"Why I put more trust in homeopathy than conventional medicine" (on CBT and GET)

[Tyto alba]

If you look at water clocks they run on tap water. You refill them every couple of months.

From an Amazon description of such a clock:

A classic ECO clock, powered by water and available in five colours. Accurate, Environmentally friendly, Easy to use, and powered by water. A high quality clock that runs itself! Running 100% on natural power, without batteries, chemicals or anything other than water and a dash of lemon juice. Fill it up for more than six weeks of timekeeping. With its contemporary design, its ideal for use at home or in the office and ideal as a gift. Measures 10cm x 8.5cm (approx.).

How Stuff Works

This clock runs off a simple galvanic cell battery, which entails the emersion of a cathode or positive metal (such as copper) and an anode or negative metal (such as zinc) in an electrolyte solution. The lemon-laced water serves as the electrolyte solution, which allows the transfer of electrons between the two metals, resulting in an electric cell.

 

[sb4]

On the 'free' charge - this is just an example of a perpetual motion machine and the impossibility of that has been understood for 400 years and probably more. In simple terms you cannot be going downhill and uphill at the same time. That is how basic Pollack's failure of understanding is.

OH is neutral, not negative. OH-, or the hydroxyl ion, is negative because it has nabbed an extra electron from a hydrogen molecule. A stack of OH- ions would explode immediately because of the high charge density. OH is the hydroxyl radical which because it has a valency orbital half full (only one electron of the pair) it is extraordinarily reactive, desperate to join up with some other molecule from which it can borrow another electron. A stack of OH radicals would probably decay in a millisecond to water and hydrogen peroxide on its own but next to anything oxidisable would burn a hole in it.

By free charge I don't mean actually free. Energy from outside in the form of electromagnetic waves is used to charge separate the water.

I apologize if I writ the formula wrong as I'm not a chemist . H20 is neutral, it's split into OH- and H+. The OH- doesn't explode away as the negative oxygen molecule lines up with the positive hydrogen molecule in the layer below and vica versa. This is strong enough to hold the layers together. The H3O+ is constantly breaking down the furthest layer and it's constantly being reformed by radiant energy.

 

[sb4]

From an Amazon description of such a clock:



How Stuff Works

Ahh, I didn't see you needed lemon juice. You are right on this one.

 

[user9876]

2. Even if there were memory holding groups of water molecules in the diluted solutions these would be further diluted so much that they would not have any effect of the sort the original molecule A had. So we cannot argue that the memory water is working because it looks like A - there is not enough of it to matter.

If there were memory holding molecules wouldn't most water already be remembering stuff that it has been in contact with. So shouldn't we all be cured of everything as the water we consume will have come into contact with some other molecules. But then water comes into contact mainly with water so does its memory just remember water - does that mean it is self aware?

 

[Jonathan Edwards]

By free charge I don't mean actually free. Energy from outside in the form of electromagnetic waves is used to charge separate the water.

I apologize if I writ the formula wrong as I'm not a chemist . H20 is neutral, it's split into OH- and H+. The OH- doesn't explode away as the negative oxygen molecule lines up with the positive hydrogen molecule in the layer below and vica versa. This is strong enough to hold the layers together. The H3O+ is constantly breaking down the furthest layer and it's constantly being reformed by radiant energy.

Energy from outside in the form of EM radiation is effectively radiant heat. If that is absorbed the water will heat up and give out the same amount of energy in return. Ionisation of water occurs spontaneously all the time in an equilibrium state so there is no way you can push it in one direction or another with photons. Sorry but this is pseudo physics again.

The existence of H3O+ and OH- in water is standard - but at very low levels (ten to the minus seven molar). A stack of OH- ions would explode because there is no H3O+ to neutralise. There is absolutely no evidence for more ionisation of water near surfaces as far as I know. What is known is that the natural stacking of H2O molecules that involves a dative bond that in a sense creates (H2O)n stacks increases near charged surfaces, which is why sodium ions in water appear to be much larger than they are because they acquire a halo of water. Hyaluronic acid carries a 'tube' of water around it. But this standard physics has been distorted into nonsense by Pollack.

 

[Jonathan Edwards]

If there were memory holding molecules wouldn't most water already be remembering stuff that it has been in contact with. So shouldn't we all be cured of everything as the water we consume will have come into contact with some other molecules. But then water comes into contact mainly with water so does its memory just remember water - does that mean it is self aware?

