scombrid

I can do it on demand. Relaxing my mental state almost always results in a reduction of my symptoms. It rarely stops the symptoms all together (If I remove myself from the presence of the allergen, relax, and wait; asthma will go away on its own) but keeps them in check until I get my inhaler.

The article didn't claim that the fake bronchiodilater did any better. It resulted in dilation of airways but the article didn't assert that it eliminated symptoms. Given what we know about hormonal cascades relative to emotional state, mental control of asthma symptoms and pain perception is a lot more believable than magic.

Viti

ROTFLMAO oh gawd is that funny

Anyway, Veil of Fire...placebo effect is quite powerful, but has everything to do with the patients BELIEF. If your healings worked on someone who does not believe in the power of metaphysical healing, you would not have placebo, you would have real healing.

If someone truly believes that howling at the moon naked will cure them, it just might...of course it is their own mind doing the healing...our bodies are capable of seemingly miraculous things. This is not magic

Koyaanisqatsi

Well, I'm no doctor but I sure as shit am opinionated, so here's my two cents on this.

The body heals itself. It always has and it always will. That's a function of the body. As such, any other function of the body (such as the mind) would logically be quite capable and understandably able to consciously direct that function in the same manner as any other function of the body can be consciously directed and/or manipulated; through intense and concentrated introverted focus.

You can change your heart rate, blood flow, adrenaline/endorphine generation, white blood cell count, etc., etc., etc., literally by just thinking about it as has been documented countless times, but why is this so surprising other than to Western sensibilities, where we pretend that our bodies are a car with disposable parts?

Medical science purports to assist the body's natural healing abilities not supplant them, but it's still "all in the mind" first and foremost, it's just that there's no profit margin in that is there?

How do you sell somebody's own natural healing abilities? By convincing the mind that they don't have any natural healing abilities; using the very effect against the use of the effect!

This isn't even "mind/body" crap, either. This is just a normal, every day function of the body to heal itself and a normal, every day function of the mind (brain, if you like) to tap into that natural process that it is part and parcel of, just not necessarily on the conscious level.

It's simply called "focus," and it's got nothing to do with barking at the moon unless barking at the moon is what gets you to focus.

Does it mean you can just wish cancer away and that prayer can actually help, no, of course not for two simple reasons.

When you "wish" something away, you're not focusing on it, you're focusing on it magically going away; i.e., you're not attempting to consciously communicat and direct your white blood cells--a part of you created by you--to amass and attack more efficiently the cancer cells that replicate with the memory that they are cancer cells, an aberrant contradiction of the body's natural process.

It's f*cking complex and your conscious efforts have to be equally if not more complex in order to jack your body off of auto-pilot and into manual, but it obviously can be done. You do it every day when you stub a toe or slam a finger or leap out of the way of a car or just wake up.

It is, after all, your body, but thanks to consumerism and christianity, nobody teaches kids such things.

As for prayer, that's even more removed from the process, since you're not even focusing on yourself; you're actively pretending that something else will heal you, so prayer probably has the least amount of "placebo effect," unless of course the mind tells the body that the prayer was answered because the doctor happened to walk through the door at that moment or the nurse happened to smile at you in a certain way, etc.

I've heard tell it's a myth that we use "5%" of our brain, because the truth is, IMO, we use 5% of our minds, aka, consciousness.

If people can put spikes through their penises without flinching, then the mind can do pretty much anything it wants to, short of cheat death, but why is this considered "metaphysical?"

It's all a part of the same package and it's 100% natural ingredients.

IMO.

Veil of Fire

"but has everything to do with the patients BELIEF"

But when was the last time anyone here accepted anecdotal evidence as a reason to BELIEVE?

"It's simply called "focus," and it's got nothing to do with barking at the moon unless barking at the moon is what gets you to focus."

And oddly enough, "focus" is the key component of any ritual.

"If people can put spikes through their penises without flinching, then the mind can do pretty much anything it wants to, short of cheat death, but why is this considered "metaphysical?""

Because conciousness is only vaugely understood. Using conciousness to control what western thought considers to be "uncontrollable" processes in the body MUST be shibai, right? Right? Yeah.

"It's all a part of the same package and it's 100% natural ingredients."

I agree. It's all 100% natural.

*******

After reading these replies, I'm guessing that most of you believe in the practice of "biofeedback"?

