salyavin wrote: Funny thing is it doesn't matter if the people doing a treatment believe it or not or if the patient knows it's a placebo or not, it always comes out more or less the same way. Bizarre. Share replies: salyavin, are sure you're in the science camp?! I say, if it ALWAYS comes out the same way, then there's a scientific explanation. Right? Some area of the brain that always get enlivened? Some neurotransmitter that ALWAYS gets released? Wouldn't this be a valid avenue of scientific inquiry?
And replying again to your bit about a person holding very contradictory ideas in their noggins. IMHO this is the rich area for research, exploding noggins notwithstanding. This might even be a way at the "hard problem" ha ha. Interesting story about Derren Brown and his off the street faith healer. I guess bottom line for me is we're just beginning to understand how the brain functions in all its different modalities such as believing and thinking and being prejudiced, etc. I might have to come back as a neuroscientist. And then again as a geologist (-: Replying to another post: yep, walking under a full moon is supposedly good for pitta types. Could be fairly easy to test. Replying to yet another post: I wonder if Sally Morgan the psychic *knew* she'd win the court case. Referring to another post: I have no trouble following your lines of reasoning. ________________________________ From: salyavin808 <fintlewoodle...@mail.com> To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Sunday, June 23, 2013 2:11 AM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Did the Earth move for you? --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Share Long <sharelong60@...> wrote: > > salyavin wrote: But that's how placebo works, the more complex and arcane the > system, the greater the message to the unconscious to set off the effect. > Share replies: now THAT sounds like a theory that could use some rigorous > testing via scientific method! It has been. I think it was Barry posted something about what happens physiologically during the placebo response. But the idea that it's a ritual involving technical procedures and authority figures to provoke the response is correct. It's the white coat effect of anything a doctor gives you will do *something*. TV illusionist Derren Brown trained a man off the street to be a faith healer and it worked, he walked around asking people if they had any health problems and he'd rub his hands over an ankle (or whatever) and say a prayer and they would feel better. He claims that as pain is largely self measured then someone shifting the attention towards happiness by giving them a bit of attention will cause a regrade of even chronic pain and people think they are better. I was on a rounding course when MVVT was introduced, we got a lecture on how it worked by strengthening the body by reciting the vedas at them (which had me chuckling) The TMO set the ground work for this with Tony Nader's Book of "discoveries" of ved in the human physiology. Awareness of that will make you think there is some validity in chanting the relevant passage at someone's liver to cure them of something. I predicted to anyone who would listen (not many) that the results would come out as slightly better than a placebo or about 20% having good results down to 40% getting minor improvements. Or something like, that can't remember exactly. Boy was I right. But it was a standard result rather than the better one I expected because it was a group with strong beliefs. Funny thing is it doesn't matter if the people doing a treatment believe it or not or if the patient knows it's a placebo or not, it always comes out more or less the same way. Bizarre. > Yeah, when Stewart was standing at the edge of the falls, I kept trying to > see if he had a rope around himself or what. But I'm grateful for his crazy > daredevilness. As a required science class, I took Intro to Geology at Univ > of Maryland. Prof was one of the most popular. Rocks rock (-: > Hmmm, scientific method as the great leveler? I still say we'll all > scientists all day long. And at a certain age, not much left to be leveled! We are only scientists when we are trying to find out how things work, the blind trials are most effective but people complain that certain therapies rely as much on the interaction with the medic than they do with the treatment. How this is different from placebo effects is beyond me. > But really, what did you think about my point that the core of all this, what > needs to be understoodmore thoroughly, is this cognitive dissonance? I think > there's something just there that's worth understanding however we can. I don't think it's *core* but it is something to be aware of and interesting to see in action. Do we all do it? Probably at some point but it's when it gets extreme as the Leon Festinger book I recommended the other day, where people believe the most obviously contradictory things (and be happy with them) that are actually scary. > > > ________________________________ > From: salyavin808 <fintlewoodlewix@...