Minutus

Dear John
Once one can distinguish a physical state from a dynamic state, the difference becomes easy to understand!
Rgds
Soroush

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From: minutus@yahoogroups.com [mailto:minutus@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of John Harvey
Sent: 31 July 2009 10:01
To: minutus@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Minutus] Re: Swine flu
Hi, Soroush --

These language problems are significant, aren't they. Fundamentally, I was illustrating two things, the first being:

(1) that a mixture of potencies -- yes, a mixture of potentised substances, however highly potentised they be beforehand and however highly potentised afterward -- carries all the same uncertainties that a potentised mixture of medicinal substances does, as well as additional synergy problems in vitro and in vivo. Along the way, I mentioned again my doubt that anybody had even given Hahnemann an opportunity to reject something so mindless as combinations of potencies. (Chris may have offered me some correction on this matter, though; it sounds as though his experiments were not with potencies of crude medicinal mixtures but with mixtures of potencies.)

But my major point in saying so was

(2) that it is not Hahnemann's acceptance or rejection of combinations of potentised substances, any more than his acceptance or rejection of coffee, warm baths, woollen clothing, galvanism, or too much loving, that is of import in pursuing the truth; such rejection would constitute merely an action, not a truth, and be a type of ad hominem: gauging the truth or falsity of a statement on the basis of the identity of somebody uttering or denying it. What is of import is the reasoning and evidence behind the statement (if he made one) concerning combinations of potencies in particular and certainly medicinal mixtures in general. In the case of medicinal mixtures in general, some of his statements concern their disutility, and the mass of historical evidence of that is the basis of his express disgust; others of his statements concern their disjunct from the method that is homoeopathy, and require no evidence, as that disjunct occurs by definition, which is not subject to evidence, proof, or truth.

Cheers!

John
but Hahnemann's reasoning in including
2009/7/31 >
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"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)

Dear Soroush,

I'm unsure whether you're now understanding easily the difference between

• doctrine and definition (such as Hahnemann's definition of homoeopathic practice as excluding the use of "more than one single, simplemedicinal substance at one time"),

• doctrine and scientific results (such as Hahnemann's numerous pathogenetic and clinical work resulting in the generalisation Similia similibus curantur and his consequent summation Similia similibus curentur of the homoeopathic method),

• substance and insubstantial "essence" (such as Kent described as "simple substance"),

• one single, simple medicinal substance and a single remedy (whatever you mean by that term), or

• homoeopathy and combinatorials,

but if one of these distinctions is no longer causing us a problem, then we have indeed made some progress between us. But I'm left uncertain as to the intent of your message; was it to respond in some way to one of mine to which I'm awaiting a response from you?

Cheers --

John
2009/7/31 >
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Dear John
Simply put, I do not think that you have understood the original state of something where laws of physics and chemistry apply and the final potentised and DYNAMIC state where so far as I know the laws of physics and chemistry (as we know them) do not apply.
[It reminds me of Mr Spock saying: "Its life Jim, but not as we know it."]
Once you grasp this difference, it becomes easy.
That is to say the mixed origins of the remedy have nothing to do with its potentised SIMPLE SINGLE DYNAMIC state.
Example - Lachasis which is a mixture of protein found in snake venom!
For the avoidance of ANY doubt - We are not discussing the mixtures of two or more potentised and dynamic substance to form a combo.
That is a definite No No in my books - ala Hahnemann.
Over and out!
Soroush

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From: minutus@yahoogroups.com [mailto:minutus@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of John Harvey
Sent: 02 August 2009 05:50
To: minutus@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Minutus] Re: was Swine flu
Dear Soroush,

I'm unsure whether you're now understanding easily the difference between

• doctrine and definition (such as Hahnemann's definition of homoeopathic practice as excluding the use of "more than one single, simplemedicinal substance at one time"),

• doctrine and scientific results (such as Hahnemann's numerous pathogenetic and clinical work resulting in the generalisation Similia similibus curantur and his consequent summation Similia similibus curentur of the homoeopathic method),

• substance and insubstantial "essence" (such as Kent described as "simple substance"),

• one single, simple medicinal substance and a single remedy (whatever you mean by that term), or

• homoeopathy and combinatorials,

but if one of these distinctions is no longer causing us a problem, then we have indeed made some progress between us. But I'm left uncertain as to the intent of your message; was it to respond in some way to one of mine to which I'm awaiting a response from you?

Cheers --

John
2009/7/31 >
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"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)

Dear Soroush,

Thanks for clearing up that you have recognised none of the distinctions I listed.

