Philosophical implications of the placebo effect.
I am wondering what are the philosophical implications of the placebo effect in understanding the nature of reality, as we understand it, and the world as a whole.
Only one thing comes to my mind, to put this bluntly. It seems to me that the placebo effect points towards, at the very least away from a strict materialist view of the mind being the brain and the brain being simply - matter, to something resembling a yet unexplained correspondence between mind and matter meaning or some sort of materialism combined with idealism, since the drugs in the (psychiatric) studies work better than the placebo effect obviously to be approved.
Thoughts? Be they material or ethereal. :-|
Only one thing comes to my mind, to put this bluntly. It seems to me that the placebo effect points towards, at the very least away from a strict materialist view of the mind being the brain and the brain being simply - matter, to something resembling a yet unexplained correspondence between mind and matter meaning or some sort of materialism combined with idealism, since the drugs in the (psychiatric) studies work better than the placebo effect obviously to be approved.
Thoughts? Be they material or ethereal. :-|
Comments (36)
The point about zombies is, they don't think. In other words, if they have thoughts, they're not zombies.
I don't think any of the arguments against the p-zombie argument hold any water. Because an independent zombie universe might be identical to this one in every way. Except it would be absent spirit, I don't think it would necessarily be absent mind. Although I realise this leaves us with a discussion of what mind is. I do consider synthetic minds.
Well, the placebo effect is just plain open evidence that certain beliefs can alter behavior. Whether there some immaterial force or entity inducing these brain states to arise is beyond me.
Quite a lot of effort has been expended on the middle ground of non-reductionist supervenience model, i.e. the idea that the world is as described by physicalists but there are mentalist ways of talking that cannot be reduced to the physical. Jaegwon Kim is the arch-exponent of this view.
I ended up taking the view of the practising scientist of placebos, and that is that you just have to use a mixture of languages, ranging from the chemistry of drugs to the social psychology of 'belief' and 'expectation'. Chomsky hates this and calls it 'methodological dualism'. I think it's inevitable, because there is something about 'belief' and 'expectation' that defy you to use other terms for them, and placebos are irredeemably about belief and expectation, not just of the pill-swallowers but also of the pill-prescribers. What a medical practitioner believes about your treatment seems to affect how well it goes, certainly in relation to pain relief, and that means that practitioners have to take a holistic view: the way 'treatment' occurs is a vital element in what works.
I agree with you here andrew, but I'd just add that one odd thing about 'consciousness studies' is how blind some natural-science-minded philosophers are to social science. Social science has excellent methods of approaching first-person testimony, for instance, which acknowledge the influence of the observer upon the process they're also observing. Much of the Chalmers-inspired stuff about 'science' and consciousness can't see beyond biology into the realms of the social. Few people seem to acknowledge for instance that it's applied sociology that makes Facebook and Google rich beyond reason: this is the secret of their algorithms, good scientific work by social psychologists. So much philosophy is trapped in a physicalist frame of mind.
So it's about belief and ritual, which requires the presence of beings to do the believing and acting out the rituals.
I do consider that a p-zombie could benefit from a placebo, although somehow I doubt that there would be any placebo's found in a zombie world, not least perhaps a sense of humour either.
Could you recommend a better place to spend time, I'd really like to know. It took me a long time to find my way here, so I'm not leaving now I've arrived.
(This comment has just a hint of the light hearted, or the tongue in cheek, it hasn't had the humour sucked out of it(see my profile picture as an illustration of my arrival))
One cannot proverbially by taking thought add an inch to one's stature. One cannot by taking thought persuade the horse to win or the roulette wheel to come up red. One can affect subjective symptoms such as pain, but this is unsurprising even to the most material of materialists.
So what is left that might be controversial or significant for metaphysics? As far as I know, and the biomedics will correct me, we are left with the immune system and the hormonal system. Is there a great mystery? Lots of little mysteries for sure, but we know that anxiety produces stress hormones and such like, which affects blood pressure adrenalin levels and so on.
Because I am a hugely respected philosopher, and you can absolutely trust my benevolence and intellectual rigour, You will feel relieved and relaxed on reading this post. You will feel more healthy, more calm and more energised, and your physician will be able to see the benefits to you physically.
Not entirely true Sir,
How do you explain purely mental states of mind caused by some neurotransmitter imbalance or even more profoundly alterations in brain structure and plasticity?
I mean it's a common 'shame' in the psychiatric community that antidepressants on average are as effective as placeboes. Going further, where you have more profound alterations in states of mind such as that seen in schizophrenia, you can also see a profound placebo effect when most medications are administered alongside them.
There really isn't one. It's just that I'm wondering what's causing the placebo effect?