> > To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com > Sent: Saturday, June 22, 2013 1:33 PM > Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Did the Earth move for you? > > > >  > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Share Long <sharelong60@> wrote: > > > > salyavin, thanks for giving me another reason to love Pangaea, well, even > > its demise as well as its existence. That footage looking down into > > Victoria Falls is awesome IMHO and elicits a pretty visceral response in me. > > That bit was great, I would taken *a lot* of persuading that was > safe! > > Iain Stewart is one of my favourite BBC documentary makers, I > ofetn wish I'd studied Geology as being able to look at a landscape > and see how it formed and how old it is must be an awesome dimension of > awareness to have. > > I spent some time in Israel and used to go wandering in the desert > and trying to figure out what could have happened to make it look > like a huge piece of the Earth's crust had been picked up dropped > from a great height. I'm sure the answer will be in his new series > at some point. > > > On the Dawkins topic: for me the core of the debate seems to lie in > > understanding the nature of cognitive dissonance or what you call weird > > disconnect or wooly thinking. I say let's hook up the ABofC to an fMRI and > > see what actually happens inside his skull when he expresses such a > > potentially explosive combo of belief and scientific knowledge. Yep, I'm > > making a joke and I admit that whenever you make such a point, inside my > > head I'm screaming gap, gap, gap! Maybe Dawkins doesn't have one. Let's > > hook him up to fMRI too (-: > > I'm sure he'd be first in line. I know someone who writes the > software for MRI scanners. I asked him if I could meditate in > one as his are the state of the art at London's main teaching > hospital, but he couldn't see the point. And he gets researchers > queueing round the block to finish ground breaking work. No time > for curious old hippies! > > > On the acupuncture topic: I've never done it. But I have done EFT tapping > > which is done on meridian points and I like it though can't say it "cured " > > me. OTOH, I am currently doing an energy modality, thank you Cardemaister, > > which involves no touch at all and with which I've had really good > > results. > > I know lots of people who get a lot out of acupuncture and > some who got nothing, like Bhairitu. What interests me is that > something I had always assumed had something going for it due > to it's great age and sophistication, and it turns out it can't > survive a run in with the great leveller of scientific method! > > But that's how placebo works, the more complex and arcane the > system, the greater the message to the unconscious to set off > the effect. Assuming this study is correct of course.... > > > BTW, stay tuned for news concerning my jyotish chart > > rectification and if it turns out to be accurate.  > > > > > > ________________________________ > > From: salyavin808 <fintlewoodlewix@> > > To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com > > Sent: Saturday, June 22, 2013 9:59 AM > > Subject: [FairfieldLife] Did the Earth move for you? > > > > > > > >  > > > > > > How the splitting up of a supercontinent 250million years ago led to the > > invention of sex > > > > > > Today we are familiar with our continents being scattered across the globe, > > but 250 million years ago they were part of one 'supercontinent'. Here TV > > geologist Professor Iain Stewart tells how the history of the > > 'supercontinent' is responsible for koalas being native only to Australia > > and llamas to only South America, but also, most importantly, how the > > 'supercontinent' brought about the invention of sex... > > > > We geologists are an odd bunch. We travel through lands that don't exist. > > The gateway to these imagined lands are the rocks underfoot. They are > > portals to the past. No need for a Tardis or fancy time machine - just a > > hand lens and a hammer can teleport us back to ancient geological times. > > > > The ancestral Earths we geologists inspect are very different from the > > familiar geography of the present. Today, our great land masses are > > scattered across the globe, but repeatedly in our planet's history they > > have clumped together as vast agglomerations - supercontinents. > > > > Supercontinents come together every 500 million years or so, as armadas of > > land assemble, weld, founder and disperse. The most recent great > > continental union occurred 250 million years ago. > > > > Geologists give it the name Pangaea, meaning 'all Earth', but it lasted > > only 100 million years. Its break-up would give us the scattered continents > > of today. > > > > But more than that, the rise and fall of Pangaea would shape our modern > > world in the most surprising ways. > > > > For a start, the continental couplings that first gave birth to Pangaea > > played a critical role in one of the most important evolutionary > > developments in the story of life - the invention of sexual intercourse. > > > > The evidence is preserved in the walls of one of the planet's geological > > wonders, the Grand Canyon. > > > > The strata in this gorge span more than a billion years of time, but it is > > the uppermost rock layers that track the slow death of an ancient ocean as > > continents coalesced. > > > > The grey muds of shallow seas, then coastal deltas pass up into the > > distinctive red sands of continental Pangaea. > > > > Among the windblown ripples are footprints which showed that some critters > > thrived in this new arid wasteland. Not amphibians, which up until this > > point had been the dominant animals on the planet. But reptiles. > > > > A clue to why the ancestors of alligators and crocodiles quickly adapted to > > the vast Pangaean desert lies in the way they have sex. Now, gator sex is > > pretty much like human sex; a tad more brutish and noisy perhaps, but with > > the same style of copulation - internal fertilisation. > > > > For amphibians, fertilisation is a messy and haphazard business involving > > eggs being released in rivers and ponds. In reptiles, the sperm is > > delivered inside the female direct to the ova. The embryos grow within > > protective shells filled with life-sustaining amniotic juices. Young > > reptiles didn't need external water to develop. > > The hard, impermeable egg was the revolution. It was the great Pangaean > > desert that kick-started an evolutionary chain reaction that would lead, > > eventually, to us. > > > > There's > > more: > > > > http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2343325/How-splitting-supercontinent-250million-years-ago-led-invention-sex.html > > >