Absolutely, water should remember the big bang, the garden of Eden, the trials of Job, the Battle of Hastings and everything else. It would cure all diseases and at the same time cause instant death from poisoning. We would be in a sort of Everettian multiple world scenario but all at once. And I cannot even tell Evian from Thames recycled water.

 

[Gijs]

I do not think you can say without good scientific research that homeopathy is nonsense. There has never been done serious scientific research. Mock something because you do not understand the mechanism, in my view is shortsighted. All matter consists of information and energy. What non local consciousness and memory is? Nobody knows. Not even neurologists.

 

[sb4]

Energy from outside in the form of EM radiation is effectively radiant heat. If that is absorbed the water will heat up and give out the same amount of energy in return.

Is it not plausible that some of that energy is used to do work and the rest goes to heat. Could this help explain how water is difficult to heat?

A stack of OH- ions would explode because there is no H3O+ to neutralise.

I'm not sure this is true, if the hexagonal structure is staggered then the negative oxygen will be surrounded by 5 positive protons that are closer than the next nearest negative oxygen. This should yield a stable structure.

 

[Kati]

Am I mistaken by the fact that this is totally not an article abut homeopathy? i don't understand the direction this conversation is taking.

 

[Jonathan Edwards]

I do not think you can say without good scientific research that homeopathy is nonsense. There has never been done serious scientific research. Mock something because you do not understand the mechanism, in my view is shortsighted. All matter consists of information and energy. What non local consciousness and memory is? Nobody knows. Not even neurologists.

Yes we can. Homeopathy has to be nonsense because the way it is supposed to work is incompatible with everything else we know about the natural world and nobody has ever shown it works. One thing we can know as a fact is that the homeopaths have never gathered any reliable evidence that the doses they use are the right doses. They just make things up as they go along. If there has never been any proof that the dilution system works (no documents have ever come to light showing this has been tested) then there is no particular reason to bother to try to show the system does not work. In fact scientific studies have been done and have shown it does not work.

It is a bit like saying that you cannot say without good scientific research that we cannot dismiss the theory that every time a woman from Grimsby says Marks and Spencer there will be a smell of lemons at the south pole for half a second. This is the level of absurdity involved.

I do not mock because I do not understand the mechanism. I mock because I understand what is proposed and it is nonsense. I think neurologists do have a pretty good idea of what memory is. They understand the biochemistry, structural changes in dendrites and the molecular biology quite well. As for consciousness, I know what that is based on but I have to admit that the onus is on me to prove that in due course! The main difficulty, however, is that people insist on believing that the theory they like best is the truth, and nobody, not even me, could like my theory of consciousness best. It makes one feel dizzy.

 

[Jonathan Edwards]

Am I mistaken by the fact that this is totally not an article abut homeopathy? i don't understand the direction this conversation is taking.

Sorry, Kati, you are right, but the article does raise the issue and people keep raising arguments about homeopathy.

 

[Jonathan Edwards]

Is it not plausible that some of that energy is used to do work and the rest goes to heat. Could this help explain how water is difficult to heat?

I'm not sure this is true, if the hexagonal structure is staggered then the negative oxygen will be surrounded by 5 positive protons that are closer than the next nearest negative oxygen. This should yield a stable structure.

No to the first point because it would contravene the laws of thermodynamics. Carnot showed you cannot get more than you are allowed.

In relation to the second the whole point is that OH- has a minus sign because there are not enough protons to even out the number of electrons. So no matter how many you stack whatever way every OH- adds another extra net negative charge that the protons cannot cope with. So it will explode.

 

[Wolfiness]

As for consciousness, I know what that is based on but I have to admit that the onus is on me to prove that in due course! The main difficulty, however, is that people insist on believing that the theory they like best is the truth, and nobody, not even me, could like my theory of consciousness best.

Oh tell us!

 

[Jonathan Edwards]

Oh tell us!

If you track down my website at UCL you will find a complete explanation of everything there. Hopefully, by the time you discover the site you will have a small dose of PEM and leave reading it for a while. If you actually read it you are likely to need another week in bed with the lights out. Not that I would want to put anyone off but as I say in my book 'this is the most difficult idea I have ever come across'. One other researcher has come to exactly the same explanation independently but the vast majority of people find it too hard to handle.

