Categories or Degrees of Existence (Agnosticism)

by dhw, Tuesday, February 23, 2010, 09:40 (5387 days ago) @ George Jelliss

My thanks to George for drawing our attention to another interesting example of "anecdotal evidence", in this case homeopathy.-Like BBella, I know several people who swear by it, and if didn't work at all, the practice would have died out long ago. However, what interests me in the context of our discussions is how it works if it really is a sham (I don't know enough about it to make a judgement). Yet again, it's language that makes us think we've got it covered. We talk of "placebos" and "autosuggestion" as if that were an explanation. It isn't. Those are just words to describe an extraordinary and incomprehensible process. Initially there's something wrong with the body. People are given a useless medication which they believe will help them, and just because they believe it.....what happens next? Certain cells in their brains release certain chemicals which set in motion the body's own remarkable mechanisms of self-healing. How's it done? Sometimes the trick doesn't work, and you may get the opposite, "nocebo" effect ... but it's still the same mystery of consciousness, of what controls the brain cells, and how the "will" of the cells can influence other areas of the body.-What is the "placebo effect" evidence of? Perhaps I should have objected earlier to the word "evidence", because it carries too much weight. In my subjective view, until we get a satisfactory physical explanation of how consciousness works, it suggests the possibility (no more) that the mind is not simply a matter of brain cells.