The Collective Placebo Effect? Collective Belief & Disbelief?

[Interesting Ian]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

Correct. But the way to construct a worldview that denies this is to define physicalism as follows:

Physicalism includes everything that is mundane and obvious in science, but nothing new and bizarre. As soon as something new and bizarre comes up, we must deny that physicalism could possibly include it (until later when it becomes old-hat and mundane). This allows us to assert that the new and bizarre thing demonstrates that physicalism must be false. This is called Strawman Limited Physicalism.

~~ Paul

I just tried a search on google:

Your search - "Strawman Limited Physicalism" - did not match any documents.

Suggestions:

* Make sure all words are spelled correctly.
* Try different keywords.
* Try more general keywords.

[David Bailey]

Paul,

I don't think getting into a semantic discussion about the (possibly extended) meaning of physicalism is a useful way to proceed!

David

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Open Mind

Paul that sounds curiously like holism and you are a physicalist? I don't know what you mean .....I think you have missed the point, I was asking how the placebo effect could have evolved....

What's it got to do with holism? What does "What were the evolutionary benefits to remaining sick?" have to do with the placebo effect? And why did the placebo effect have to evolve? Perhaps it is an accident.

If our immune system can destroy the bacteria more effectively, why does it hold back and wait for a pill, belief or hope to work better?

How do you know that the deterioration in effectiveness of cimetidine is due to the placebo effect? Shouldn't you verify this before running off on speculations about the evolution of the immune system? You do know that cimetidine is a histamine antagonist and so inhibits acid, right? It is not an antibiotic. Acid production is certainly linked to psychological factors.

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Ian

I just tried a search on google:

Your search - "Strawman Limited Physicalism" - did not match any documents.

Why do you think that would be?

Originally Posted by David

I don't think getting into a semantic discussion about the (possibly extended) meaning of physicalism is a useful way to proceed!

What discussion? Two or three of you keep ragging on my definition of physicalism, but not a single one of you has offered an alternative. Doesn't that strike you as odd?

~~ Paul

[Chris Noble]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

Why do you think that would be?


What discussion? Two or three of you keep ragging on my definition of physicalism, but not a single one of you has offered an alternative. Doesn't that strike you as odd?

~~ Paul

LOL

You've been labelled a "Physicalist" (which has the same ring as the strawman "Darwinists" that creationists are always talking about) and have been blamed for factory farming, telling people that everything that they ever see is a lie, having stunted emotional growth and being incapable of morality. Now you have the audacity to want to define your own label?

[Open Mind]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

What's it got to do with holism? What does "What were the evolutionary benefits to remaining sick?" have to do with the placebo effect? And why did the placebo effect have to evolve? Perhaps it is an accident.

Accidentalism of the gaps?

How do you know that the deterioration in effectiveness of cimetidine is due to the placebo effect? Shouldn't you verify this before running off on speculations about the evolution of the immune system? You do know that cimetidine is a histamine antagonist and so inhibits acid, right? It is not an antibiotic. Acid production is certainly linked to psychological factors.

Makes no difference, either the mind (via placebo) can produce real beneficial and harmful physiological effects.... or these are all imaginary effects in the mind ..... the latter viewpoint is unsustainable.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Open Mind

Makes no difference, either the mind (via placebo) can produce real beneficial and harmful physiological effects.... or these are all imaginary effects in the mind ..... the latter viewpoint is unsustainable.

If it makes no difference, why did you bring it up?

I agree that the mind can produce real physiological effects, since one's physiology is controlled by one's brain.

~~ Paul

[Chris Noble]

Originally Posted by Open Mind

Can any psi theory account for those bizarre results? Possibly Rupert Sheldrake's Morphic Resonance and some others.

Morphic resonance can explain everything. If the efficacy of a drug improves with time then morphic resonance predicts this. If the efficacy decreases then morphic resonance predicts this too.

This is the beauty of a content free theory. It can predict anything. The accuracies of the predictions increase dramatically if you know what the results are before you make the predicitions.

[David Bailey]

Originally Posted by Chris Noble

Morphic resonance can explain everything. If the efficacy of a drug improves with time then morphic resonance predicts this. If the efficacy decreases then morphic resonance predicts this too.

This is the beauty of a content free theory. It can predict anything. The accuracies of the predictions increase dramatically if you know what the results are before you make the predicitions.

Unfortunately, this same accusation can easily be levelled at natural selection. If a certain bird evolves a longer tail, it helps it to fly better, if it evolves a shorter tail, maybe it makes it less obvious to predators....

It is indeed an unsettling fact that responses to drugs and other treatments vary over time - naively you would not expect this. If the placebo effect has been avoided, then either the data collection is somehow faulty, or there has to be some sort of memory for the effect to change with time.

David

[Chris Noble]

Originally Posted by David Bailey

Unfortunately, this same accusation can easily be levelled at natural selection. If a certain bird evolves a longer tail, it helps it to fly better, if it evolves a shorter tail, maybe it makes it less obvious to predators....

We've been through this before. You can test evolution. You can put bacteria in an environment with antibiotics. You can manipulate the selection pressure and make predictions about what will happen. You can also look at different regions with different selection pressures and make predictions.

You can't do the same with morphic resonance. There is no way to manipualte it. There is no way to transparently make predictions from morphic resonance.

It is indeed an unsettling fact that responses to drugs and other treatments vary over time - naively you would not expect this. If the placebo effect has been avoided, then either the data collection is somehow faulty, or there has to be some sort of memory for the effect to change with time.

David

There are a number of reasons why the efficacy of drugs like antidepressants when compared to placebo controls varies over time. One factor is the severity of the depression in the patients.

You might be interested in listening to this podcast
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/allinthemin...08/2198214.htm

Dan Arielly did research involving the factors that determine how effective a placebo is. He found that patients showed a greater placebo effect if they were told that the drug (actually a placebo) was more expensive.