David Hamilton

[tolman]

Your the one pretending here. I went through the article linked to in the OP in detail, and I pulled your comments apart and clearly showed that your objection was down to what people "might infer" rather than what the article said.

Seems to me that Matt was merely pointing out that some people would tend to read what was written as suggesting that brain has mysterious powers.
That he was right seems fairly well demonstrated by your reaction.

Yes, we both agree that the placebo effect exists and there's a role for positive thinking. Hamilton is trying to employ the latter to tap into the former, and if it works, that's not quantum drivel.

But there's no obvious need to speculate about quantum effects in order to either explain the possible effects of positive thinking (and, generally, consequent positive actions) or to motivate people to think positively.

Bringing up quantum speculations seems like nothing more than hand-waving to impress the credulous, since it seems much more likely to impress people who know nothing about quantum mechanics or neurophysiology than those who know something.
Even if that was done purely in an attempt to increase the amount of positive thinking being done, rather than merely increasing the amount of book-buying being done, it would still be somewhat questionable.

FFS, here it is: some patients who might die, don't. What are you going say when that happens? That the prognosis was wrong? Every time?

By definition, if the prognosis was given as a 100% certainty, then it is wrong if it doesn't happen.
Why a prognosis may have been wrong could be worth looking at, but could be down to any number of things, many of which involve no magic.

If expressed less categorically, then a 'failure' isn't necessarily meaningful.

If the weather forecast is '10% chance of rain', if it does actually rain on a day with such a forecast, that's not an error in the forecast.
It would only be meaningful if the average result with that forecast was significantly different to 10%, and even then, the simplest explanation is that the original 10% was wrong, or was only meant as a rough guide, rather than speculating about people doing a rain dance.

Like I said, this guy is no homeopath, he's a ex-drug company scientist with a PhD in organic chemistry...

He's someone who studied chemistry for 6 years in order to work as a chemist for 3, and then either decided to stop being a chemist, or had that decision made for him.
He doesn't seem to be a neuroscientist, or any kind of medic, or a quantum physicist.

[Farsight]

What evidence?

I see a flawed argument but no sign of any evidence...

No evidence and a badly flawed argument...

I've seen absolutely no indication of abuse...

Who are you kidding? Show a creationist some rock strata and fossils, and he'll say I see no evidence. Show him some skinks and some finches and he'll say I see a flawed argument. Keep it up and he'll eventually scream heretic and blasphemer and then he’ll say I see no abuse. What makes you think you're any different?

Where studies have been done on positive thinking/attitude regarding serious illness, it turns out that it makes no difference what you think. Whether you're in the optimistic/positive thinking or the pessimistic/negative thinking group the survival rates remain the same. You cannot think yourself better from a serious condition.

Spare me the tired old wrong-prognosis chestnut. Let's have a look at "positive thinking" and "medical evidence". Here's something on chronic fatigue:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC26565/

OK, that's arguably psychosomatic, but here's something on ageing:

http://seniorliving.about.com/od/lifetransitionsaging/a/positivethinkin.htm

That isn't psychosomatic. Nor is a stroke. A stroke is serious. Here's a newspaper report re UCL research saying stress raises the risk of heart attack and stroke:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/ar...ck-stroke.html

Sure, you aren't going to think yourself better when you're lying on the floor clutching your chest, but you can think your way out of that stress by getting a grip. That's positive thinking, the thing that underlies the placebo effect. No, it ain't going to fix your broken leg, but some people recover from a serious illness, and some go out in a box, and you can't always say why. Would you rather claim that remission is just pot luck? I wouldn't, and nor would the National Cancer Institute. Here's something about a breast cancer trial with a $4.5m grant from the National Cancer Institute to some meditation mob:

http://www.americanmeditation.org/Me...onBenefits.htm

So, looks like somebody doesn't agree with you, and they're prepared to stump up to check it out with a trial. I suppose if it comes up with a positive result you'll be still be saying I see no evidence.

[tolman]

So, if people who think more positively live longer, that is evidence for speculative quantum effects, where the brain can selectively target individual molecules elsewhere in the body by magically focussing its energy?

