A new geometrical description of entanglement and the curative homeopathic process

Some Remarks on QBism and its Relevance to Metaphors for the Therapeutic Process Based on Conventional Quantum Theory

Background: Signs and symptoms of dis-ease are considered observable manifestations of an immaterial (i.e., not directly observable) Vital Force. Likewise, experimental results on quantum systems are thought to indicate the presence of something that does not show up. Consequently, the discourse of conventional quantum theory (CQT) - with its notions of non-locality and entanglement being objective (i.e., ontic) facets of reality – has been considered useful metaphor for the therapeutic process (TP) in homeopathy/CAMs. Thus, Patient-Practitioner-Remedy (PPR) entanglement, postulated an ontic non-local interaction between patient (Px), practitioner (Pr), and potentised medicine/curative procedure (Rx), resulting in the patient’s ‘journey to cure.’ Recently, a new epistemic interpretation of quantum theory has arisen called QBism. Rooted in the subjectivity of Bayesianism, QBism refutes the notion that the quantum state of a system is a separate ontic property of reality. In QBism therefore, non-locality and entanglement are not ontic but are considered ‘subjective degrees of belief’ of an agent, i.e., they are personally epistemic. Objective: To examine whether previous CQT-based entanglement metaphors for the therapeutic process need re-evaluation in the light of the subjective Bayesianism inherent in QBism. Method: Pr, Px and Rx quantum states/wavefunctions - Px, Rx, and Pr - are reinterpreted in QBist terms. Unlike CQT, this means each quantum state/wavefunction is postulated to have no ontic non-local existence in a presumed external reality. Instead, they are said to represent local subjective ‘degrees of belief’ of an agent who in this case, is the Pr. Results & Conclusion: Compared to earlier quantum entanglement metaphors based on CQT, QBism’s interpretation of the probabilities inherent in the Px, Rx, Pr quantum state/wavefunctions are Bayesian and subjective. Their resulting highly personal epistemology makes them more aligned with (and therefore potentially more useful to) how practitioners might experience the evolution of the TP. Also, because QBism predicts non-locality and entanglement can only be at best, subjective properties of a practitioner’s own beliefs, the overall significance of previous ontic non-local CQT-based entanglement metaphors for the TP is questioned.

Physicochemical Investigations of Homeopathic Preparations: A Systematic Review and Bibliometric Analysis-Part 3

Objectives: In parts I and II of our review of physicochemical research performed on homeopathic preparations, we identified relevant publications and analyzed the data in terms of individual experiments, looking for the most promising techniques that were used in the past. In this third part, we analyze the results of the experiments seeking to extract information about the possible modes of action underpinning homeopathic preparations. Methods: We summarized the results from the 11 experimental areas previously introduced, extracting the general findings and trends. We also summarized the results in terms of specific research topics: aging, medium used for potentization, sample volume, temperature, material of potentization vessel, and, finally, the use of molecules to probe homeopathic samples. Results: We identified a number of effects that appear consistently throughout the data: Differences to controls seem to increase with: time, moderate temperature, small samples volume, and in ionic medium, whereas high temperatures seem to abolish differences to controls. Based on the present analysis, there is no consistent evidence to date for the nanoparticle hypothesis to explain specific homeopathic treatment effects. However, the quantum coherence domain hypothesis, the dynamic water cluster hypothesis, and the weak quantum theory are still contenders and need to be further assessed experimentally. Conclusions: The field requires further targeted experimentation to validate past findings reporting differences between homeopathic dilutions and controls, and to expand these findings by specifically testing the three main working hypotheses that are currently at hand.

Entelechy Regained? Further Musings on a Quantised Gyroscopic Metaphor for the Vital Force in Health and Dis-Ease

Background: Many complementary and alternative medicine modalities consider the vital force (Vf) an organism’s source of health and healing, Hahnemann’s notion of the Vf having similarities with quantum systems. Thus, the Vf is only indirectly observable via expressed symptoms: a quantum property is only indirectly observable via its observed experimental effects. Objective: To develop further a quantised gyroscopic metaphor of the Vf in which dis-ease slows axial rotation, causing the Vf to precess (i.e., express symptoms). The curative remedy accelerates axial rotation, throwing off the dis-ease, so precession (and symptom expression) cease. Method: Using earlier wave functions depending solely on observed patient symptoms and changes to them, 6 further wave functions are generated, representing the Vf in various states of dis-ease and health. Results: All 6 Vf wave functions can be arranged on 6 of the 9 points of an enneagram, the other 3 representing the practitioner. Conclusion: Transformations between the 6 Vf states are readily visualised. They may also be divided into two groups separated by a therapeutic “event horizon,” the practitioner being the “arbiter” between them. Thus, they could represent non-reductive information states, suitable as starting points for understanding the influence of consciousness on the therapeutic process.

