Dave Moore

K

How do you know you even have consciousness? Where is your proof? I think I've discovered that rift between our understandings. And I am not religious. I haven't been since second grade. Can either of you tell me why you think that awareness could arise from a piece of meat? To what purpose? You know, awareness is quite a special thing. It's as if nature one day said, "I know! I'm going to create a witness to make this piece of meat feel what's happening to it!" Why would nature do that? What impulse, what mechanism would suddenly cause such a thing? Answer that.

I did not insult you. and the quote button doesn't work for me. Period. Nooooo. I love you, Strange.

Is nothing obvious? Isn't it possible to simply KNOW that a thing is what it is? We are more than recording and storage devices. Do you use a calculator to figure out what two plus two is? do you need to prove it? I'm sorry, but the answer is so obvious to me, I just assume anyone could figure it out. Awareness is nothing like a brain process. It is Awareness, for God's sake! It is a witness. Why have a witness? What value would it serve? Are you saying you would err on the side of brain first over consciousness first for a reason? What would that reason be? Could you share?

Phi, so say you about placeboes. But I am an expert in understanding them. Your judgement was not up for discussion with ME. "WE" discuss what happens to the poster? How about involving the poster rather than judging based on (what is obviously to me uninformed judgements)? How can anything ever be learned if everything I have said is untrue unless the majority agree with it? I never had a chance. It took dozens and dozens of posts for me to even get started. Only Strange was decent enough to let me speak. everyone else just promoted their own prejudices. Most didn't bother to read my responses already explaining the same answer over and over again. Mostly, commenters were in their clubby comfort zone, attacking the newbie for not being able to use the quote and link features which still don't work. "I'm tired of this "dick"" said one kind commenter--- "Im out of here. He can't even figure out how to use the quote feature!" Then, the mod who moves the thread to the trash can, but not done yet, he/she calls the trash thread, "David Moore's Nonsense Placebo thread" or some such expression of personal vindictiveness. How about just moving the thread? I mean, I am not hurt but look at yourselves! Is that really how to run a forum? Oh come now! I can't help it if no one here can imagine my work has value. I've got a dozen years in belief issues and I can't help it if I have no links to provide that show I'm following someone else's lead. my work is pioneering. there is no lead to follow. And this has been the case throughout history. New ideas are always considered heresy. Look it up. That's all over the place. And Phi, you are absolutely right. I ought to have said, "Is the Placebo Effect Increasing/?" But I know you're smart enough to know what I meant. Right?

I think it is absurd that one could say that the brain produces consciousness. What is the use of consciousness? If the brain is a mechanical chemical electrical device, its ability to survive and thrive could easily be evolved Darwinian style to easily survive. Cars, for god's sake, can survive better right now due to computors and radar and whatever else they use. Already, safer than human drivers. Do you really believe they could develop consciousness? For what? It would be a burden. Imagine you self-driving car dealing with issues, depressed and deciding to stay home in the garage for lack of motivation. And what mechanism could be imagined that would create through natural selection an actual awareness? Totally absurd! Anything you could imagine as a survival trait could easily be designed in without the need for a department of self-awareness being involved! I really can't imagine how any right-thinking person could not understand the problem! Pain avoidance is easily replaced by damage avoidance. It's just that science has a real problem with imagination, the ability to see outside of the box. That's the reason people become scientists or scientific types. In the first place. The syndrome is so extreme that their answers are often completely ridiculous, where they accept the most absurd theories---- anything but give up their love of materialism. they completely dismiss obvious clues, clues that should mean something to any thinking person. They only allow testing in cynical venues, where their own beliefs that nothing should happen manifest as failures of paranormal events. They make up words like 'mass hallucination' or ;psychosomatic' as if the word itself had any more meaning than a tag to describe what? They don't know but doctors feel perfectly comfortable that they have discovered the problem. How scientific! "only the placebo effect", or "only a mass hallucination (Fatima Portugal, 1918 tens of thousands seeing the Sun moving around and dropping). Just a mass hallucination. Sure, the word describes what happened scientifically! It sure doesn't make science look too bright!