The expectation of benefit causes the placebo effect, our mental states causally affect our physical state, and our physical state causally affect our mental state.
The stronger the expectation, the stronger the effect that can be experienced. Each person is different and there are gender differences, all react differently to the psychological expectations that the medical profession proposes for its treatments. Many drugs target the body's own chemicals to correct imbalances, and these same chemical balances can be causality targeted by the expectation that this procedure, or medication will have such & such an effect.
Recent tests suggest that some people are genetically more predisposed to the placebo effect. Other studies suggest that increased psychological support, solidifying patient's expectations of a good outcome can significantly improve their prospects for recovery from a major procedure.
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I do not find a mind over matter problem here.
Some of the people with serious, diagnosed diseases who sign up for experimentation are going to end up in the placebo-receiving arm of the study. In double blind studies, it has been found that there is a placebo effect. As far as I know, nobody who had a serious disease has been cured by placebos, but taking the inactive drug has resulted in measurable improvements. Conversely, nobody has died as the result of symptoms arising from reading a textbook.
Ideas have an influence on brain cells behave and thus they affect the body. When somebody says something to you that makes you very angry, your physical stasis is severely upset. The insulting phrases are heard and processed. Electrical signals stimulate a cascade of neurotransmitters and hormones which results in you developing a full, fast head of steam. Let the battle begin!
The wish/belief/hope that you are receiving a beneficial therapy, through the physical channels of the nervous system, may have an effect on the chemicals which the body makes to suppress or remove an infection.
There is very little in the body which is free of interaction with the neuro-system together with the immune system. (Well, there are a few small places in the body which are sanctuaries).
Sorry, dashed off in a fit of pique. What I really ought to have said was 'I really need to ensure my motivation is correct when I post'.
Only is you believe or fear it is true. For anyone who's aware of the existence of minds, no such issue is present. We know truth is on our side. P-zombies are nothing more than a trivial category error to us.
Yes, it's possible an acting body without consciousness might be, but that doesn't tell us anything. An effectively infinite number of possible outcomes aren't ever day. In talking about whether minds exist, we aren't dealing with possibilities. To this question, what matters is that which is actual.
So are minds actual? Well, yes they are-- I know I am conscious. My mind is part of the world. It's unavoidable. To say a conscious person might be a p-zombie is incoherent.
The apparent strength of the p-zombie argument is an illusion founded on the substance dualist's claim of ignorance of consciousness. By saying: "We don't really know minds," the substance dualist feeds the reductionist and the p-zombie argument-- it puts the existence of minds beyond understanding, implying we can't really be sure if they are there or not on account of not really knowing anything about them. So much so that even you, a self-proclimed champion of the mind, is caught considering the p-zombie argument like it's relevant to discussing who we are.
There's something Platonic about all this.
What is this state of disorder that brains have to organize themselves out of? Doesn't the brain put itself in order from the get-go? Brains that are sick get disordered; otherwise, they stay organized.
I agree. It is indeed unsurprising and expected that states of the mind produce effects in the body. By thinking of a cold beer, good food, or beautiful people one can easily evoke stimulating effects in the body. States of the mind produce effects on the body as well, such as facial expressions, movement of arms, legs, or the whole body. Via these our minds can have major effects on our environment.
According to Searle experiences exist in an ontologically subjective domain in an ontologically objective reality. In this sense experiences are ontologically irreducible to physical states. But that does not exclude the possibility that they are causally reducible to physical states. Unlike a video recording the experience is a causation of brain events whose content is set by the object's present features. Many people may experience the same object, but seldom the exact same set of features, and never with the same brain.
An even more telling situation is presented by the mind which is not the body. If we take the non-reductive accounts of mind Wayfarer holds so dear, the presence of a mind which is not any particular instance of body, it can only form a causal relationship with the body to produce the placebo effect.
States of particular concious experiences, various beliefs, must be a material cause-- states of the world which bring about causal impact on others, on bodies.
In the context of non-reductive experience, the placebo effect isn't a problem for materialism, but rather a prime example of materialism in action. Experiences themselves are knowable states of the world which cause others.
Subjectivities are objective-- it's true my states of experiences exist and cause other states (including of my own body).
There is no "dependency" because the aren't seperate at all. I do not, on one hand, have objective experiences and subjective experiences on the other. All my experiences are subjective (MY experience) and objective (existing) all at once.
I think there is a useful practical distinction though. Saying that something is objectively the case is just saying that nearly everybody would agree that it is the case. That deals with the notion that it is objective that there are two mangos on the table, but that it is subjective that Justin Bieber's 'Baby, Baby, Baby' is a great song.