--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" wrote: > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb wrote: >> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Share Long wrote: >>> >>> Yikes! Then maybe I didn't really understand what Xeno was >>> saying. Xeno, what did you mean? My interpretation was that >>> the placebo effect can enter an individual's system by many >>> avenues, meaning of the individuality: ego, emotions, >>> thoughts, physical imbalances, environmental factors, etc. >> >> And if he did so he is correct. > > If that is what he meant, I wouldn't dispute it. I don't think > he's saying what Barry says below, but he can chime in if he > wants and clarify. > > It's Barry who is trying to mislead you by misrepresenting the > point I was making, which he has chosen not to address. I've > made that point clear in other posts, so I won't go into it > again. Basically it has to do with discriminating between what > sorts of activities and results can be said to involve the > placebo effect and which cannot. Quite obviously it's > inappropriate to claim, as Barry did, that the results reported > in the study that began this discussion are a result of the > placebo effect. It appears that Barry read no more than the > headline before making his claim. > > All of what he writes here is intended to distract attention > from my point.
Strictly speaking, the placebo effect deals with a medically inactive substance that is promoted to the patient as a cure for what ails them. We do observe what appears to be analogous responses in other venues. I generalised the concept. This is what you do in science. A limited effect is observed and verified. A scientist then wonders if the effect extends to a wider realm. Thus specific observation and induction lead to a general rule in a limited case. Extrapolation and induction make the attempt to generalise the concept further. While planetary orbits do not at all resemble the world of quantum mechanics, the idea that electrons orbit a nucleus of protons and neutrons, once those particles identities were well established, allowed further advances in knowledge even though electron orbitals proved very unlike gravitationally bound planetary orbits. What I was doing was extending the idea of the placebo to a generalised 'anticipation response' that presumably would operate on similar mental and biological principles by which the body and mind respond to a given situation in the context of a strongly held belief, even if that belief is total nonsense. In terms of SCI, that religious doctrine in the disguise of science, it is a move from point value to infinity. We see the same idea, analogously, in spirituality. We say that in a world of specificity and multiplicity of things and concepts, there is an unbound, nonspecific value, which if experienced, will give us more freedom. At first that value, if experienced, is very momentary. Eventually, the story goes, it becomes more contiguous in time, and eventually subsumes all experiences, a path of evolving experience that goes from specific values to a totally unspecific quality of experience, in which there is no longer any path of progression possible. One of the interesting results of this is people can experience life becoming meaningless because the dominant quality of experience becomes nonspecific (that is a spiritual trap, but it happens to a lot of people). The ultimate meaning of one's life becomes inexpressible. Both experientially and intellectually, the move from specific to general results in the specificity becoming less meaningful as context expands. At one time the electric force and the magnetic force were specific separate realms, until Maxwell found a way to show they were the same. Quantum electrodynamics and quantum chromodynamics have subsumed these concepts further. If the story is ever finished, one only needs know one thing to know the nature of all things, and the specific values become uninteresting to argue about. An 'anticipation response' seems like a general concept that would be valuable to investigate. Crooks make use of this placebo analogue to bilk marks. Bernie Madoff did this quite well with his Ponzi scheme. Advertising makes use of it. You get a person to belive a particular idea, and then the tendency to anticipate will flow behaviour in a particular direction. This is how people are controlled by what they believe - can't think out of the box. We all fall into this. We all have cultural biases we are not even cognizant of that fashions our thinking in particular channels, and if we are not aware of them, these behavioural rigidities can be used to control us, or even if no external forces impinge on us, can subvert our own desires. Conditioning runs deep, and even with a lot of experiential unboundedness, it can be hard to break down. Expansion of experience is kind of like a spiral, investigate specifics, generalise, investigate new specifics, then generalise again and again in an ever-widening fashion. You make no progress in understanding if you remain on a limited level of specifics. That does not mean