I have had dreams three times of earthquakes that occurred the next day and I have never falsely dreamed of any other earthquakes. In each case I mentioned them to people. The most dramatic was the Algiers earthquake, the worst in history, which wiped out something like 30,000 homes. The night before I was in Stockholm on a honeymoon. I woke my wife and said I'd had an amazing dream where I was ib a middle-eastern city running while the ground was shaking. I was running with many other people, all panicked, amidst a lot of tall but not too tall light stucco-looking buildings. The obvious answer is that determinism is at play, that future outcomes are already going to happen. Skeptics would usually not experience proof of future events in advance because they cannot access that which they don't believe in. A lot of people dreamed about 9/11 in advance. Free will would allow anyone responsible for it to change their mind and cancel the attack. Once I dreamed of being with a group of tourists at a nuclear power plant when an alarm sounded and there was a feeling that we were all going to die or at least take a dose. The following day, a group of students were touring the local nuke plant and the alarm went off. There had been a leak. It was all over the news that day. Precognition is difficult to prove. The reason is that such strange things are shy to objective study due to skepticism adversely affecting non-believers. This is the same as people who believe more easily in paranormal occurrences tend to experience other paranormal events. This also describes empaths or Uri Geller or any number of unexplainable abilities. It is all too easy for skeptics to discount such abilities because they usually don't stand up to scientific scrutiny. I understand, but given that I have experienced precognition myself, I can be more open-minded about the subject. Scientific types rarely have such strange things happen. My father, an MIT graduate, and very hard-nosed, had never had an kind of experience such as precognitive dreams. Once, in out photographing very strange chem trail patterns with my daughter and father, while both my daughter and I were absolutely amazed at what we were seeing, my dad saw nothing strange at all. It reminds me of the stories of Capt. Cook and other ship voyages when sailing very close to shore. natives were seen fishing with nets on the shore but none looked up at the ship even though such things were completely unknown. this phenomenon happened many time around the world back when voyagers had not yet made contact with aboriginal cultures. Not to get off subject, but to explain why science cannot "see" the "ships" of impossibility. And the reason why you, Salubrious, can't make money from precognition is that you know you don't deserve it. Your own belief that you don't deserve the money is manifested in failure.

I just think it's a bit "clubby" and exclusionary to relax into a comfort zone where you feel you can use a word with definitions not found in, say, a common dictionary. Such as troll. I certainly had never heard the word before and neither did the definition of "pissing off" have anything to do with how I felt when accused of such. Clubby and judgmental. And if the word, 'speculation' and 'pseudo-speculation' are already defined either here in the forum rules or in any dictionary, why then not simply answer the thread question with those definitions? Otherwise, do the rest of us have to guess what you are redefining? Sometimes people get way too comfortable with their particular culture's meanings, forgetting what it's like to be judged as an outsider. It sure doesn't speak well for the maturity of the ones who feel they are insiders. Nor am I impressed with the way the mods promote punitive measures for infractions, publicly dispensing their take it or leave it judgements instead of decent private messages that show understanding and restraint. I can understand how a forum can get out of control, but I don't think this reality show "You're fired!" attitude is the answer. For one thing, it's an open invitation for abuse of power. Has public censure without due process ever made for good government? look at Vladimir Putin, arresting 400 protesters in Moscow. Is that the model here? Do I now get arrested for saying what I feel? Do all the yes-men now get to vent on me for extra brownie points? I have seen that already. Is this a total dictatorship? I hope not.

Is a new dictionary being created? Do you mean what do a group of forum members think those terms mean? How could anyone expect to be fairly understood if such terms are so arbitrary as to encourage guessing? The only way to define a term is to use a dictionary. you look up 'speculation" and then 'pseudo' as a prefix. Any other definition would require this thread to represent a dictionary, and only then if a consensus were reached. I still don't know what 'trolling" means except "to attempt to find something". I asked a question in starting the thread, "Are Placeboes Getting Better?" And then I was accused of attempting to find something! How can anyone expect to reach clear understandings if everybody decides on their own what an already defined term means?? Come on, guys.

