Re: To Hell And Back: The Dangers of Make-believe

[Guest guest]

, I enjoyed reading your reflection. I

have a tendency to “skim” over thoughts experiments and rarely post

when there is such discussion.

Often I view many of them as extrapolation

well outside of the known observation space – they may (and have) lead to

discovery of other observation spaces.

The observation space tends to be:

·

There are infections –

how can we detect them[tests], what has been demonstrated to treat them.

·

There are coagulation

issues – how can we detect them[tests], what has been demonstrated to

treat them.

·

There are deficiencies

issues – how can we detect them[tests], what has been demonstrated to

treat them.

From my early days with learning the

coagulation ropes, I still remember the Primrose Oil revelation: Mixed

reports of improvement and deterioration from using it, it turns out that it

impacted different types of coagulation in different ways. In short, every

medicine and supplement impacts a very large number of items (for example

Vitamin D impacts > 130 body processes), and trying to do a thought

experiment on just one of these 130+ body processes gets a bit reckless.

Ken Lassesen,

From: Schaafsma

[mailto:compucruz@...]

Warning:

this is a longish piece of reflection, containing no

medical data

of any kind.

1. Thought

experiments get out of hand

2. Ambition

In A Time of Crisis

3. When I

said " Do something, someone! " I should have been more

specific.

4. Medical

Messiah

5. Group

Think

6. 'We'll

Make A Believer Out of You Yet!'

7. Where We

Are

8. A Third

Way: Bringing Together Research and Patients

9. The Terms

of Life Must Be Honored

[Guest guest]

>

> Warning: this is a longish piece of reflection, containing no

> medical data of any kind.

>

> 1. Thought experiments get out of hand

>

> This idea of a determinative balance between 'Th1' and 'Th2'is not

> so much a statement about the immune system as an statement about

> how medicine can usefully augment or enhance the immune system.

>

> This puts it in a different class than statements of fact or

> opinion. What we are really seeing is a statement of intention.

>

> In real life, medical research often operates like this: 'what

> happens if I define my goal in these terms?'

>

> The problem with such thought experiments is that one can so

easily

> forget that is all they are.

>

> That can happen to the same people who conceived the thought

> experiment in the first place. There is even a word for it:

> reification, which means assigning an independent reality to

> something that is really just an idea in my head.

>

> The potential for confusion increases when people outside the

> research discipline (and this would include, to my mind, both

myself

> and the creator of the MP) 'listen in' on its conversations in a

> piecemeal fashion, often relying on abstracts where qualifying

> statements tend to be omitted.

>

Hi

I also enjoyed your reflection and can see exactly where you are

coming from. Only yesterday I was reading that doctors and

scientists in particular will always try and fit pieces of

data/information so that it fits their particular scenario but often

ignoring other factors that don't fit their model and this can be

quite danagerous because of course it can be done for many different

reasons some I have to say more to do with their own Ego rather than

progressing medical knowledge although of course sometimes there

will be a very positive end result.

People with long term illnesses are at particular risk when

listening to such people for obvious reasons, nobody wants to

continue with suffering when there would appear to be a relatively

easy answer. However I always want to stand back and look at things

from every perspective, always having a questioning mind which

sometimes get me into trouble!!

This questioning mind/instinct is a result of years of suffering but

also hard work to try and improve my understanding of basic

psychology and I think in general it has been a definite advantage

that has saved me from the more extreme treatments that are

offered. However I have found a definite resistance/denial amongst

chronically sick people to look at every angle of a protocol/their

illness but I do understand where this comes from. When you are

feeling so sick and unwell it is definitely a kind of hell and it is

probably more than some people can bear to accept that this latest

protocol might end in failure or not indeed turn out to be the

answer to their prayers. This is their level of functioning at that

moment in time and entirely understandable.

Personally I cannot get away from wondering how much of the immune

dysfunction that we are trying to deal with doesn't stem from the

massive stressors that our put on us as children, young adults,

workers, mothers, fathers, etc etc, by just being a member of

society at this moment in time. Maybe the answer is that some of us

are just far more predisposed to developing these illnesses.

Pam