Substantiality and substance
Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2009 4:09 am
Dear Soroush,
My demonstrations of Hahnemann's meaning have evidently been sufficiently sound to invite no attempt to refute them; and my questions on the topic of his meaning have evidently not invited a response. Specifically,
(1)
You have not commented at all on my ("definition") quote of 9:12 a.m. GMT, 7 Jul 09 of Hahnemann's completely explicit § 274 delineation of "a remedy":
"he will... never think of giving as a remedy any but a single, simple medicinal substance",
which is clearly completely at odds with the idea that one can make into "a remedy" a mixture of more than one single, simple medicinal substance.
(2)
You have left completely uncontested my ("Simple Substance") message of 3:20 a.m. GMT 8 Jul 09, which argues, from
• the consistent results of potentisation of single, simple remedies containing minor amounts of varying (and sometimes chemically strong) impurities;
• the consistent results of potentisation of substances that are chemically weak in comparison with ethanol; and
• the difference in pathogeneses between Plumbum contaminated with a miniscule amount of salt and Nat. mur. contaminated with a miniscule amount of lead,
that:
• minor impurities are stabilised through potentisation as having no strong effect in a pathogenesis;
• we cannot depend upon the potentisation process to sort out the effects of which substances added to a mixture to result in a stable symptomatology;
• the triturating or potentising medium does not become medicinally active through its engagement in the process, even if the substance of the remedy is a chemically very weakly acting one such as silica;
• this is due not to the quantities initially involved but to something else (most likely the consistency of the medium from potency to potency in the first few stages); and
• large amounts of impurities may overwhelm the medicine,
and that these properties serve as
• some basis for our reasonable confidence that, despite minor impurities, Nat. mur. is Nat. mur.;
• basis for some confidence that, despite soil and climatic variation, Pulsatilla is Pulsatilla (though this deserves proper exploration); and
• no basis whatever for belief that a mixture of viruses, or plants, or even two different minerals will result in a medicine pathogenetically stable from potency to potency.
Are you satisfied, then, with these arguments, or can you refute them?
(3)
A ("definition") message from me at 1:30 p.m. GMT 11 Jul 09
• distinguishes two uses of the word substance and points out that Hahnemann was evidently using it to mean stuff taken from a single source [substance (ii)];
• asks, "in defining homoeopathy as using no more, at any one time, than one single, simple medicinal substance, could Hahnemann conceivably have meant 'except if the two are mixed together'?";
• points out that a potentised remedy refers to a vehicle with a particular history, depending upon its name -- and illustrates this with the examples Pulsatilla 12c and Chamomilla 30c;
• points out that in becoming a compound, two elements lose the essential nature they had as elements;
• makes the point that water is not, in terms of a remedy potentised using water as a medium, a medicinal substance;
• mentions that Hecla lava presents unpredictabilities similar to those that Irene's multivalent vaccine does; and
• suggests that until questions are answered of the stability of a mixture's pathogenesis through the potencies and consistency from prover to prover, we won't have a workable basis for using that mixture on the basis of similars, let alone for calling it homoeopathy just because such a basis is found to be workable.
Neither you nor anybody else has yet responded to the question in that message or attempted to refute those arguments.
(4)
In a ("Single Substance") post of 2:15 p.m. GMT, 12 Jul 09, I asked whether you would seriously claim any of three things, one of which must follow from the claim that Hahnemann would include in "one single, simple medicinal substance" arbitrary mixtures of medicines: that he must have intended (a) to exclude medicines made from plants, or (b) to exclude all medicines containing any impurities, or (c) to include the same mixtures he'd otherwise exclude from that class, once they'd be potentised to a sufficient degree.
Your lack of response to claim one of these necessary results suggests that you haven't yet thought through all the ramifications of the claim that he intended "one single, simple medicinal substance" to comprehend all potentised preparations. This is understandable; and at the end of this message, you'll find a thought that may tie all of this together.
(5)
My ("Of substance") post of 1:49 p.m. GMT 20 Jul 09 asks you whether you are arguing -- on the basis that silica and Lycopodium were not amongst those substances that Hahnemann regarded as "medicinal substances", and because it is possible to turn a single such substance (which you would then regard as "non-medicinal") into a potentised remedy with a pathogenesis -- that all single substances and all mixtures must also be "non-medicinal" substances and thus be exempt from Hahnemann's proscription of the use of "more than one single, simple, medicinal substance at one time".
