Hm. `Voodoo Magic Box.’ Yep, sounds like a Viable Alternative to Western Medicine to me.
Here’s the closest thing to science on the site:
Well, as near as I can tell, they’re trying to use a pressure point or some kind of acupuncture-related mechanism to make the brain release endorphins. That much is pretty well valid: When the brain feels pain, it will initially try to numb itself by shooting itself through with neurochemicals that morphine closely mimics. I don’t really know about the earlobe being a valid pressure point for releasing that kind of a response (although it would explain a few things…), and I don’t know enough about neurochemistry to feel secure in completely bashing it.
In general, it looks like hokum. It probably gets most of its effectiveness from what people expect it to do: If you really think this thing will make you see angels, you’re going to see angels no matter how much the box blows.
For all that, it’s probably safe. The worst that would happen, IMHO, is that you might have a reaction to the contact jelly or the electrical pulses might fry the skin or nerves in the area. But seeing what others do to their ears, those risks seem rather mild.
As for your next question:
You’re talking about cochlear implants, where a very small electrical soundsystem is hooked up to the cochlea (the ear’s sensitive sound-detecting apparatus, essentially millions of tiny hairs waving in a fluid disturbed by the eardrum’s movement in response to sound) and the otic (is that right?) nerve (what carries the cochlea’s impulses to the brain). AFAIK, it’s `eight-bit sound’: Low-quality digital sound that gives the congenitally deaf an idea of what it’s like to hear, but not much else.
Actually I was talking about a different hearing sytem. In this system it used a headphone like aparatus with 2 metal plates that made contact over the temples. It used 2 different freqs modulated in some way with the output of a microphone. The brain then could (eventually) interpret as sound. The person using the system, however would have to learn how interpret the data as sound. Supposedly this system work even for people that have never heard before.
But anyway IF the VooDoo Magic box could alter brain waves to similar waves as ones that happen while you are on drugs would that give a similar effect as the drugs?
And yes, I know that the effect felt from drugs is because of neurotransmitters being increased/decreased/blocked/etc.
Bio: If a toad could fly it wouldn’t bump its ass a-hoppin’.
I doubt the Voodoo Magic Box is anything more than it says: Voodoo hokum dreamed up to sell a lie. Sure, if it could alter neurochemistry, it could have an effect similar to drugs. It’s that big if clause there that I’m doubting.
BioHazard, how about these? Sound like even more bang for your buck, although they take more bucks too! Says drug addicts find them an effective substitution, so that’s gotta imply some kind of trip!
I don’t know why the first link that follows works fine outside of this board, but when entered here gets a “Not found on this server” error message. So I’m going to leave off the http://www., so no one bothers clicking on it. You’ll have to type it in your browser, and including the caps & space do still get you there. Who knows?? But it’s the better of the two: