Philosophy Wire: Placebo… Body… Spirit… Nothing…

A research exploring the strange boundaries of the placebo effect has turned up another mysterious oddity: placebos have the power to reduce neural markers of emotional distress, even in cases where people have been told in advance they are only taking a placebo, and not an active drug. [1]

Obviously the spirit affects the body.
We think it is amazing that someone feels better when he just thinks of it.
But the real mystery is the opposite!

Why do we feel worse when we do not even think that we are worse?

Obviously the body defines the spirit.
Stop thinking about reasons.
Look at things which happen without them.
Only there will you meet life.
Balancing on a trembling rope.
Its triumph might be a reason to cry for…

If everything affects everything.

What is left for nothing?

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Philosophy Wire: Yoga. Religion. Humanity. (Why religion always made the world go around)

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2017-04-18]: Yoga could help reduce symptoms for people with Generalized Anxiety Disorder, according to a study published by Georgia State University researchers in the International Journal of Yoga Therapy. [1] We want to find our peace. And yet we reject religion. Name it “meditation” or “gymnastics” and instantly everyone will rush to get some… From philosophy, to science, to spirituality, to non-thinking, religion had always made the world go around. What changed over the centuries was just the name by which it was called… We want to constantly change. And yet we are always the same.

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Philosophy Wire: Alternative medicine. Not for laughs…

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2014-05-16]: Humor and laughter as a medicine. [1] Open up your self. Feel the universe. Laugh at its absurdness. You are here. For ever. Laughing...

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Philosophy Wire: The obvious. The old. The arrogance.

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2014-05-10]:

In 1930, the New York Times printed an article uncovering certain Chinese government documents. They revealed that herbalist Li Ching-Yuen was born in 1677 and received official congratulations on this 200th birthday in 1877. However, he claimed that he was born in 1736. No matter when he was born, he died on May 6th, 1933, telling his students the he had completed all his tasks in this lifetime, and was now ready to come home. Despite his age, he constantly practiced herbalism and martial arts. When he Li was 250-years-old, Chinese army General Yang Sen invited Li to visit him and teach Chinese soldiers martial arts. Yang Sen was surprised to learn that despite Li’s age, he was still youthful.
Li Ching-Yuen related his knowledge for longevity in this simple sentence: “Retain a calm heart, sit like a turtle, walk swiftly like a pigeon, and sleep like a dog.” [1, 2]

Alternative medicine. Why should ti exist at all? Why should anything be tagged as "alternative" after all? Alternative to what? Why not simply stick to what works? Modern medicine does not like the existence of anything that is not linked to money-making. But the Chinese are not idiots using something which DOES

NOT work for thousands of years. And guess what: there was not "alternative medicine" back then. Just true people seeking true healing. Our modern era of disbelief cannot believe another era was better than us.

We are blind to what was once evident.
Because we simply do not want to see it.
And we will pay the price.

PS. Other cases like this might exist (see here for example).

(c) Philosophy WIRES - Commenting world news from philosophy's perspective…

Philosophy Wire: Medicine, non-medicine, homeopathy.

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2014-05-02]: A homeopathy company is recalling some products because they may contain traces of a real antibiotic in them. [1] The best medicine is non-medicine. And no, I am not ironic - I believe in homeopathy. Some may laugh at it but what they should do is try to find out why this thing actually works. Disease is the symptom. You can deal with anything only via itself. You cannot find balance by introducing new factors of imbalance in a system. Every disease has a purpose. And it would be illogical to stop it, an illogical philosopher would say...

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Does medicine actually help? [Cure rates and Philosophy analysis of mainstream and alternative medicine]

What would you think about a new pill that treats Hepatitis C ? [1]

What would you think about a new pill that treats Hepatitis C and costs $1,000 ?

What would you think about a new pill that SAYS it treats Hepatitis C and costs $1,000 ?

What would you think of you gave $1,000 dollars PER PILL and you had a 50% chance of getting cured from Hepatetis C ? [2]

Medicine does good (we will analyze below how much good). But it is also prone to lying. And not telling the whole truth is equivalent to lying. Most of the times when a new super-expensive drug is promoted in the market (what a word to use for human souls...), the most important element of information is buried somewhere deep inside tones of celebrating comments, that most of the times goes unnoticed.

What would you think of a survival rate of 54%? [3]

What would you think of a possibility of 62.7% to get sick again? [4]

What would you think of a cure that works on SOME patients? [5]

What would you think of a vaccine that could make you SICKER? [6]

What would you think if I told you that those who get vaccinated are the starting points of new disease epidemics outbreaks? [7]

What would you think if I told you that doctors choose to give more medicines even to people who are NOT ill? [8]

Modern medicine is now part of the system. It does not care for life, as much as it cares for money. It is really amazing that even though alternative medicine can have the same or even better cure percentages (see 9, 10) the medical society is very reluctant on even discussing its usefulness. As far as the modern doctors are concerned, human is just a machine with can be "fixed".

But how can medicine promote life if it thinks that way? It is really amazing that we value so much life, without even knowing what death is. Actually without even knowing what life is! [11] We need more philosophy! [Harmonia Philosophica Main Thesis] Most people prefer health from illness, life from death. But when was the last time the majority found out the answer to any great philosophical question? Shestov asks cleverly...

The most important thing we must keep in mind is that: Medicine DOES NOT SAVE ANYONE! We all die eventually. Life is a contagious disease, with 100% mortality rate! We cannot escape the inevitable. What we seek, is better life conditions! [12] And to that, modern western medicine has little to offer. Maybe that is why western doctors choose to do NOTHING when they are diagnosed with terminal illnesses. [13]

As Rilke said and as Harmonia Philosophica also says, "The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things"!

Search for your thorns...

Related articles

• Articles related to "health"
• Articles related to "death"
• Articles related to "medicine"
• Articles related to "alternative medicine"

Philosophy Wire: Flu, failed vaccines, modern medicine not working...

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2013-09-15]:

Some antibodies to flu viruses may actually make patients sicker, a new study of pigs suggests.

The finding, published August 28 in Science Translational Medicine, may point to problems with catchall influenza vaccines. (1)

Todays medicine unilaterally treats symptoms only. But the real disease remains deep inside. Medicine must target humans as a whole and not the individual parts. Our cells, our bodies, the other humans, the universe - everything is One. Disease is a warning - a friend which tells us that something is GENERALLY wrong. Modern western medicine, instead of pushing humans to unite with the One, it makes them draw closer onto themselves so as to "heal". It treats people like machines until finally it "kills" them. You do not cure ulcer. You fight the cause that creates ulcer. (2)

Feel the world around you.

The meaning of healing is ecclesiastic (unite with others), not atomistic. If we keep on seeing the parts instead of the whole, we will soon realize that we are at a dead end. Parmenides was never before so much apropos.

(c) Philosophy WIRES - Commenting world news from philosophy's perspective...

Alternative medicine. Without the "alternative".

Close your eyes.

Believe that alternative medicine works.

Believe that people relying on it for thousands of years are not idiots.

Believe that there are other methods of curing that the ones we know.

Open your eyes.

Look at the "alternative" disappear in front of the "medicine"...

Magic!

Indicative sources:

• Traditional chinese herb medicine: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/08/130819185350.htm
• The power of herbs (alternative medicine): http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/12/121223152433.htm
• Alternative methods like yoga or accupuncture work: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-20937753
• LSD or magic mushrooms halp you have fewer mental problems: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/08/130819185302.htm
• Anesthesia with hypnosis: http://www.gazzettadelsud.it/news/english/58535/Hypnosis-used-instead-of-anesthesia-in-operation-on-woman.html
• How the first surgery with anesthesia in the world was conducted with herbs: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228402.300-banishing-consciousness-the-mystery-of-anaesthesia.html#.Uil91cTRqM8
• Spiritual healing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Edwards_(healer) (research conducted about his case did not disprove the healing cases but that they were conducted based solely on his powers!) (see also here)
• Yoga and meditation improve mind-body health and stress resilience. [source]

Philosophy Wire: TED, atheists, censorship…

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2013-04-21]: TED is supposed to be a platform to facilitate the organization of talks about interesting subjects by interesting people. But when Sheldrake decided to talk about 10 dogmas of modern science (one of which is related to non-localized consciousness, which, according to the speaker, can exist outside of our brain) and when Hancock decided to talk about consciousness, dreams and psychedelia then the atheists of the world reacted. And their reactions led to the semi-censorship of these two talks: they were removed from the official TED Youtube channel and posted to the TED Blog instead. [source: Huffington Post]

 

 

 

Reactions for this have been building up in the Internet. [see here, here and here]

 

Despite of whether TED people are dogmatic themselves or they were just intimidated by the atheists’ protests, one thing is for sure: science is on the verge of a great paradigm shift with consciousness (and the immaterial phenomena related to it) as the main guide. And no protest can change that…

 

One can watch these two lectures on Youtube…

 

Rupert Sheldrake - The Science Delusion BANNED TED TALK

 

The War on Consciousness - Graham Hancock (Removed TED Talk)

(c) Philosophy WIRES - Commenting world news from philosophy's perspective...

Philosophy Wire: Homeopathy & the week of dogmatism...

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2013-04-15]: The Week of Homeopathy triggers mixed reactions. Most scientism-lovers try to defend what they think is "right" and "prove" that homeopathy is simply a fraud. They claim that over-dilution of substances used in this alternative therapeutic method actually nullify any possible effectiveness these substances could have [see here]. But they disregard the obvious: homeopathy HAS results! Instead of trying to prove that it CANNOT have results, mainstream science should try more to analyze WHY is HAS...

(c) Philosophy WIRES - Commenting world news from philosophy's perspective...

Philosophy Wire: Innovation, science, Science…

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2013-03-02]: A 15-year old teen discovered a new test for detecting pancreatic cancer. [source: Smithsonian, TIME, in.gr] The truly important news is not the discovery itself though. What is really remarkable is how the scientific community has accepted what a 15-year old teen says. This is what distinguished mass science from true Science!

(c) Philosophy WIRES - Commenting world news from philosophy's perspective...

Philosophy Wire: Medicine, alternative cures, Chinese

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2013-01-09]: Researchers found that complementary therapies, like acupuncture, massage, tai chi and yoga, appear to help musculoskeletal conditions like arthritis. [source: 1, 2] Of course Chinese knew that for thousands of years. But you see “science” is a little stubborn. She cannot easily accept the different. Let us just hope that the eyes of medicine have started to open and that cases like Reich’s were the last cases of censorship in the field…

> Check the new philosophy blog Philosophy Snapshots !

(c) Philosophy WIRES - Commenting world news from philosophy's perspective...

Against alternative medicine... But why?

Many times we read articles about doctors critisizing "alternative medicine". However what we do not understand is that the very characterization of a practice as "alternative" automatically places it in this special place in our brain where we have put all the things which are interesting but "wrong". Why would you say that something, anything, is "alternative" ? Does this mean that something else is mainstream? Does this mean that we imply that the "mainstream" is correct while the "alternative" is (most probably, but who would dare to double-ckeck it anyway?) wrong? And who defines the alternative? Would you ever trust something you read? Would you trust something that others claim as true? Would you trust the 100-year old science of the West? Would you trust better the 3,000-years old traditional "alternative" method of acupuncture?

Or maybe the above hard questions can be summed up in one simple one:

Would you just stop labeling things?