I have received no answer to that question either, and assume that this too is because the ramifications of the Duckwater Hypothesis are not yet clear to you. Again, I hope my note at the end of this message does something to clear the air here.
(6)
My ("Of substance") message of 12:07 a.m. GMT 21 Jul 09
argues on the basis of common sense and three forms of evidence that Hahnemann's distinction is clear between a mixture of two medicinal substances and a mixture of one medicinal substance (such as the silica used to make potentised Silicea) and a non-medicinal substance such as the water, alcohol, or lactose that is chemically indifferent to it and, precisely because it is the medium of dilution, will not enter into the potentisation process;
evidences that the idea of making up one "substance" by mixing (as opposed to chemically combining) two substances was anathema to Hahnemann's approach of pure learning;
argues that somebody's collection and use of lake water and somebody's collection and use of spring water is evidence of nothing more than of that, and has no bearing whatever upon Hahnemann's meaning of "medicinal substance", and uses the analogy of an Alternative Medicine Review article claiming effectiveness by an "oral homeopathic medication" to illustrate that simply calling something a homoeopathic remedy does not make it so; and
asks you to spell out your point concerning the reactivity of fluorine.
That message too has received no responses.
Unless you or somebody else is prepared to make some attempt to knock down the extremely strong evidence that Hahnemann meant exactly what "one single, simple medicinal substance" conveys in plain language, the repetition that many is one becomes simply perverse in its contrariness as well as its unhelpfulness. Let's have an intelligent discussion or just accept that Hahnemann was not speaking in code when he used the word "one". The key word, the one that needs some thinking about in order to illuminate the meaning in the word "one", is not "medicinal", not "simple", and not "single", but "substance". Once you realise that he was talking about stuff rather than energy, it becomes clear exactly what he meant.
Cheers!
John
--
------------------------------------------------------------------
"Nothing is so fatal to the progress of the human mind as to suppose that our views of science are ultimate; that there are no mysteries in nature; that our triumphs are complete; and that there are no new worlds to conquer."
— Sir Humphry Davy, in "An Account of some Galvanic Combinations", Philosophical Transactions 91 (1801), pp. 397–402 (as quoted by David Knight, Humphry Davy: Science and Power, Cambridge, 1998, p. 87)
My demonstrations of Hahnemann's meaning have evidently been sufficiently sound to invite no attempt to refute them; and my questions on the topic of his meaning have evidently not invited a response. Specifically,
(1)
You have not commented at all on my ("definition") quote of 9:12 a.m. GMT, 7 Jul 09 of Hahnemann's completely explicit § 274 delineation of "a remedy":
"he will... never think of giving as a remedy any but a single, simple medicinal substance",
which is clearly completely at odds with the idea that one can make into "a remedy" a mixture of more than one single, simple medicinal substance.
(2)
You have left completely uncontested my ("Simple Substance") message of 3:20 a.m. GMT 8 Jul 09, which argues, from
• the consistent results of potentisation of single, simple remedies containing minor amounts of varying (and sometimes chemically strong) impurities;
• the consistent results of potentisation of substances that are chemically weak in comparison with ethanol; and
• the difference in pathogeneses between Plumbum contaminated with a miniscule amount of salt and Nat. mur. contaminated with a miniscule amount of lead,
that:
• minor impurities are stabilised through potentisation as having no strong effect in a pathogenesis;
• we cannot depend upon the potentisation process to sort out the effects of which substances added to a mixture to result in a stable symptomatology;
• the triturating or potentising medium does not become medicinally active through its engagement in the process, even if the substance of the remedy is a chemically very weakly acting one such as silica;
• this is due not to the quantities initially involved but to something else (most likely the consistency of the medium from potency to potency in the first few stages); and
• large amounts of impurities may overwhelm the medicine,
and that these properties serve as
• some basis for our reasonable confidence that, despite minor impurities, Nat. mur. is Nat. mur.;
• basis for some confidence that, despite soil and climatic variation, Pulsatilla is Pulsatilla (though this deserves proper exploration); and
• no basis whatever for belief that a mixture of viruses, or plants, or even two different minerals will result in a medicine pathogenetically stable from potency to potency.
Are you satisfied, then, with these arguments, or can you refute them?