Physicochemical Investigations of Homeopathic Preparations: A Systematic Review and Bibliometric Analysis-Part 1

Objectives: The last systematic review of physicochemical research performed on homeopathic preparations was published in 2003. The aim of the study is to update and expand the current state of knowledge in the area of physicochemical properties of homeopathic preparations. In part 1 of the study, we aim to present an overview of the literature with respect to publication quality and methods used. In part 2, we aim to identify the most interesting experimental techniques. With this, we aim to be in a position to generate meaningful hypotheses regarding a possible mode of action of homeopathic preparations.

Methods: A two-step procedure was adopted: (1) an extensive literature search, followed by a bibliometric and quality analysis on the level of publications and (2) a thorough qualitative analysis of the individual physicochemical investigations found. In this publication, we report on step (1). We searched major scientific databases to find publications reporting physicochemical investigations of homeopathy from its origin to the end of 2015. Publications were assessed using a scoring scheme, the Manuscript Information Score (MIS). Information regarding country of origin of the research and experimental techniques used was extracted.

Results: We identified 183 publications (compared to 44 in the last review), 122 of which had an MIS ≥5. The rate of publication in the field was ∼2 per year from the 1970s until 2000. Afterward, it increased to over 5.5 publications per year. The quality of publications was seen to increase sharply from 2000 onward, whereas before 2000, only 12 (13%) publications were rated as “high quality” (MIS ≥7.5); 44 (48%) publications were rated as “high quality” from 2000 onward. Countries with most publications were Germany (n = 42, 23%), France (n = 29, 16%), India (n = 27, 15%), and Italy (n = 26, 14%). Techniques most frequently used were electrical impedance (26%), analytical methods (20%), spectroscopy (20%), and nuclear magnetic resonance (19%).

Conclusions: Physicochemical research into homeopathic preparations is increasing both in terms of quantity and quality of the publications.

Genus Epidemicus: Are Notions of Entanglement Relevant to the Homeopathic Understanding of Epidemic Disease?

BACKGROUND

Patient-practitioner-remedy (PPR) entanglement postulates non-local triadic interaction between patient (Px), practitioner (Pr) and potentised medicine (Rx), resulting in the patient's journey to cure; the in-depth homeopathic interview is considered a major contributing factor in this process. Also, by modelling entelechy, a quantised gyroscopic analogue of the Vital Force (Vf) has been developed.

OBJECTIVE

To discover whether entanglement notions explain the mode of action of homeopathy during the treatment of epidemic diseases, when the individualising in-depth homeopathic interview is neither possible nor necessary.

METHOD

The current Vf wave equation applies specifically to the in-depth patient/practitioner consultation in chronic dis-ease. A generalised form of the Vf wave equation, an earlier hypothesis based on quantum field theory (QFT) and PPR entanglement were all re-investigated.

RESULTS

The generalised Vf wave equation was found applicable in 3 main conditions: acute self-limiting, chronic and epidemic dis-ease. In the latter, a single, coherent Vf epidemic 'wave function' covering all susceptible beings could be identified, which, after practitioner intervention, disappears. Analogies were drawn between groups of atoms in a p-doped semiconductor and a collection of susceptible beings in an epidemic. Here, genus epidemicus is likened to an 'n-type dopant', which forms a 'p-n junction' with the dis-ease. Using the QFT hypothesis/metaphor, genus epidemicus acts as a 'gauge field' restoring 'global invariance' to the symmetry-broken, symptom-expressing Vf, i.e., restoring health.

CONCLUSION

Entanglement hypotheses/metaphors may have application in the homeopathic therapeutic process beyond the one-to-one in-depth interview, and so are relevant to describing the mode of action of homeopathy during treatment of epidemic disease.

On the observed specific and non-specific effects of complex therapeutic interventions: truly separate or complementary?

Specific and non-specific effects observed in randomised controlled trials (RCTs) are generally treated implicitly as ontologically separate and purely additive. Building on the notions of Heisenberg uncertainty and complementarity from the discourse of quantum theory, and using a simple arithmetic argument, it is demonstrated how this separation enables results of RCTs (particularly of complex interventions) to be treated in a convenient but ultimately incorrect manner. Conclusions drawn from RCTs (that justify--and are justified by--a reductionist approach to therapeutic efficacy) should therefore be open to question.

Toward topological descriptions of the therapeutic process: part 3. Two new metaphors based on quantum superposition, wave function "collapse," and conic sections

INTRODUCTION

Quantum theoretical discourse has previously illustrated (1) the therapeutic process as three-way macro-entanglement (between patient, practitioner, and remedy, called PPR entanglement), and (2) depicted the Vital Force (Vf) as a quantized spinning gyroscope. Combining the two via semiotic geometry leads to a topological description of the patient's journey to cure. In this present article, two new metaphors for the homeopathic therapeutic encounter are described, based on (1) a quantum mechanical model of adaptive mutation (QMAM), and (2) the illuminated geometric patterns generated by a light source attached to a spinning gyroscope.

METHODS

(1) QMAM demonstrates how quantum superposition between DNA and mutant adaptations could arise and how environmental pressure "collapses" the DNA wave function to a particular state. In QMAM for the therapeutic process, isolation helps induce coherence between patient, practitioner, and remedy, generating a quantum-like superposition of patient "unwell" and "well" states. (2) The light beam from a precessing gyroscope sweeps out an ellipse, which becomes circular, the faster the gyroscope spins on its axis and the less it precesses. Ellipses have two foci that, as a metaphor for the state of a patient's Vf, are seen to represent the patient's "unwell" and "well" states.

RESULTS

Superposition of the patient's "unwell" and "well" states generated by the QMAM metaphor can "collapse" to the cured state, following decoherence at the end of therapeutic process. Similarly, the curative therapeutic process may be thought to "spin up" the patient's Vf, so the precessing ellipse's foci (i.e., the patient's "unwell" and "well" states) merge into a "circular" curative state.

CONCLUSIONS

The two new metaphors may be seen as equivalent and semiotic simplifications of the previous more complex topological description of the patient's "journey to cure."

Homeopathy--between tradition and modern science: remedies as carriers of significance

The healing potential and description of homeopathic remedies, as determined in homeopathic pathogenic trials (HPTs) and verified by medical experience, are often found to be meaningfully connected with the symbolic content attributed to the original materials (tinctures, metals etc) through tradition or modern semantics. Such a connection is incompatible with a biomolecular mechanistic explanation of the healing action of remedies. The physiological effects of crude substances are often similar to the symptoms of illnesses cured by the corresponding homeopathic remedy. This is considered a manifestation of the similia principle. Evidence is brought here that in several cases the inverse situation occurs, with the healing properties of the crude substance and those of its homeopathic preparation partially coinciding, the remedy usually having broader healing properties. The existence of these two possibilities in the relationship of medicinal actions of remedy and the crude substance, offers evidence in favor of a direct involvement of the level of significances in the mechanism underlying the homeopathic phenomenon. Finally, an experimental methodology is proposed, which may bring the result of double-blind randomized studies for homeopathic remedies closer to the reported performance of homeopathy in real life medical practice. If successful, this method would be a further indication of a non-local, significance-related interpretation of homeopathy.

A model for homeopathic remedy effects: low dose nanoparticles, allostatic cross-adaptation, and time-dependent sensitization in a complex adaptive system

Background

This paper proposes a novel model for homeopathic remedy action on living systems. Research indicates that homeopathic remedies (a) contain measurable source and silica nanoparticles heterogeneously dispersed in colloidal solution; (b) act by modulating biological function of the allostatic stress response network (c) evoke biphasic actions on living systems via organism-dependent adaptive and endogenously amplified effects; (d) improve systemic resilience.

Discussion

The proposed active components of homeopathic remedies are nanoparticles of source substance in water-based colloidal solution, not bulk-form drugs. Nanoparticles have unique biological and physico-chemical properties, including increased catalytic reactivity, protein and DNA adsorption, bioavailability, dose-sparing, electromagnetic, and quantum effects different from bulk-form materials. Trituration and/or liquid succussions during classical remedy preparation create “top-down” nanostructures. Plants can biosynthesize remedy-templated silica nanostructures. Nanoparticles stimulate hormesis, a beneficial low-dose adaptive response. Homeopathic remedies prescribed in low doses spaced intermittently over time act as biological signals that stimulate the organism’s allostatic biological stress response network, evoking nonlinear modulatory, self-organizing change. Potential mechanisms include time-dependent sensitization (TDS), a type of adaptive plasticity/metaplasticity involving progressive amplification of host responses, which reverse direction and oscillate at physiological limits. To mobilize hormesis and TDS, the remedy must be appraised as a salient, but low level, novel threat, stressor, or homeostatic disruption for the whole organism. Silica nanoparticles adsorb remedy source and amplify effects. Properly-timed remedy dosing elicits disease-primed compensatory reversal in direction of maladaptive dynamics of the allostatic network, thus promoting resilience and recovery from disease.