That, then, leaves a few unexamined questions, highlighted below in bold.
You draw an extraordinarily long bow on the basis of your inability to answer the question of at what point a mixture of medicinal substances becomes a "single remedy", a "single, simple medicinal substance" with the purported property of having "simple substance" in the Kentian (neoSwedenborgian) sense. The impossibility of that question's having an answer should tell you something about the impossibility of the transformation you are claiming.
In addition, there is another basic that I've tried to draw your attention to in this discussion: that the process of creating this alchemical "simple substance" (or "single remedy", or "single substance") that you're so fond of imagining (if not of defining!), if it begins with a mixture of more than one single, simple medicinal substance, uses more than one single, simple medicinal substance.

Hahnemann did not say, in § 273, that no homoeopath would use more than one such substance until and unless it had been (sufficiently) potentised; he said that no homoeopath would use more than one at any one time. It is entirely your conceit*, not Hahnemann's, that upon sufficient potentisation the unpredictability of the dynamic properties of a medicinal mixture conveniently disappear because the mixture conveniently takes on the dynamic properties of a non-existent single medicinal substance. As Hahnemann said, "The mixture of several medicines... therewith in order to obtain some purposed, certain, curative effect, is a piece of folly repugnant to every reflecting and unprejudiced person." (Organon Introduction, p. 75.)
The conceit of the insubstantial invented substance raises the ghost of another question I raised that should long before now have had you thinking: what substance the medicinal mixture becomes upon potentisation.

The result of potentising Sulphur -- however highly or slightly -- is always Sulphur.: the symptoms it evokes are on a continuum of Sulphur symptoms.

The result of potentising Natrum mur., similarly, is always Natrum mur.

Yet, according to your claim, the result of potentising a mixture of Sulphur and Natrum mur. would be, uniquely, some third "single remedy", with a dynamic unity that does not derive from its crude state: a dynamic property of no substance. Inherent in your claim, then, is a claim for the creation of a nonsubstantial novel "remedy" that -- since it cannot reproduce the dynamic properties of any real single substance -- cannot actually exist in a material (substantial) state but only in dynamic form. Its dynamic properties would exist only in a vacuum, having a new identity as an immaterial thing and yet no identity in nature, no starting point.
If even all these contradictions ring in you no alarms of cognitive dissonance, then this should. Let's call your "single remedy" that results from the mix of two or more single, simple substances the mixture's vector. As somebody pointed out recently, each proportionally different mixture of the same two medicinal substances, with a different balance of substances, must, by your own argument, result in a different vector, a different "single remedy". This means that even two single, medicinal substances have an infinite number of potential vectors resulting from their "combination" into a "single remedy" via potentisation. By your own argument, then, any two mixtures of two medicinal substances, two mixtures differing in proportion to the smallest degree, will result in entirely different vectors, or "single remedies", and cannot be prescribed one for the other.
Finally, a difficulty with your speculation that I raised weeks ago remains wholly unaddressed: that the change that you conceive would occur between the starting medicinal mixture and the final "single substance" / "single remedy" / "simple substance" that you refuse to define -- whichever point it would occur at -- would be a change in basic nature, from mixture (multiple remedies, with unpredictable effects) to single (nonexistent, but still dynamically effective!) "remedy" -- and yet would, in your view, retain a continuity of pathogenicity. So your conceit demands that a mixture and an utterly alien "single remedy" be dynamically interchangeable.
Is the ludicrousness of the magic and alchemistry inherent in your speculations doing anything to dent your utter certainty in their unquestionability, or do you remain unwilling to examine the question of what Hahnemann himself meant by "more than one single, simple substance" and unwilling to respond to any of the arguments in favour of his meaning just what he said?

Cheers!

John

*I use the word conceit in this discussion in its general sense of far-fetched whimsical fancy, rather than in its particular sense of far-fetched whimsical fancy of oneself.
2009/8/2 >
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Dear John
The change over from the physical substance to a dynamic substance is a difficult one to answer.
Part of the problem is the fact that we have nothing to measure the dynamic state or stage with.
Does it happen during tritration?
Does it happen during succussion?
Who knows?
[I did an experiment once with two bottle of extract of mint!
I took some off one to give it a chance to be succussed and banged it 10 times. On taking off the stoppers the bouquet from each bottle was different.
So what happened during succussion?
I do not know - but my nose could tell a difference.]
You keep going on and on about what Hn said about using mixtures. With which I 100% agree - but believe that you are mis-understanding the point he was making.
To ensure that I know how you read and understand that passage and for the sake of clarity, please explain what any snake venom remedy or APIS or a lot of other remedies are made of.
Are they simple in origin?
Are they single in origin?
Please answer these two qns with a 'SIMPLE' (you ever the know the meaning of that word) YES / No and we can progress.
I do not wish to receive an essay John. Just a simple Yes / No to each qn above.
Wishing us all a clearer understanding
Soroush

________________________________

From: minutus@yahoogroups.com [mailto:minutus@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of John Harvey
Sent: 02 August 2009 16:35
To: minutus@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Minutus] Re: was Swine flu
Dear Soroush,

Thanks for clearing up that you have recognised none of the distinctions I listed.