you ignore specifics, because they have to fit into the larger scheme in a particular way to be of any value; they have a definite part to play. But imagination and extrapolation, which is potentially fraught with error, is necessary to move into a larger realm of experience and understanding, and that means at times, you have to temporarily push the specifics under the rug, out of sight for a while, before you return to see how it all comes down, after you have stretched the boundaries beyond what you previously knew. > The modern understand >> of that which triggers the placebo effect is that it >> could be pretty much *anything*. A person wearing a >> white coat, a person handing you a pill to take, >> whether the pill is inert or real, even the language >> used by a supposed physician or tester, and whether >> or not they have a friendly "beside manner" or not. >> >> Despite the way that authfriend is trying to mislead >> you here, *anything* that triggers a belief in the >> subject that their condition -- whether it be physical, >> mental, or spiritual -- will improve as a result of >> what is offered (even if what is offered is a technique, >> such as TM), there is a high probability that for many >> people, it *will* improve. At the very least, temporarily. >> >> Science has not yet completely pinned down the mechanics >> of what makes one person more susceptible to the placebo >> effect than another person, but they are working on it >> furiously. At least one study published in the journal >> Psychological Health indicates that it may have something >> to do with the vagus nerve, and the condition of one's >> vagal tone index. Another study published by PLoSOne shows >> that it may be genetic, and a result of the catechol- >> O-methyltransferase (COMT) gene, which regulates dopamine >> production. >> >> But you can be sure they're working on the issue, because >> at present the placebo effect is costing pharmaceutical >> companies billions of dollars per year. They can no longer >> get new drugs released, because they cannot prove that they >> have any more effect than an inert sugar pill -- a placebo. >> Even drugs that have been on the market for years are now >> unable to replicate the original research that allowed them >> to be marketed, because these now-common and commonly- >> prescribed drugs can't perform any better than a placebo, >> either. >> >> So they're working furiously to try to understand the placebo >> effect, and to figure out who is more prone to it than others, >> so that they can use this information when finding subjects >> for drug and psychological trials. The idea is -- eliminate >> those with a high propensity to imagine good effects from a >> non-drug (those sensitive or more prone to the placebo effect) >> and form both your drug groups and your placebo groups from >> a population that is *not* as sensitive to placebos, and drug >> testing might get back on track again. >> >> But basically *anything* can be a placebo. Something you hear >> at a lecture, something you read, some "technique" someone >> tells you to do, or even some "pilgrimage" someone tells you >> to take. Those who are placebo-prone will get some benefit >> from it, whether there is any legitimate reason for the >> benefit or not. >> >> THAT is what I believe is happening with the Kumbh Mela. It >> is *classic* placebo, with centuries of PR touting the sup- >> posed benefits of going there and bathing in sewage at the >> "propitious" times of year. And I say this knowing that *I* >> get high and perceive benefits from going to places of >> power myself. Part of me would like to believe that the >> benefits I perceive from doing so has something to do with >> the nature of the place, but another part of me knows that >> it is more likely a placebo effect. Either way, I'll still >> keep going to those places, because I like the effect... >> placebo effect or otherwise. >> >>> ________________________________ >>> From: authfriend >>> To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com >>> Sent: Monday, January 21, 2013 9:00 AM >>> Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Study: Participating in MahaKumbh improves >>> physical and mental well-being >>> >>> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Share Long wrote: >>>> >>>> Xeno, I appreciate especially when you say below, "...the many >>>> avenues by which it can enter..." I'd never thought of placebo >>>> in that way. >>> >>> Nor should you. Xeno is using the term so broadly and >>> loosely that it gets diluted to the point of >>> meaninglessness. >>> >>> Lourdes is a reasonable example; people go there with the >>> expectation of being cured of a specific ailment, which >>> either occurs or does not occur. >>> >>> Kumbh Mela is not, at least as the effects of attendance >>> were described in the study that started this discussion. >>> >>>> Research on activities with spiritual themes historically >>>> have tended to be sloppy with regard to evaluating the >>>> presence and strength of the placebo effect, and the many >>>> avenues by which it can enter and confound results. >> >
