Relevant article in Wired: Placebos are getting stronger—researchers are starting to study the placebo response to see how it can be better utilized to aid in healing.
I’m guessing that by the word “know” you mean “acknowledge that the evidence is strongly in favor of”, which doesn’t necessarily entail belief, as many religious believers have demonstrated.
If that isn’t what you mean, I have no clue what you’re talking about
No. I mean you can swallow a sugar pill, in full knowledge of, belief in, and acknowledgment-of-evidence-for the fact that it is a sugar pill, and still improve relative to not taking a sugar pill. It’s not obvious to me why psychological “sugar pills” wouldn’t work the same way.
It’s not as strong an effect as taking a sugar pill while thinking it’s a useful drug (or taking an actual useful drug), but it’s sure not nothing. The brain is a complicated thingamajig.
I’m going to have to distance myself from Alicorn on this one. (Surprise, I know.) I think she’s confusing the general meaning of “placebo effect” (any positive effect manifesting in a control case) with the specific meaning (curing of a condition attributable at least in part to believing a treatment to work).
The general meaning of it clearly exists and is mentality-independent. For example, after an oil spill, if you dump oil-eating bugs on one part of the affected area, and not the other (the latter being the control), oil will dissipate even in the control, just by natural processes and not because of the bugs. That’s a placebo effect baseline against which to compare the bugs.
I endorse the stronger claim that the specific kind exists, and withstands conscious non-belief, so long as you use other modes to trick your body/brain into believing it. This shouldn’t be surprising: you behavior is often hard to consciously modify. For example, it’s easier to look confident by having a social group you belong to than by trying to control all the micromovements of muscles necessary to give off confident signals.
If that’s what Alicorn meant, I apologize, she didn’t err, and I agree with her.
You can benefit from the placebo effect even if you know you’re taking a placebo.
Relevant article in Wired: Placebos are getting stronger—researchers are starting to study the placebo response to see how it can be better utilized to aid in healing.
I’m guessing that by the word “know” you mean “acknowledge that the evidence is strongly in favor of”, which doesn’t necessarily entail belief, as many religious believers have demonstrated.
If that isn’t what you mean, I have no clue what you’re talking about
No. I mean you can swallow a sugar pill, in full knowledge of, belief in, and acknowledgment-of-evidence-for the fact that it is a sugar pill, and still improve relative to not taking a sugar pill. It’s not obvious to me why psychological “sugar pills” wouldn’t work the same way.
… and belief that sugar pills don’t cure diseases / alleviate symptoms?
I thought the placebo effect had to do with belief.
Yup, that too.
Geez.
It’s not as strong an effect as taking a sugar pill while thinking it’s a useful drug (or taking an actual useful drug), but it’s sure not nothing. The brain is a complicated thingamajig.
I’m going to have to distance myself from Alicorn on this one. (Surprise, I know.) I think she’s confusing the general meaning of “placebo effect” (any positive effect manifesting in a control case) with the specific meaning (curing of a condition attributable at least in part to believing a treatment to work).
The general meaning of it clearly exists and is mentality-independent. For example, after an oil spill, if you dump oil-eating bugs on one part of the affected area, and not the other (the latter being the control), oil will dissipate even in the control, just by natural processes and not because of the bugs. That’s a placebo effect baseline against which to compare the bugs.
I endorse the stronger claim that the specific kind exists, and withstands conscious non-belief, so long as you use other modes to trick your body/brain into believing it. This shouldn’t be surprising: you behavior is often hard to consciously modify. For example, it’s easier to look confident by having a social group you belong to than by trying to control all the micromovements of muscles necessary to give off confident signals.
If that’s what Alicorn meant, I apologize, she didn’t err, and I agree with her.
If we really understood the placebo effect, it wouldn’t be the placebo effect.