Homeopathy question

Dunno how many homeopathic practitioners we have here, probably zero, but hopefully someone is familiar enough with it to explain this one to me.

Right, so my understanding is that homeopathy’s basic idea is that water has ‘memory’, it can remember what has been put in it and amplifies its properties based on how diluted it is.

So…I don’t wanna get too base, but if this idea is valid, aren’t we all drinking sewage? Given the amount of poo and pee that has been in water, it goes into the water treatment plant, evaporates, rains into the reservoir, dilution upon dilution…

What’s their explanation for why 1:10000000 etc. dilutions of ‘medicines’ the water remembers, but not all the shite?

Oh, silly human, why are you trying to apply logic and reason to woo?

Water forgets all the bad stuff. If we ever figure out how to extract the repressed memories in water, we are in BIG trouble. Even a chiropractor won’t be able to fix that one.

Does this mean that there can be no such thing as a homeopathic scientologist?

Ok, I’m definitely not a homeopathic practitioner, but here’s my understanding of the internal logic …

  1. It’s not just a matter of dilution. The process of creating a homeopathic preparation is intentional, and involves both dilution and succussion (originally, hitting it with a leather bible at each step). You don’t get the effect by accidental dilution, only by the rigorous process.

  2. Like any system of belief, logical extrapolation just isn’t something they’re particularly interested in. To them it’s like an anti-vaxer saying “if vacinations work by producing anti-bodies, then how come it’s not just as bad getting vacinated as getting the disease”. For medical people, this is just frustrating. They don’t understand the mechanism, they can’t be bothered to understand the mechanism, they don’t even agree with the underlying science they’re extrapolating, but they want those who do to engage in their silly thought experiments?

From the inside, it’s the same thing. The “everything must be ultra-strong fish excrement” argument is a logical extrapolation made by people who don’t agree with the logic they’re extrapolating. To homeopathic supporters it’s an intellectually dishonest thought experiment, not something to seriously discuss.

Even if it’s a stupid question – “If we evolved from apes, why are there still apes?” – it’s incumbent upon the homeopathic industry to explain its answer clearly.

Saying, “Well, that isn’t how it works” is not answering the question.

Some ideas (like homeopathy) can also be “sewage” in your mind.

They really don’t. Provide an explanation, I mean. Even if you ask a homeopath point blank, they do a bizarre dance around the question.

Exhibit A:

https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20091029230420AAYlhOU

That’s…not unusual. That’s exactly the kind of response I’ve gotten from more than one homeopath in person. It’s dizzying.

You are forgetting about the part where diluting makes the effect stronger. So you’d want to drink untreated sewage so it’s as weak as possible, not filter it because then the bad effects get stronger.

This is a valid point. One which I’ve made before.

In the same vein:

  • Homoeopaths use several solvents. They usually use alcohol rather than water.

  • They preach the doctrine of opposites. That means that they think that the solvent turns into the *opposite *of what it held.

Well, Roy is dead but maybe his beliefs will grow stronger as his corporeal being disintegrates.

Roy was heavily into the woo; among other things he believed in the fraud healer John of God.

Only in the sense that it’s a valid explanation of the silliness that homeopaths embrace.

The OP will probably want to run out and buy this poster.

What did you think I meant?

No, that’s the doctrine they ascribe to allopathic medicine - that you put cold on hot stuff and hot on cold stuff and treat constipation with purgatives, etc.

Homeopaths claim the Doctrine of Signatures*, the Law of Similars and that “like cures like”. If you have a fever with redness and sweating, you take a not-even-measurable dose of an herb or chemical that causes heat, redness and sweating in a large dose. The remedy chosen is one that, in a tea or tincture or spoonful, would cause the symptoms you’re trying to treat.

This is classical homeopathy, and some homeopaths today are moving to include the opposites that their forefathers railed against, but the overwhelming zeitgeist in homeopathy is still the Law of Similars.

*That plants with attributes like the body part of a human will treat that body part. This is essentially a Rorschach of the practitioner, as humans are fantastic at finding similarities and ignoring differences when they want to.

I don’t think you’re disagreeing with him. If homeopathy says that “like cures like” then what you expect is for extremely diluted “medicines” have the opposite effect of the undiluted thing. So if all water is homeopathic sewage, shouldn’t it cure dysentery and e. coli?

And it’s quite effective that way. We had to purposely dilute the pool of posters until we arrived at that point.

He is correct, however, that I gave the wrong name to it. Signatures, not opposites. I’ll remember that.

I see what you’re saying. It’s not, however, how a homeopath would say it. They would vehemently deny that the homeopathic preparation does the “opposite” of the undiluted thing, rather that it *does *what the undiluted thing does, which somehow (this is the part I’ve never gotten an explanation of that I can grok) triggers the *body *to make the appropriate adjustments to correct the problem.

If you have to hit the water a certain way to make it “memorize” what used to be in it, can you hit it the wrong way to make it forget what’s in it? Can you give water a concussion? What if your water is brain-dead?

You can “clear” the water, yes. You can inactivate your homeopathic remedy with coffee or chewing gum, among other things, in fact.

Homeopathic preparations start with a tincture (water and alcohol extract) for herbals, and are then they add distilled or double filtered water, which is considered clear of any contaminant, physical or vibrational, that it may have held. Why does a filter remove energy? That’s the part no one’s…um…clear…on.

Probably already answered, and I’m not expert, but I seem to recall that it’s not just a matter of diluting the whatever in the water but, um, shaking it as well. You have to shake the water to bring out the magic…er, I mean the healthy properties. And it’s shaken, not stirred, so that’s why you don’t get the poo and pee.