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Mind over matter?
Topic Started: Feb 19 2010, 07:32 AM (864 Views)
KayKay
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What are your thoughts on this? The supposed ability we have to overcome difficulties whether it be illness or otherwise with the power of thought or perception?

If I remember correctly, there have been studies done with patients to explore the possibility of self-healing. Use of placebo drugs and suggestion to overcome seemingly persistent or chronic symptoms. Results have been mixed, some simply involving pain suppression, others involving fighting cancer with the use of suggestion.

I personally think it has a lot to do with mental health and optimism. It's well known that the body - especially the immune system - is easily weakened by stress, disappointment or despair. It's not a far stretch to think that happiness and optimism, and even love, have healing qualities.

I think it can provide an explanation to some supernatural phenomena too. Energy healing for example - who's to say that it isn't the patient that is doing their own healing, and the practitioner isn't simply offering guidance or suggestion, providing hope, assurance, etc? Of course, the patient will think it's the practitioner's 'inner life-force energy' that's doing the healing, when this may not be true at all.
Edited by KayKay, Feb 19 2010, 07:33 AM.
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Holben
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There are no supernatural psitrons or forces doing healing or anything like that. Just relaxing aids recovery significantly. That said, i do believe in extra-sensory manipulation and observation entropy.
Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea.

"It is the old wound my king. It has never healed."
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KayKay
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The word entropy gives me a headache. Every time I try to find a definition I am confronted by more jargon that I don't understand. Any help with that?

And I wasn't suggesting that there were supernatural forces doing healing. What I was suggesting was that the perceived benefits could be entirely self-healing from increased hopes, psychological suggestion, and as you say, feeling more relaxed etc.

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Holben
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I don't know much about populised entropy, but in thermodynamics and string theory it is the progression towards a disordered state. So, an apple gains entropy as it decays into a disordered mess.
Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea.

"It is the old wound my king. It has never healed."
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lamna
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Allow Hawking to explain though the medium of rap.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bueZoYhUlg

The Placebo effect is very interesting, perhaps anti-depressants could be used to replicate the effect without lying.
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Holben
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Wow. I didn't know mr. Hawking was a rap artist.
Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea.

"It is the old wound my king. It has never healed."
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TheCoon
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I do admit that a possitive attitude towards the world in general keeps you healthy, or is a really good way to help medicine cure some of the deseases. Our mind's powerfull, but I don't think it's as powerfull as directly manipulate matter.
I saw this video once. It was about an European (And I say european because I can't remember from which european country this women belonged) that was capable of moving thing with the mind. Unlike most people, which are proven to be false or hoaxes, this women remains unexplained. She was actually capable of moving forks, books, or other stuff with the mind for a short period of time. Then she became really exausted, and sometime she even fainted while doing this telekinesis thing.
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Ànraich
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In a way, mind can overcome matter. The consciousness is a product of the mind, the mind a product of the body, an the body a product of the consciousness. Therefore if you are sick or injured, and believe you are getting better, you may get better (obviously some things can't be cured). Of course it's not like just imagining yourself better makes you better: as has already been stated, you recover faster when you relax. If you convince yourself you're getting better, you'll relax. If you relax, you'll get better, thus mind has overcome matter and allowed you to speed up your recovery.

Can you move things around with your mind? Not naturally, but perhaps if our understanding of the universe was much, much better and you could enhance yourself with some kind of technology to aid you. Like any other superstitious belief, Mind-Over-Matter is passed down to us from our ancestors, who first came up with these stories based not on observation but on desire; how much easier would many tasks be if you could use your mind to overcome your physical limits? And just like every other product of our imagination it will go through stages: Interest, Investigation, Disbelief, Reemergence, Reality (first theoretical then later physical), and then Commonplace. People will hear about it, get interested in it, and investigate it. Upon investigating it, it will be "disproved" and widespread disbelief of it will be the norm. Then there will only be a small population that believes in it, until it eventually makes its way to (or inspires a) scientist, who will work with it and cause it to reemerge as part of society. Eventually it will become theoretically possible, and later physically possible. From there it just proliferates throughout civilization until it is as common as cellphones or television today.
Edited by Ànraich, Feb 20 2010, 06:44 PM.
We should all aspire to die surrounded by our dearest friends. Just like Julius Caesar.