It's not explicable by hormonal effects?

It's not explicable by things like more positive people maybe getting more exercise, putting effort into eating better, etc?
(That is, real-world effects ultimately caused by human actions as a result of thoughts, which even in a sensible reductionist viewpoint are really instances of the physical body acting as a result of nerve impulses.)

Effectively, unless someone actually understands how the body and mind work, they'd seem to be pretty much guaranteed to be unable to produce 'evidence' for magical quantum effects, since given almost any data, they'd be quite unable to even try and rule out the mechanisms that are already known to exist.

In the case of linkage between stress and heart problems and stroke, even in the article you quote, the clear implication is that there's already a perfectly good explanation of how such a linkage could exist, using well-known brain/body connections.
Speculations about other possible mechanisms don't seem to be necessary, and in the absence of particular evidence as to why any such explanation should be seriously considered, don't even seem likely to be of any use.

[Admin]

Who are you kidding? Show a creationist some rock strata and fossils, and he'll say I see no evidence. Show him some skinks and some finches and he'll say I see a flawed argument. Keep it up and he'll eventually scream heretic and blasphemer and then he’ll say I see no abuse. What makes you think you're any different?

What an odd reply!

You claimed we were "dismissing evidence" and I said that I hadn't seen any evidence presented.

Spare me the tired old wrong-prognosis chestnut.

Where have I said it's down to a "wrong prognosis" (although that is obviously an important factor)?

You're not much good at debate are you?

Let's have a look at "positive thinking" and "medical evidence".....

Erm...

How about some clinical evidence that 'positive thinking' can cure disease?

We all know that a positive mental attitude is beneficial in many areas of life or that reducing stress and anxiety is a good thing generally but the claim here is that by positive thinking you can cure disease.

e.g. on average, do cancer patients who think positively live longer or have higher cure rates than those who think negatively?



I think that like many people who are into all this mind over matter nonsense you're confusing some real and known effects with magical thinking. Reducing stress through relaxation techniques is not the same thing as thinking diseases away.

[Farsight]

I'm not confusing real and known effects with magical thinking. You're dismissing clear evidence of the benefits of positive thinking. Where's your comments on the evidence I provided? Nowhere, because you still dismiss the evidence. Where's your remark saying you await the results of the $4.5m meditation/breast cancer trail with interest? Nowhere, because you're just as convictional as a creationist. Talking of disease, here's a disease, bird flu, where mortality is circa 60% :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influen...s_subtype_H5N1

Now for the $64,000 dollar question: why do 40% get better?

[Farsight]

So, if people who think more positively live longer, that is evidence for speculative quantum effects, where the brain can selectively target individual molecules elsewhere in the body by magically focussing its energy?

No, there's clear evidence for the power of positive thinking, and there's clear evidence that electrons and protons and thus people really are made of waves.

It's not explicable by hormonal effects?

What explanation would that be? Hormones are secreted by cells. And how do hormones get to be secreted? Let's check it out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hormone...gy_of_hormones

Various methods, but one of them is Neurons and mental activity. So what triggered that? Chase it all the way back and you end up with molecules and atoms and electrons and protons and thence wave/particle duality.

It's not explicable by things like more positive people maybe getting more exercise, putting effort into eating better, etc?

I'm sure that sort of thing helps, but what do you do when you've got a walking talking patient who ought to be six feet under and it's none of the above?

(That is, real-world effects ultimately caused by human actions as a result of thoughts, which even in a sensible reductionist viewpoint are really instances of the physical body acting as a result of nerve impulses.) Effectively, unless someone actually understands how the body and mind work, they'd seem to be pretty much guaranteed to be unable to produce 'evidence' for magical quantum effects, since given almost any data, they'd be quite unable to even try and rule out the mechanisms that are already known to exist.

That's not the issue here. The issue is that people here are so skeptical that they blind themselves to any possible evidence and sneer at some guy because he has the temerity to chuck in a little wave/particle duality when he suggests that determination makes a difference.

In the case of linkage between stress and heart problems and stroke, even in the article you quote, the clear implication is that there's already a perfectly good explanation of how such a linkage could exist, using well-known brain/body connections.

No problem, but you can use positive thinking to get a grip on your life to avoid being carried out of work in a bag.

Speculations about other possible mechanisms don't seem to be necessary, and in the absence of particular evidence as to why any such explanation should be seriously considered, don't even seem likely to be of any use.

Oh, catch-22. You don't understand how we think and how the bodily machine is controlled, so how can you possibly dismiss other possible mechanisms? Where's your comment saying you await the results of the $4.5m meditation/breast cancer trail with interest?

[Farsight]

Good for you. Did you also see the stuff about dowsing? I bet you've got some great reasons why his defence of astrology makes perfect sense to you too.

Nope. Stay on topic instead of throwing up evasion because I've ripped your paragraphs to shreds.

Anyway what was it that you thought the introduction of reductionism added to the discussion of the placebo effect? You forgot to answer.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reducti...sm_and_science. The placebo effect is real. Placebos have performed better in trials than some actively-marketed drugs. And when you boil this positive thinking thing down past the brain and the cells and the hormones and the molecules and the atoms and the protons and the electrons, you get down to quantum physics and wave/particle duality. The particles that make up your body really are made out of waves. Annihilation releases those waves, p + p → 2γ. That's the scientific evidence that what Hamilton was saying about it's all just waves is right.

[tolman]

No, there's clear evidence for the power of positive thinking, and there's clear evidence that electrons and protons and thus people really are made of waves.

There's no evidence that the quantum level is a meaningful one at which to try and understand the effects of 'positive' or 'negative' thoughts, not least since at the quantum level, 'positive' has no meaning.

I'm sure that sort of thing helps, but what do you do when you've got a walking talking patient who ought to be six feet under and it's none of the above?

What you don't do is try and leverage a lack of perfect knowledge into 'evidence' in favour of any half-arsed theory that someone dreams up.
Not unless you only want to attract the admiration of ignoramuses.

That's not the issue here. The issue is that people here are so skeptical that they blind themselves to any possible evidence and sneer at some guy because he has the temerity to chuck in a little wave/particle duality when he suggests that determination makes a difference.

The issue is that his claims seem to be unfalsifiable, and hence unscientific.

It's pretty clear that the people most likely to be impressed by his ideas are the people who know relatively little about neuroscience and/or quantum mechanics.
That, to me, says a great deal.

You don't understand how we think and how the bodily machine is controlled, so how can you possibly dismiss other possible mechanisms?

He doesn't seem to understand what people already know about how the brain/mind works, or fails to show where that knowledge is unable to explain results, so how can he justify inventing extra mechanisms, assuming he isn't simply relying on handwaving about such mechanisms in order to impress the ignorant.

Where's your comment saying you await the results of the $4.5m meditation/breast cancer trail with interest?

I await all decent results with interest.
However, could there be any results that can prove him wrong?

Let's look at some of the master's words:

So at the very least, viewing a disease from a quantum perspective, where we see waves of energy instead of something more or less solid or chemical, might lead to some beneficial physiological changes in the body. This is because at the level of the quantum field we see waves and we know that waves are easily changed. You only need to move your hand in the bath to create waves and then move it again to change them.

So we can 'easily change' the quantum waves, and we can somehow know exactly how to change a particular wave in order to influence a disease, even when the wave is localised in space at an atomic or subatomic level, and in time at what amounts to an instant, whereas for someone trying to think positively, 'thoughts' in the brain operate on timescales of maybe hundredths of a second, and any 'mental 'waves' are operating on scales of millimetres or centimetres?
And when we have no idea precisely which 'wave' needs to be changed (and in what way) in order to positively affect the course of a particular disease?

How am I supposed to 'change my quantum waves' to focus on a particular bacterium that's flying round somewhere in my bloodstream?

[Matt]

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reducti...sm_and_science.

Well done, you looked the word up. Just so we're on the same page I read the wiki paragraph and thankfully it does indeed mean what I intended to say.

The placebo effect is real. Placebos have performed better in trials than some actively-marketed drugs.