This is an absolutely unanswerable question. A solipsist would not even know if another human had consciousness, let alone a machine. he would be right in supposing such as most all of us surely have conjectured at times. It is a good thing to exercise the mind, of course, so one's time is not wasted in thinking about it. As to the question of whether the brain created consciousness or the other way around, since I am aware that symbolic artifices always stand as metaphors for the dynamics of mind, I reason that the so-called objective world is rather arbitrary, and it is I who have projected it into being through beliefs I have absorbed along the way. This realization of subjective reality also includes the symbolic representation of my body. It is said that the blind become better at hearing and other senses so that one might imagine that the sense of sight is not an electrical or chemical process, but a true reality describing a certain embodiment of feeling alone. Also, when a person has lost a huge amount of brain material, memeory still seems to remain, as well as a great degree of functionality. It seems obvious that such a phenomenon would be unlikely to occur in a machine. It could be tried. One could remove a huge part of a computer with a hacksaw. This isn't to say there could not be a computer so designed to survive such an attack, only that I feel that we already know a human can survive such damage and still do math or sing a song.

We're all hypnotized. Some believe they are learned doctors. Others, like me, believe they are retired carpenters. Hypnosis is simply belief adjustment. It's result is no different than normal perception. A man can believe he is a dog, and he will bark and get down on all fours if he submits to the hypnotist. In Fatima, Portugal, in 1918, tens of thousands of people saw the sun dancing in the sky. Who hypnotized them? Agreements about what had happened occurred after the event, and the visions aligned very closely. Otherwise, they would never have seen what appeared to be the same event in the first place. Retroactive causality is present at all times, a feature of both subjective reality and determinism. The hypnotist's belief in his ability compounds his efficacy, but hypnosis can also be done by a rank amateur. Effective deception is the key. The majority who are aware of the efficacy of Mesmerism contribute to efficacy as well. Their own beliefs come into play. They became convinced in the late 18th century that hypnotism was a real phenomenon. It is a great tool for use in adjusting beliefs. People who believe in UFOs being real will also hypnotize well. Children are inherently more suggestable than adults. People such as Pacific island cultures would be difficult to hypnotize if their culture had never heard of hypnosis. After a period of time, however, they would improve. Hypnosis is, at it's root, belief and hence manifestation of reality to a limited potential. To the observer, it is not "real". The unwitting observer is unaware, of course, that he is also hypnotized and has been so since early infancy. However, as reality is subjective, there being no single objective universe, perception is not only projected (within the bounds of other's manifested description of reality), but the only reality is perception itself. Determinism guarantees that only believable events ever take place (barring insanity of course) so that no paradoxes ever occur within the bounds of reasonable believability, reflecting the lowest energetic outcomes on average. So belief is shifted through energy, i.e., energy to manifest, which is a very personal variable. One could think of strong beliefs as very heavy weights that are not easily shifted without a very large expenditure of energy. Hypnosis requires little energy because the belief is conditional or very small (such as a rash disappearing by suggestion, or a placebo pill curing a headache). What I am writing will not be believed and so it will seem ridiculous to everyone here. Yet, it is quite true. It isn't a belief I am talking about, but a feature of the human mind, which is believed to exist within a thing called a "brain". Each of you possess the innate capacity to understand this. However, the chance you will do so is very very small indeed. Some Buddhists might understand, but only those who have experienced enlightenment or "awakening". Regarding the similarity of placebo effect to hypnosis, it should be understood that both are manipulations of reality through belief adjustment. One has to approach this phenomenon with an open mind. To begin with, the imagination will play a very large role in even beginning to understand this. The manifestation of reality is quite reasonable if one can imagine that no exterior realm of reaity exists if each person is projecting and hence manifesting his own beliefs. In other words, each person always projects a different reality, and that reality is the only reality he will ever experience. A bright person, which I think you all are, should be able to imagine this easily. I am saying that our supposedly solid and empirical universe is not shared. Nothing is the same. No one reality. Nothing that actually binds our separate realities together. Please stick with me. It's worth it. Now, immediately there arrives a question. I know what it is. If we are all "creating" our own versions of reality, how come paradoxes are not constantly arising? How can I say, "look at that red car?", and you don't say, "What washing machine?" So we introduce a second variable. this time, it's determinism, or super determinism if you are a physicist. Let's begin to put it together. If subjective reality is true and determinism is true, a third variable would be that we always manifest the reality that issues from what we already believe, within the bounds of probability. That is to say, that outcome that requires the least energy for all observers involved. In this context, we are talking about energy we can easily perceive, which, in subjective reality, is the only energy we can ever actually experience--- and it is finite. That means we can subjectively be aware of how much energy it takes to manifest a perception (hence reality). We sense an energy loss as a "bad" feeling. In an argument, that means anything from unhappiness to a major heart attack. In contrast, a net gain of energy is felt as anything from mild satisfaction to bliss. So in going about our daily lives, we manifest our personal realities through carefully bargaining for energy. We can save up energy or spend it foolishly. A perfect example is how we deal with money, but also, with our health if we drink too much too often instead of being more prudent and sober. Nothing and I repeat nothing I'm saying doesn't very easily fit as a model of reality. You cannot prove me wrong. Yet, I can show you how what you believe about the objective universe is completely wrong. For one thing, a believer in an empirical objective reality must deal with all kinds of things that never make sense. Such things as UFOs, or Bigfoot, or more prosaic items such as placeboes and hypnosis can never be explained even while they are known to exist. The most irrational (ironically) of the posters here will call themselves the most rational of all, poo-pooing anything that doesn't fit their very limited world view. This is the safe bet because it so happens that the moderators dislike intensely anything that cannot be backed up by rote information on the web. I will probably get banned for such heretical claims. Nevertheless, I do have some faith in my fellow man to think imaginatively. So, going back to the previous discussion, one could call this axiomatic knowledge (or theory if you prefer the word), 'Reality by Description" What it means, in short, is that we co-observe by dint of the fact that we are of the same culture or species, where we always expend the least energy possible to manifest what we already believe to be true. Thus, every event we witness is derived from a very limited set of circumstances and seldom allows anything out of the ordinary. We mostly believe in the same things. However, you can see that crop formations are a feature, mostly, or England's culture. Placebo efficacy is very different in Europe as it is in the USA. If it is true that belief is what manifests reality, imagine if you can (it's hard, I know) that if a yogi can levitate, he is doing so because he can believe it's possible (so that leaves Buddhist physicists out for the most part). And you, dear Amazing Randi, with your million dollar offer, will never manifest the loss of that money because you are so convinced that nothing such as levitation is possible. It would take more energy to do it than you could ever muster. Nor would anyone ever be able to convince you that certain things are possible. It's a catch-22. No belief, no manifestation, and all of it playing like a well-rehearsed script. Don't forget that variable, determinism. Logically, what I've said makes absolutely perfect and elegant sense. he world "out there" is exactly like a play on a stage, one that lasts for an entire life. The script was there all along, before you went on stage to play your part. Always, you are the one at center stage. It is your epic story. And behind the visible stage set, there is nothing, so efficient is the human mind. Nothing to use up your limited energy. You were born knowing this. You knew determinism. You had to learn the hard way to accept responsibility for your reach to grab, or to crawl to your rattle. You knew subjective reality as well as you played with your "invisible" friend. But all that's gone now. You no longer know that its a script. You believe in good and evil, in responsibility and guilt. Sad it is, but necessary because without that 'hypnosis", you could never have survived, or remained sane. Yet, in returning to that knowledge, you return to that infancy. It's still possible to play the part of the believer in free will, but always with the knowledge that it's all just a make-believe play.

Velocity boy, I have tired of your trolling and you have attacked me here for no reason and also went off topic to do so. Your post has been reported to the mods. Don't worry, I won't tell Mommy. What kind of infantile pea-brained loser with hurt feelings would do that? No. I shall take the high road. Hopefully. we can get back to the topic?

Oh? Why is that shocking?

Indeedy, Strange, I have been working hard to get Harvard Medical School to even listen to me. I have designed some good tests, as you have seen. If they bite, give me the time of day, then there is a small chance I will have the double blind studies to refer to. My own experiments are providing a sound theory on which to base tests. I am stuck for the time being. It has been an interesting subject in any case. Thanks for listening.

Researchers beliefs, most likely. In any case, belief, not necessarily of the patients. I'm blaming you if I get kicked off for saying that.

Tell the others. I am fully aware that other forum members have been angry that I "refuse" to use links and quotes. I am not stupid. Strange was kind, as were you. Otherwise, not much empathy. especially mods. Maybe I'll be punished for saying that? Probably. I don't care. I am not too political.

Thanks, Gary. I appreciate the help. It should have worked as I was shown. Regarding faulty testing----- only in the USA? If tests are carried out in Europe, placeboes are seen to be no better than fifteen years ago against new drugs. Drug companies, testing against placeboes in the US are apparently spending billions with a B to find out why placeboes are getting more effective. The loss to stockholders is such that many billions are being lost over this problem. The answer isn't that simple. There is an answer but it has nothing to do with faulty testing. That answer is only plausible because science refuses to think outside of the box. Otherwise, it would be a crazy answer. The most plausible answer (theorized by science) is that patients have learned that placeboes are getting more effective against drugs and so they psychosomatically are responding by a form of self-hypnosis, but that is also ridiculous because hardly any patients have ever heard of placeboes getting better. I haven't personally met one person who knows anything about placeboes beyond what was known fifteen years ago. I have offered my own take on what's going on. I won't repeat it. I do not want to be kicked off this thread. You might try the video, available on Youtube, "Placebo--Cracking the Code Documentary".

John, the article in Nature points up the problem of geography being the significant variable in placebo efficacy increase, I am afraid any more to mention my many years of work in mind study that would easily explain the phenomenon. It saddens me that I have been labelled a kook for attempting to explain my work. In order to explain the placebo effect and further the increasing placebo effect, and even further the geographical effect would require an explanation of the effect (dare I say?) of belief of researchers themselves. If I have been rude to anyone, I apologize. I didn't start off that way. I was attacked, often personally, by people who thought I was unable to back up my claims. Moderators have made assumptions as well, calling my work nonsense just because they didn't understand it. This is a thread in psychology after all, a non-science in my view. I thought I was safe here. Indeed, the thread was going onto six pages and was a magnet for intelligent contributors who must surely be mystified by the title question. I fully expect to be kicked off this thread of mine, which died the day I left it. I don't think that was fair. I wonder about motivation. I will say this to the mod: I will not take offense at insulting behavior if those who do insult me and my work are disciplined by the mod themselves. I have a lot to offer this subject and my work is provable in testing. It isn't a matter of if but how that testing can be done, considering not only can I not afford to experiment myself, but imagine how difficult it is for me to even approach mainstream groups such as the Harvard Medical school placebo group headed by Ted Kaptchuck. I have written to his email address for over a month every day with no response. His secretary, Deborah Grose, while a very nice person, has not given any indication that she has even approached Ted with my written material, or otherwise she would have told me he wasn't interested. I therefore did some detective work and wrote to him by snail mail at home, not two days ago. We shall see. In the meantime, the question has not been answered, why are placeboes getting better? My contention (heresy!) is that belief is involved, and not just the belief of patients. I maintain that proving that to be a true statement cannot be done if the very nature of belief itself is allowed to corrupt testing. This catch-22 is worth considering by open-minded researchers and forum members alike. Tests run by super-materialist skeptics will not fare well. Experimentation must be carried out gradually, beginning with a small circle of open-minded researchers. They themselves must be subjectively convinced to give weight to their findings. Then, absolutely, let the cat out of the bag, into mainstream testing--- objective double-blind with controls. The very understanding of the power of belief to operate without physical connection, i.e. the observer's effect, is necessary in setting up the experiments properly, so if my experience on this thread so far is any example of how such ideas are treated, the answer to the question of what a placebo really is will never be known.

I run 26 miles a week. Often, I am told I look 11 years younger than I really am. Resting heart rate is 51. LOL! See, to me, I just toss out things that I don't understand. Is this too much like my penis is tiny?

How is your mental condition, Velocity boy?

I'd be interested in hearing more. If you are always at the center of your universe, then I'd ask, how have you discovered why you know that to be true. I'm not asking for information, but I'd like to know how you personally arrived at that knowledge. It appears you have made a connection, a sort of integration of apparent polarities, that is to say, overcome the immense resistance to whole-mind consciousness we all seem to be saddled with from infancy.

I'll talk to anyone, but not here.

What are the units of measurement of pain in a placebo study? I can't get the quote thing to work. Hard to see. I guess I should just forget about the forum altogether. You can measure belief by various means just like pain. A questionnaire would suffice, asking what a person beliees about placebo efficacy on a scale of 1-100.

That's a good cop out. Then don't try. It's as real and as useful as placebo study, which is usually done in a scientific setting.

This can only be measured in groups of many observers. You have a similar problem of measurement asking which slit in a double slit test. If only three photons are detected, and two slits are involved, does that mean you know with certainty which slit most go through? But using a large number of test subjects, like a trillion photons passing through a pair of slits, some of which are observed as particles and some not (belief spread) you get more accurate results.