 

[Wolfiness]

If you track down my website at UCL you will find a complete explanation of everything there. Hopefully, by the time you discover the site you will have a small dose of PEM and leave reading it for a while.

It's the 2nd result when I google "jonathan edwards - professor emeritus"!

If you actually read it you are likely to need another week in bed with the lights out. Not that I would want to put anyone off but as I say in my book 'this is the most difficult idea I have ever come across'. One other researcher has come to exactly the same explanation independently but the vast majority of people find it too hard to handle.

You really ought to know better than effectively daring the people on this site to do intellectually challenging stuff! We have great difficulty resisting dares like that!

 

[Wolfiness]

…Is your theory along the same lines of the "there is no 'I‘" / "unconscious co-operation" implications of The Selfish Gene, Susan Blackmore's The Meme Machine or even Julian Barbour's The End of Time? It makes sense to me, but maybe, as in quantum theory, that can only mean I haven't understood it properly.
I can't thoroughly read interesting stuff or books any more, I will have to wait till somebody else's neurons come up with a treatment for my neurons.

Really have to stop typing now...

 

[geraldt52]

… I will have to wait till somebody else's neurons come up with a treatment for my neurons...

That's priceless!!!

 

[Snow Leopard]

@Snow Leopard It makes sense to me. Here's an image http://doublehelixwater.eu/store/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/ez-layers-closeup.jpg

It doesn't make sense to me. This is an easily testable hypothesis - such structures have distinct spectra - and such spectra have not been measured experimentally.

 

[Jonathan Edwards]

…Is your theory along the same lines of the "there is no 'I‘" / "unconscious co-operation" implications of The Selfish Gene, Susan Blackmore's The Meme Machine or even Julian Barbour's The End of Time? It makes sense to me, but maybe, as in quantum theory, that can only mean I haven't understood it properly.
I can't thoroughly read interesting stuff or books any more, I will have to wait till somebody else's neurons come up with a treatment for my neurons.

Really have to stop typing now...

Not quite. In my theory there are many I's, each of which thinks it is me. Each is a neuron. Human beings, like anthills and sponges are colonial organisms. There is no possible way for the cells to share 'I-ness'. Neuroscientists and philosophers have been trying to find ways of making nerve nets but I's but they all end up deciding there cannot be an I after all - but there obviously are I's.

Selfish Gene seems to be a rather dubious rewrite of conventional Darwinism that muddles people.
The Meme machine is similarly a rather flowery account of adaptation through cultural influence.
Julian Barbour's book is interesting but he ends up making the mistake he tries to avoid - being too literal about fundamental reality. Time exists but our sense of time is not the time of physics - that is an important part of my approach.

Feynman was quite good at philosophy, or metaphysics (the study of what basic terms in physics really mean), despite decrying 'filawsofy'. But he was wrong about not understanding QM if you think you understand QM. Leibniz actually understood QM in 1714, although he could not work out the Schrödinger equation. He explains how to understand why QM seems odd. It is simply that descriptions of single indivisible units of action have to be unrecognisably different from descriptions of aggregates of units - for basic logical reasons he worked out but almost nobody has thought about since. So individual units do not bump along like billiard balls. They know where they want to go. I a sense they have a purpose. But, the complication is that it is not quite purpose in the way we understand that. That is what the essay on the website called 'Leibniz and Telicity' is all about.

We are sorry if that was too painful.

 

[sb4]

No to the first point because it would contravene the laws of thermodynamics. Carnot showed you cannot get more than you are allowed.

It wouldn't contravene thermodynamics if the waves where converted into some other form of energy. I'm not adding energy.

In relation to the second the whole point is that OH- has a minus sign because there are not enough protons to even out the number of electrons. So no matter how many you stack whatever way every OH- adds another extra net negative charge that the protons cannot cope with. So it will explode.

I see you're point however I prayed to Pollack and consulted the holy book and he indeed addresses this. He says if they where stacked normally they would fly apart however "The planar shift also creates some repulsion's: nearby like charged atoms from respective planes repel one another. However repulsion are fewer than the attractions; and those repulsive forces push away the repelling atoms, thereby weakening the net repulsive force. Indeed our computations have shown the attractive forces easily win out".

It doesn't make sense to me. This is an easily testable hypothesis - such structures have distinct spectra - and such spectra have not been measured experimentally.

You're right and it does. Structured water has absorption peak in 270nm compared to bulk water. http://www.waterjournal.org/volume-6/dibble