I'm sure that's true if your cherry pick the right trials. maybe even true for some drugs which are are marketed for one purpose and being tested for another. Or for dosing trials where the drug is marketed at one dose because the lower dose was shown to be ineffective. You get the placebo effect as an added extra with pharmacologically active drugs. If the drug actually has no benefit then it's effectively only a placebo itself. 50% of the time the placebo arm of the trial will therefore do better. However it would certainly be a concern if this drug went on to be licensed for a therapy in which it was demonstrably no better than placebo alone. Is that really what you're claiming?

And when you boil this positive thinking thing down past the brain and the cells and the hormones and the molecules and the atoms and the protons and the electrons, you get down to quantum physics and wave/particle duality.

Once again I agree that this is true, but I ask again, what does this perspective add to our understanding of the placebo effect?

The particles that make up your body really are made out of waves. Annihilation releases those waves, p + p → 2γ. That's the scientific evidence that what Hamilton was saying about it's all just waves is right.

Releasing those waves? The particles are already waves it's called wave particle duality. A far better demonstration of this is the double slit experiment as performed with cathode rays by Clauss Jönsson in 1961.

Does the undergraduate student who has a whitey after his fifth bong hit and comes round with the revelation that "it's all waves dude" really add to our understanding of human biology? Has Hamilton in his essay really done any more than that?

[tolman]

Talking of disease, here's a disease, bird flu, where mortality is circa 60% :

Now for the $64,000 dollar question: why do 40% get better?

Obviously, the answer must be:
"We don't have enough specific information about the precise histories of all the people. Therefore we suspect that there must be some kind of quantum effects involved."

If you actually understand even less about biology than you understand about physics, you're probably better off not trying to ask questions while labouring under the misapprehension that you'll look profound, when in fact you'll just look like an idiot.

[Pebble]

The placebo effect is real. .

No one disagrees

Placebos have performed better in trials than some actively-marketed drugs. .

Not so - for licenced therapies with historical exceptions. Once something is shown to be no better or more toxic than placebo without significant net benefit, it loses its licence for that indication. The fact that occasional therapies are found not to work for indications that were traditionally accepted is only evidence of the absence of proper trials decades ago.

So the prinicple you are advancing is wrong, even if there are exceptions for the above reasons.

And when you boil this positive thinking thing down past the brain and the cells and the hormones and the molecules and the atoms and the protons and the electrons, you get down to quantum physics and wave/particle duality. The particles that make up your body really are made out of waves. Annihilation releases those waves, p + p → 2γ. That's the scientific evidence that what Hamilton was saying about it's all just waves is right.

Now here is the crux. Nobody knows what the basis of the placebo effect is. Positive thinking has been suggested, but that is clearly not the whole explanation - negatively disposed individuals and depressed individuals also exhibit a placebo effect! So one cannot assert that just because a placebo effect exists, that it is due to positive thinking - provide the evidence if you beleive that.
Then even if one had done the trials and shown that positive thinking was the mechanism in a reasonable majority of cases, this does not tell you the mechanism of benefit - so further trials would be required. Physiological changes would first need to be consistently demonstrated, then the mechanism of those physiological changes - chemical, electrical etc. Then you need to be able to show that positive thinking will consistently produce such changes in all subjects etc. Then you have the beginnings of a case.

The anecdote presented does not provide insight.

[tolman]

The anecdote presented does not provide insight.

It certainly provides insight into what some people consider to be quality evidence.

[Admin]

I'm not confusing real and known effects with magical thinking.

I think you are as you don't seem to have much of a grasp of what you're talking about.

In researching the role of attitude regarding chronic or potentially fatal illnesses, researchers do take into account the role of optimism or 'positive thinking'. However, they recognise that there are different levels of optimism. Optimism is considered as a useful coping mechanism when it comes to such illnesses (i.e. it's not a cure) but there's 'realistic optimism' and there's 'unrealistic optimism' that are recognised.

Unrealistic optimism is where patients veer into magical thinking and it can do more harm than good. What I'm seeing with your argument is that you're failing to separate realistic optimism from unrealistic optimism. Once you start believing that you can think yourself better you can be in danger of making some very poor decisions. Look at the people who think they can take control of or cure their cancer with alternative remedies and 'positive thinking' - they have a tendency to die... of cancer.