(3)
A ("definition") message from me at 1:30 p.m. GMT 11 Jul 09
• distinguishes two uses of the word substance and points out that Hahnemann was evidently using it to mean stuff taken from a single source [substance (ii)];
• asks, "in defining homoeopathy as using no more, at any one time, than one single, simple medicinal substance, could Hahnemann conceivably have meant 'except if the two are mixed together'?";
• points out that a potentised remedy refers to a vehicle with a particular history, depending upon its name -- and illustrates this with the examples Pulsatilla 12c and Chamomilla 30c;
• points out that in becoming a compound, two elements lose the essential nature they had as elements;
• makes the point that water is not, in terms of a remedy potentised using water as a medium, a medicinal substance;
• mentions that Hecla lava presents unpredictabilities similar to those that Irene's multivalent vaccine does; and
• suggests that until questions are answered of the stability of a mixture's pathogenesis through the potencies and consistency from prover to prover, we won't have a workable basis for using that mixture on the basis of similars, let alone for calling it homoeopathy just because such a basis is found to be workable.
Neither you nor anybody else has yet responded to the question in that message or attempted to refute those arguments.
(4)
In a ("Single Substance") post of 2:15 p.m. GMT, 12 Jul 09, I asked whether you would seriously claim any of three things, one of which must follow from the claim that Hahnemann would include in "one single, simple medicinal substance" arbitrary mixtures of medicines: that he must have intended (a) to exclude medicines made from plants, or (b) to exclude all medicines containing any impurities, or (c) to include the same mixtures he'd otherwise exclude from that class, once they'd be potentised to a sufficient degree.
Your lack of response to claim one of these necessary results suggests that you haven't yet thought through all the ramifications of the claim that he intended "one single, simple medicinal substance" to comprehend all potentised preparations. This is understandable; and at the end of this message, you'll find a thought that may tie all of this together.
(5)
My ("Of substance") post of 1:49 p.m. GMT 20 Jul 09 asks you whether you are arguing -- on the basis that silica and Lycopodium were not amongst those substances that Hahnemann regarded as "medicinal substances", and because it is possible to turn a single such substance (which you would then regard as "non-medicinal") into a potentised remedy with a pathogenesis -- that all single substances and all mixtures must also be "non-medicinal" substances and thus be exempt from Hahnemann's proscription of the use of "more than one single, simple, medicinal substance at one time".
I have received no answer to that question either, and assume that this too is because the ramifications of the Duckwater Hypothesis are not yet clear to you. Again, I hope my note at the end of this message does something to clear the air here.
(6)
My ("Of substance") message of 12:07 a.m. GMT 21 Jul 09
argues on the basis of common sense and three forms of evidence that Hahnemann's distinction is clear between a mixture of two medicinal substances and a mixture of one medicinal substance (such as the silica used to make potentised Silicea) and a non-medicinal substance such as the water, alcohol, or lactose that is chemically indifferent to it and, precisely because it is the medium of dilution, will not enter into the potentisation process;
evidences that the idea of making up one "substance" by mixing (as opposed to chemically combining) two substances was anathema to Hahnemann's approach of pure learning;
argues that somebody's collection and use of lake water and somebody's collection and use of spring water is evidence of nothing more than of that, and has no bearing whatever upon Hahnemann's meaning of "medicinal substance", and uses the analogy of an Alternative Medicine Review article claiming effectiveness by an "oral homeopathic medication" to illustrate that simply calling something a homoeopathic remedy does not make it so; and
asks you to spell out your point concerning the reactivity of fluorine.
That message too has received no responses.
Unless you or somebody else is prepared to make some attempt to knock down the extremely strong evidence that Hahnemann meant exactly what "one single, simple medicinal substance" conveys in plain language, the repetition that many is one becomes simply perverse in its contrariness as well as its unhelpfulness. Let's have an intelligent discussion or just accept that Hahnemann was not speaking in code when he used the word "one". The key word, the one that needs some thinking about in order to illuminate the meaning in the word "one", is not "medicinal", not "simple", and not "single", but "substance". Once you realise that he was talking about stuff rather than energy, it becomes clear exactly what he meant.
Cheers!
John
--
------------------------------------------------------------------
"Nothing is so fatal to the progress of the human mind as to suppose that our views of science are ultimate; that there are no mysteries in nature; that our triumphs are complete; and that there are no new worlds to conquer."
— Sir Humphry Davy, in "An Account of some Galvanic Combinations", Philosophical Transactions 91 (1801), pp. 397–402 (as quoted by David Knight, Humphry Davy: Science and Power, Cambridge, 1998, p. 87)
