I think that you can learn a lot via empirical measurement without needing to understand underlying biochemistry. Apart from direct measurement it also about developing better metrics for things like lung function, That partly why I invested significant effort into Quantified Self community building.
Exploring the phenomenological aspect of illnesses provides an area with a lot of untapped potential for knowledge gathering.
I think there are large returns found in studying human movement in detail. As it stands a method like Feldenkrais isn’t has some studies to support it but no strong scientifically investigated base. It should be possible to use cameras and computers to get accurate models of human movement and investigate an approach like Feldenkrais in deeper scientific way.
Relaxation is generally poorly understood. I think most patients could benefit from spending hours in floating tanks after having a major operation, yet few hospitals have floating tanks or maximize the relaxation in other ways.
In general hospital beds and hospital food doesn’t seem to be optimized for health outcomes.
Having a well developed theory that can predict placebo effects accurately would be good. On the one hand it will make it easier to gather knowledge, on the other hand it will help doctors to frame their interactions in a way that helps patients.
Having good empathy training for doctors has potential to improve healthcare.
Psychological interventions like hypnosis.
Biofeedback.
That’s just a list of possibilities I can think of. There are probably things that are unknown unknowns for me.
Those approaches risk turning therapy into stabs in the dark by neglecting the details of what is actually going on inside the black box.
Most people who pretend that they know what goes on inside the black box are wrong anyway.
Drug companies would like to predict which components work based on understanding biochemistry but they still have to run expensive trials in which over 90% of the components fail.
Furthermore it becomes exponentially more expensive to discover additional drugs in that way.
That said, the idea of preaching blindness that currently haunts medical research is exactly about the virtue of stabing into the dark. If you would see what you are doing you wouldn’t be objective anymore.
I think that you can learn a lot via empirical measurement without needing to understand underlying biochemistry. Apart from direct measurement it also about developing better metrics for things like lung function, That partly why I invested significant effort into Quantified Self community building.
Exploring the phenomenological aspect of illnesses provides an area with a lot of untapped potential for knowledge gathering.
I think there are large returns found in studying human movement in detail. As it stands a method like Feldenkrais isn’t has some studies to support it but no strong scientifically investigated base. It should be possible to use cameras and computers to get accurate models of human movement and investigate an approach like Feldenkrais in deeper scientific way.
Relaxation is generally poorly understood. I think most patients could benefit from spending hours in floating tanks after having a major operation, yet few hospitals have floating tanks or maximize the relaxation in other ways. In general hospital beds and hospital food doesn’t seem to be optimized for health outcomes.
Having a well developed theory that can predict placebo effects accurately would be good. On the one hand it will make it easier to gather knowledge, on the other hand it will help doctors to frame their interactions in a way that helps patients.
Having good empathy training for doctors has potential to improve healthcare.
Psychological interventions like hypnosis.
Biofeedback.
That’s just a list of possibilities I can think of. There are probably things that are unknown unknowns for me.
Those approaches risk turning therapy into stabs in the dark by neglecting the details of what is actually going on inside the black box.
Most people who pretend that they know what goes on inside the black box are wrong anyway.
Drug companies would like to predict which components work based on understanding biochemistry but they still have to run expensive trials in which over 90% of the components fail. Furthermore it becomes exponentially more expensive to discover additional drugs in that way.
That said, the idea of preaching blindness that currently haunts medical research is exactly about the virtue of stabing into the dark. If you would see what you are doing you wouldn’t be objective anymore.