Summary

Homeopathic remedies are proposed as source nanoparticles that mobilize hormesis and time-dependent sensitization via non-pharmacological effects on specific biological adaptive and amplification mechanisms. The nanoparticle nature of remedies would distinguish them from conventional bulk drugs in structure, morphology, and functional properties. Outcomes would depend upon the ability of the organism to respond to the remedy as a novel stressor or heterotypic biological threat, initiating reversals of cumulative, cross-adapted biological maladaptations underlying disease in the allostatic stress response network. Systemic resilience would improve. This model provides a foundation for theory-driven research on the role of nanomaterials in living systems, mechanisms of homeopathic remedy actions and translational uses in nanomedicine.

Toward a topological description of the therapeutic process: part 2. Practitioner and patient perspectives of the "journey to cure"

BACKGROUND

The discourse of quantum theory has been used to describe (1) the homeopathic therapeutic process (in terms of three-way macro-entanglement between patient, practitioner, and remedy, called PPR entanglement), and (2) the homeopathic concept of the vital force.

METHODS

Combining these two approaches leads to a semiotic (i.e., pertaining to the theory of sign systems in language) geometry that illustrates the nature of this entanglement and how it could facilitate the patient's journey to cure. Here, this geometry is extended further to gain insight into both practitioner and patient perspectives of the process.

RESULTS

From the practitioner's perspective, the semiotic geometry predicts PPR entanglement, generating a number of distinguishable therapeutic outcomes that depend on the various patient-, disease-, and remedy-based "contributions" to the overall symptom picture of the remedy arrived at holistically. Furthermore, these outcomes may be seen as different facets of a more generalized PPR entangled state whose semiotic geometrical representation is hyperdimensional. Likewise, the patient's perspective of the journey to cure can also be represented semiotically, this time as a series of cross-sections through a hyperdimensional figure of similar symmetry, entering and leaving the patient's notional "dis-ease" space.

CONCLUSIONS

The semiotic geometries representing practitioner and patient experiences of the therapeutic process ultimately converge. Where they differ is that in elaborating the patient's journey to cure, the practitioner's perspective may be seen as from the outside of a whole process. As it is the patient who ultimately is traveling this journey, the patient's perspective is necessarily from the inside, of stages or cross-sections of the whole process.

Toward a topological description of the therapeutic process

INTRODUCTION

Two (2) quantum theoretically based metaphor/models have been proposed recently to describe the therapeutic process in homeopathy in terms of (1) a representation of the vital force (Vf) as a spinning quantized gyroscope, describable as a wave function; and (2) a form of nonorthodox quantum theoretical entanglement (called PPR entanglement) between the patient, practitioner, and remedy.

METHOD

Combining these two descriptions permits "normalization" of the Vf gyroscopic wave function. In this context, "normalization" refers to the probability of a patient's symptom totality being expressed and observable to the practitioner within a "therapeutic state space" that has mirror-like characteristics.

RESULTS

The Vf gyroscopic wave function contains a constant A related to this symptom totality and its expression. Normalization provides values for A at various stages of the patient's journey to cure, while at the same time suggesting a possible Möbius strip-like "topology" for the practitioner-derived "therapeutic state space."

CONCLUSIONS

Changes in the value of A on normalization indicate how expression of symptom totality varies at different stages of the patient's journey to cure, while suggesting a "topology" for the therapeutic process and how the practitioner could be affected by it.

Falling trees, fractals, and sophistry: some philosophical "biohazards" en route to reconciling biomedicine and homeopathy

INTRODUCTION

Reconciling biomedical science and homeopathy might usefully begin by examining their various observational stances. This depends significantly on preconceptions about the nature of reality (e.g., whether it exists externally, independent of observers, or whether it is to some extent correlated nondeterministically with observation).

METHODS

Based on known observables, a rudimentary fractal model of the universe is proposed consisting of a series of self-similar integrated levels of reality, or "wholes" contained one within another like a set of Russian dolls. This model suggests possible contextualization of homeopathy and biomedicine's observational stances.

RESULTS

The fractal model bears compelling similarities to the ancient Hermetic tradition encapsulated in the phrase, "As above; so below." In the context of this model, homeopathy's observational stance includes a multidimensional range of symptoms from across several "levels of wholeness." In contrast, biomedicine's stance corresponds to exclusive observation of separate symptoms, each originating from one physical level of reality.

CONCLUSIONS

Pragmatic reconciliation of these two viewpoints is possible if it is realized that they are not contradictory but complementary; that each has its place in the therapeutic scheme of things, and that it should be possible to move freely between each type of observational stance as the patient's circumstances dictate.