"The Lord Universe said: 'The same fate I have given to all things from stones to stars, that one day they shall become naught but memories aloft upon the winds of time. From dust all was born, and to dust all shall return.' He then looked upon His greatest creation, life, and pitied them, for unlike stars and stones they would soon learn of this fate and despair in the futility of their own existence. And so the Lord Universe decided to give life two gifts to save them from this despair. The first of these gifts was the soul, that life might more readily accept their fate, and the second was fear, that they might in time learn to avoid it altogether." - Excerpt from a Chanagwan creation myth, Legends and Folklore of the Planet Ghar, collected and published by Yieju Bai'an, explorer from the Celestial Commonwealth of Qonming

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Kain
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I experimented with this theory last night. WARNING: The text below might be really disgusting!

Yesterday night I got really drunk, and I was about to throw up. With every bit of consciousness I had left, I got in front of the mirror at the toilet, and said: "You will NOT throw up! I GIVE THE ORDERS, NOT YOU!" (What? I WAS drunk, after all!)
Well, it was difficult, but I managed to hold it, and then I didn't want to throw up any more! My friends, when I got back, found it difficult to believe, since I was making the horrible sound that marks the approach of a throw-up.

The experiment worked, and now I know this: We can[/] control body functions at will.
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KayKay
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So, I'm not the only one who's been nominating themselves the guinea pig? :P Interesting though. I do believe we can give our body commands on the concious level, though it's not easy to do so.

I too have been experimenting. I've had a cold twice in a row these past few weeks, and a while ago too. Typical symptoms coming on - fever, headaches, aches and pains, fatigue, nausea, etc. As soon as I did I decided "hm... let's test this idea".

Each time I got some nasty symptoms at first, of the illness "coming on". I didn't alter my behaviour, I didn't think about being ill and even thought about myself being healthy. I kept exercising, eating, etc. It did work. The symptoms stopped at the coming on stage, and subsided within hours. They were still there constantly in the background for the whole duration of the infection, but they never came into the foreground, if you get what I mean.

However, what I did also find was that in the long run it is exhausting. After 3 colds I am now beat, and really do feel I need to rest and I just can't help it, not even to convince myself I have more energy. I just can't. Beating the symptoms must mean using energy you can't really afford to use.

So the sickness behaviour is there for a good reason it seems (you know, just wanting to rest, not eat, keep warm, etc). It's also possible that in ignoring one infection, a person's immune system may struggle to compete with other parts of the body for resources, therefore temporarily weakening it, making one more prone to another infection.
Edited by KayKay, Feb 23 2010, 09:12 AM.
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lamna
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I also completely ignore illness until it's incapacitating. No reason to act like a wuss just because you are ill, apart from preventing the spread of disease, but it's not my fault if other people choose to surrender.

And you can't move things with your mind. The woman was a liar or wrong. If it's confirmed why doesn't she go win a million dollars?
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Kain
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I, on the other hand, see illness as an opportunity to rest, and I always grab the chance. :D I am lazy, and I like it! :P

An interesting fact about my case was that after I did it, I almost wasn't drunk any more (I was, but only a little bit). Maybe, the only way for my body to "obey" my "command", was to stop being drunk.

In a "MythBusters" episode, I learned that the best way to stop being drunk quickly, is physical excercise. Probably a similar mechanism came into action when I ordered my body while I was drunk. Maybe, then, this level of control is too much, and tire the body a lot...
Edited by Kain, Feb 23 2010, 03:31 PM.
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agatharights
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I beleive that mind over matter is the function of making your body stronger via control from the mind. Perhaps the brain itself releases endorphins that make your body operate at a higher efficiency, or unlock some...potential in the body or something. I don't know. The brain controls what the body does in the end, after all. And coming from somebody who went through

Twenty-Eight

hours of labor in hallucination-inducing pain and didn't swear, cry, or even raise her voice once, I think there's something to this mind-over-matter stuff considering that I spent much of that labor meditating, relaxing best I could, and knowing that I could make it through it fine.

...Okay, it didn't work entirely seeing as I wound up getting wheeled into surgery anyways, but still. Partial success!
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lamna
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Well you are right about our brains unlocking hidden potential. Our muscles are much stronger than we think, it's just our brains don't let use them to their full potential except in emergencies because if we did, all our tendons and bones would get pulverized.
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Are nipples or genitals necessary, lamna?
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agatharights
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I recall reading about it. It's like how moms whose children are in danger can move cars with sheer brute strength or how people who are trapped can manage to cut off a limb and struggle to safety against all odds.
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