctors could cultivate the exact same level of ability, measure the same phenomenon, their unique human nature will always influence the interpretation of information. Of course, information in western medicine is biased by human interpretation too - but it's after the measurements - not during.

 

So, how to make a community around objective and subjective measurements? I read about a team of Japanese researchers who are making great strides in figuring out the visual cortex - to the point they may be able to record dreams. Wow! Here we have the beginnings of being able to watch someone else's subjective experience. Imagine this technology, taken further and applied to yogi's, qigong masters, psychics and other living laboratories. These men and women can, in essence, become the new tools of spiritual science. An objective study of subjective super-normal experience.

 

We'll see where things go.

 

SYD