Pseudonymph

[quote]Originally posted by Koyaanisqatsi:
[QB]

I have always disliked this view of our bodies, that does indeed seem to be so prevalent in the west.

Exactly...to me anyway...this is analagous to praying. Some people do focus on themselves when they pray.

Honestly I disagree. Yes with consumerism. No with christianity. Christians believe that the body is sacred. A temple. They are against drugs and excessive drinking. So I fail to see how christianity has anything to do with disowning your body. I may be wrong tho.

Actually this is called "imaging" and its been proven to work in cancer patients. It seems to help speed the process to remission and provide moral boosts and other benefits to the patient. Of course, totall focus is required, as you say, on the PROBLEM.

I cant even accidently kick or punch my boyfriends without some huge ordeal....

you make some good points here...

Christopher Lord

Yes, all those points are agreeable.

but the key aspect of the disagreement is that placebo (or faith healing, praying, chanting, etc) only goes so far. Those who take it to the extreme and lock their kids up so they dont get good medical care because jey-sus will heal them are most certainly wrong.

NialScorva

The placebo effect is the baseline for comparison. How well does a person recover from a condition while only believing that they are receiving treatment. Regardless of whether it's magical or biological, the threshold for modern medicine is being better than the placebo effect.

The magical issue is completely seperate. If you wish to propose it as an explaination, you must do so and show it effective. You'd probably need a baseline to do so, so good luck trying to show that the placebo effect is more effective than the placebo effect.

liquid

Hey Veil

sure I understand what you are trying to argue. Of course, knowing me, you will realise that I don't agree with any of the magic stuff. Maybe it is sentimentality from spending too much time in ask-a-witch, but I don't feel the need to savage it so much. But be warned - this isn't a place that takes too much supernaturalism, so expect to be challenged! (Though I know you can face challenges).

Perhaps I had better qualify that statement - this is generally one of the most friendly boards I have been on (even to creationists and Xian fundies), on a personal level, but the debate is often intense and at a challenging level.

People aren't dismissing the fact that the placebo effect refers to partly unknown mechanisms. The difference lies in the fact that people won't accept metaphysics because biological, naturalistic mechanisms such as hormonal control are partially evidenced and understood, and are far more parsimonious. They also are maintaining the methodological naturalistic basis of science when there is no valid reason to disrupt it.

The other trend that is arising is that in order to support a metaphysical conclusion, you cannot point to gaps in knowledge but build a positive case for it, something that no-one has ever done, and likely never will.

Veil of Fire

Nial: Hey, that just gave me a great idea for my next experiment! I'd write that down somewhere, except I've packed all my writing utensils...

Liquid: One of the things I've noticed here is people keep expecting me to argue like a Christian. When I said something to the effect of "god is natural" (meaning divinity exists in nature), somebody tried to get me to explain how JC walked on water and Lazarus rose from the dead. <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

" you cannot point to gaps in knowledge but build a positive case for it, something that no-one has ever done, and likely never will."

Question, tho... isn't the exactly how many people justify their non-belief in a god? Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't saying "There's no evidence, so X must not exist" trying to use gaps in knowledge to build their case? (The gap being that there's no evidence)?

NialScorva

Actually, it's the opposite. Skepticism is not believing something unless there is a reason to. I won't believe in X unless it offers some explanatory power over not believing it. It's a minimalist approach, it means we tend to have a lot of unknowns, but that which we know we can be *very* sure of. God of the gaps style arguments are the inverse, they look at what is unknown and claim that it's God/supernatural/the IPU. The skeptic's problem is that it's unknown territory, the metaphysicalist seems to never have any knowns, just a bunch of "You don't know it can't be" and "there's more to the universe than you know".

I tend to be a bit different than many skeptics. I won't tell you that magic or god or whathaveyou doesn't exist. Rather I'll tell you that whether or not it does, you must show some benefit to me for me to take your claims seriously. You may call it astral projection. I call it meditation and biological effects. In the end it accomplishes the same thing for each of us, but I'm not gonna buy any metaphysical explanation unless you show me that something metaphysical exists.

To make a long story short, neither of us really has any reason to accept the knowledge of the other. However, I will do my best to make the things I know fit with things you can directly percieve. All the proof I need of what I claim is real is for you to kick the rock and say ouch. Metaphysical claims lack that.