You're dismissing clear evidence of the benefits of positive thinking. Where's your comments on the evidence I provided?

See my last post. You've provided links but no actual evidence.

Talking of disease, here's a disease, bird flu, where mortality is circa 60% :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influen...s_subtype_H5N1

Now for the $64,000 dollar question: why do 40% get better?

Individual differences! We aren't all identical so some can survive certain diseases whereas other can't.

But the answer isn't "because 40% were thinking positively".

Here's a question you ought to consider: why is it that when people think negatively they still survive their cancer (or whatever)?

If you have a hypothesis that explains why 'positive thinkers' survive life-threatening conditions your hypothesis also needs to account for the positive thinkers who die and the negative thinkers who survive.

Otherwise you're just cherry-picking positive thinkers who survive and ignoring the rest. See: Confirmation Bias.

[Matt]

OK, he's not a neuroscientist, my mistake, apologies. He just refers to neuroscience.

That was no non-sequitur. The guy was written off by medical opinion, now he's walking.

Which has nothing to do with Hamilton's techniques of Quantum Field Healing and there's no reason to believe that it has anything to do with any form of positive thinking, It is therefore a Non-Sequitur.

And no problem, I'll go through your response paragraph by paragraph. And I'll rip it apart:

The danger of Hamilton's approach is the inferences that might be made. No he doesn't explicitly make them but I'm pretty sure the implication was part of his intent.

So, the danger isn't what he actually says, but in the inferences that might be made? What kind of pie-eyed logic is that? It's not what he actually said, but what people might infer? Oh come on. Go through what he actually said step by step like I did and when you can't point out any flaws, concede.

I've pointed out the flaw. Irrelevance. Ignoratio elenchi. That's a logical fallacy, a flaw. I've also posited a nefarious reason for alluding to irrelevant speculation upon an imagined role for direct interaction between thought and disease on a quantum level, which is backed up by a view of his other writings.

Disease, it's all quantum fields. The minds can have an effect at the quantum level, therefore the mind can effect disease.

Consider the situation where 100 people contract some serious pathogen. All receive the same treatment, but 50 die. Amongst the fatalities are fit young subjects. Amongst the survivors are infirm older subjects. Why do we see such a distribution? We might look for better immune systems amongst the "battle hardened" older people, or immune responses amongst the young that go awry. After that we scratch around looking for other factors, and when we can't find any more, we're left looking at things like willpower and grit and determination. Now watch my lips: it isn't crackpot to consider such things.

Speaking once more of non-sequiturs what has this got to do with the paragraph I wrote? Amongst the many variables which may be considered, it is known that the mind can affect health through a number of known and speculative mechanisms. I'm not suggesting it's crackpot to claim that. I'm suggesting that the quantum perspective adds nothing to the argument.

What I'm claiming is that there is a logical fallacy in the argument that

1) The mind affects things on the quantum level.
2) Disease can be affected on the quantum level
3) Therefore the mind can directly affect disease on the quantum level.

This is a fallacy of composition.

Hamilton mentions that the minds affects things on the quantum level. He mentions that disease is affected at the quantum level. He mentions that the minds can affect disease.

All of these things are true in isolation but presented in combination it is clear to me, if not to someone so farsighted as yourself that fallacious logic is being implied.

What he doesn't mention is the limitation of this effect. It's true in as much as the placebo effect is real but the placebo effect is limited. Instead Hamilton leaves the reader to make the leap that all disease can be cured purely by the power of the mind.

Oh no he doesn't leave the reader to make a leap. That's a pathetic misrepresentation. This guy worked for AstraZeneca. He not some jehovah's witness or homepath. He isn't suggesting that willpower is a substitute for antibiotics.

Granted you did dig up his essay that medication is important. I welcome this. It puts him at least one rung up the ladder from Deepak Chopra who has employed similar arguments. I guess this means he recognises the most serious of the dangers inherrent in his argument and has taken steps to counter that.

However he's still trying to imply a direct link between thought and disease though vague and nebulous "quantum effects" where resources are being better spent in investigation of more clearly defined mechanisms.

