{"id":420,"date":"2005-08-27T08:03:45","date_gmt":"2005-08-27T08:03:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/archives\/420"},"modified":"2005-08-27T08:03:45","modified_gmt":"2005-08-27T08:03:45","slug":"placebo-effect-and-views-on-the-mind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/archives\/420","title":{"rendered":"Placebo effect and views on the mind"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Economist<\/i> has a short article<\/a> on how researchers have observed that people’s brains emit more endorphins when given a placebo and told it will counteract pain. The article starts with this:<\/p>\n

The placebo effect, long considered nothing more than psychological suggestibility, does now appear to be genuine.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s hard for me to imagine the worldview necessary for that sentence to make any sense. If you believe (as I do) that the mind is fully implemented by our biology then you wouldn’t at all be surprised that there’s a biological cause for the observed decrease in subjective pain. On the other hand, if you still put Descartes before the horse and believe in a kind of soul or other mind\/body dualism<\/a> then the idea that a non-physical “psychological suggestibility” isn’t genuine (even though it stops the equally non-physical pain) is ludicrous.<\/p>\n

It seems to me that The Economist<\/i> and probably a majority of Westerners want to walk a middle road, accepting only the physical, observable, and scientific world as “genuine” while at the same time refusing to accept that a direct corollary of that belief is that our own minds must be a part of that physical, observable world. It’s no wonder we have such difficulty dealing with issues like mental illness in this culture…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Economist<\/i> has a short article<\/a> on how researchers have observed that people’s brains emit more endorphins when given a placebo and told it will counteract pain. The article starts with this:<\/p>\n

The placebo effect, long considered nothing more than psychological suggestibility, does now appear to be genuine.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s hard for me to imagine the worldview necessary for that sentence to make any sense. If you believe (as I do) that the mind is fully implemented by our biology then you wouldn’t at all be surprised that there’s a biological cause for the observed decrease in subjective pain. On the other hand, if you still put Descartes before the horse and believe in a kind of soul or other mind\/body dualism<\/a> then the idea that a non-physical “psychological suggestibility” isn’t genuine (even though it stops the equally non-physical pain) is ludicrous.<\/p>\n

It seems to me that The Economist<\/i> and probably a majority of Westerners want to walk a middle road, accepting only the physical, observable, and scientific world as “genuine” while at the same time refusing to accept that a direct corollary of that belief is that our own minds must be a part of that physical, observable world. It’s no wonder we have such difficulty dealing with issues like mental illness in this culture…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mind-and-brain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}