Oncoming traffic is also all just quantum fields but if you're in the path of a bus you'd be better using the power of the mind (at the quantum level) to send signals to your legs (which really are neurochemical transmissions even if those neurochemical transmisions are in turn made up of quantum fields) to move you out of the way rather than trying to "mind quantum" the bus out of existence through positive thinking.

This is a ridiculous straw-man argument. You're using a farcical scenario to dismiss the benefits of positive outlook. What would you rather advocate? That patients just roll over and die?

Not a straw man; argument by analogy. It exposes the flaw in the implied argument.

As for the free will argument to dismiss the materialistic view of the mind that's argument to consequences. Even if a materialistic viewpoint were to remove the possibility of free will (and I'm sure that's debatable by better philosophers than me) then just ebcause I don't like that idea, wouldn't make it any the less true.

He isn't saying there is no free will. Read what he did say, he's countering those who say there is no free will. Here it is: "Many believe that there is no such force or energy associated with a thought; that thoughts are, in fact, by-products of chemical interactions in the brain. Taking this line, there could be no free will. Each thought that we think of as our own would be merely the result of brain chemistry. But this cannot account for what we are now seeing in neuroscience; that imagining something can cause a change in the chemistry and actual fine structure of the brain".

I think you're in a bit of a muddle. Nowhere did I say he's denying free will. One the contrary he's asserting free will and from that denying the neurochemical model of the brain as it has the consequence (by his bare assertion) of denying free will.

It remains true that he's wrong on two points.

1) That a neurochemical model of the brain denies the possibility of free will.
2) That even if it did, this would mean that the model was wrong, it could equally mean that there was indeed no free will.

Furthermore breaking these neurotransmissions down into their quantum components does nothing to stop it being materialistic, so what then is he trying to imply here?

He's isn't "trying to imply" anything. He's saying it straight: thinking about something can cause a change in chemistry and structure: "The famous ‘piano’ study conducted at Harvard showed that volunteers could imagine playing piano notes over and over again, for 2 hours on 5 consecutive days, and the area of the brain connected to their finger muscles grew quite substantially."

Which does not prove the existence of free will, and the understanding of what is happening here is not increased by the stoner's revelation "it's all just waves dude!"

Why is it that you guys dismiss scientific evidence when you don't like the sound of what somebody is saying? You call yourselves skeptics, but what you're skeptical of is scientific evidence and the related rational argument. So much so that instead of going through it piecemeal and offering your own counter-evidence and counter-argument, you dismiss it with abuse. Your behaviour is identical to that exhibited by creationists.

Just no. What rational argument is being made. If you're to be believed three completely independent sets of facts are being presented and no rational argument is being implied.

[Farsight]

No one disagrees.

Good.

Not so - for licenced therapies with historical exceptions. Once something is shown to be no better or more toxic than placebo without significant net benefit, it loses its licence for that indication. The fact that occasional therapies are found not to work for indications that were traditionally accepted is only evidence of the absence of proper trials decades ago.

Wise up Pebble, stop kidding yourself. This is the real world, a seething mess of vested interest. Do the research.

Now here is the crux. Nobody knows what the basis of the placebo effect is. Positive thinking has been suggested, but that is clearly not the whole explanation - negatively disposed individuals and depressed individuals also exhibit a placebo effect! So one cannot assert that just because a placebo effect exists, that it is due to positive thinking - provide the evidence if you believe that.

People get better when you talk nice and give them chalk pills than when you don't. You might wish to label it as something other than positive thinking, but it's mental not physical.

Then even if one had done the trials and shown that positive thinking was the mechanism in a reasonable majority of cases, this does not tell you the mechanism of benefit - so further trials would be required. Physiological changes would first need to be consistently demonstrated, then the mechanism of those physiological changes - chemical, electrical etc. Then you need to be able to show that positive thinking will consistently produce such changes in all subjects etc. Then you have the beginnings of a case.

Go look up placebo trials. It's a bit of chat and chalk. And it's reassurance and comfort and tender loving care, not you're gonna die. It's mental, and negative thinking it ain't.