That, then, leaves a few unexamined questions, highlighted below in bold.
You draw an extraordinarily long bow on the basis of your inability to answer the question of at what point a mixture of medicinal substances becomes a "single remedy", a "single, simple medicinal substance" with the purported property of having "simple substance" in the Kentian (neoSwedenborgian) sense. The impossibility of that question's having an answer should tell you something about the impossibility of the transformation you are claiming.
In addition, there is another basic that I've tried to draw your attention to in this discussion: that the process of creating this alchemical "simple substance" (or "single remedy", or "single substance") that you're so fond of imagining (if not of defining!), if it begins with a mixture of more than one single, simple medicinal substance, uses more than one single, simple medicinal substance.

Hahnemann did not say, in § 273, that no homoeopath would use more than one such substance until and unless it had been (sufficiently) potentised; he said that no homoeopath would use more than one at any one time. It is entirely your conceit*, not Hahnemann's, that upon sufficient potentisation the unpredictability of the dynamic properties of a medicinal mixture conveniently disappear because the mixture conveniently takes on the dynamic properties of a non-existent single medicinal substance. As Hahnemann said, "The mixture of several medicines... therewith in order to obtain some purposed, certain, curative effect, is a piece of folly repugnant to every reflecting and unprejudiced person." (Organon Introduction, p. 75.)
The conceit of the insubstantial invented substance raises the ghost of another question I raised that should long before now have had you thinking: what substance the medicinal mixture becomes upon potentisation.

The result of potentising Sulphur -- however highly or slightly -- is always Sulphur.: the symptoms it evokes are on a continuum of Sulphur symptoms.

The result of potentising Natrum mur., similarly, is always Natrum mur.

Yet, according to your claim, the result of potentising a mixture of Sulphur and Natrum mur. would be, uniquely, some third "single remedy", with a dynamic unity that does not derive from its crude state: a dynamic property of no substance. Inherent in your claim, then, is a claim for the creation of a nonsubstantial novel "remedy" that -- since it cannot reproduce the dynamic properties of any real single substance -- cannot actually exist in a material (substantial) state but only in dynamic form. Its dynamic properties would exist only in a vacuum, having a new identity as an immaterial thing and yet no identity in nature, no starting point.
If even all these contradictions ring in you no alarms of cognitive dissonance, then this should. Let's call your "single remedy" that results from the mix of two or more single, simple substances the mixture's vector. As somebody pointed out recently, each proportionally different mixture of the same two medicinal substances, with a different balance of substances, must, by your own argument, result in a different vector, a different "single remedy". This means that even two single, medicinal substances have an infinite number of potential vectors resulting from their "combination" into a "single remedy" via potentisation. By your own argument, then, any two mixtures of two medicinal substances, two mixtures differing in proportion to the smallest degree, will result in entirely different vectors, or "single remedies", and cannot be prescribed one for the other.
Finally, a difficulty with your speculation that I raised weeks ago remains wholly unaddressed: that the change that you conceive would occur between the starting medicinal mixture and the final "single substance" / "single remedy" / "simple substance" that you refuse to define -- whichever point it would occur at -- would be a change in basic nature, from mixture (multiple remedies, with unpredictable effects) to single (nonexistent, but still dynamically effective!) "remedy" -- and yet would, in your view, retain a continuity of pathogenicity. So your conceit demands that a mixture and an utterly alien "single remedy" be dynamically interchangeable.
Is the ludicrousness of the magic and alchemistry inherent in your speculations doing anything to dent your utter certainty in their unquestionability, or do you remain unwilling to examine the question of what Hahnemann himself meant by "more than one single, simple substance" and unwilling to respond to any of the arguments in favour of his meaning just what he said?

Cheers!

John

*I use the word conceit in this discussion in its general sense of far-fetched whimsical fancy, rather than in its particular sense of far-fetched whimsical fancy of oneself.
2009/8/2 >
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"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)

Hi, Soroush --

Yes, according to § 273 footnote 159, and as explained under "Of substance" (a post I can refer you to again if you're interested), Hahnemann's meaning of "one single, simple medicinal substance" does indeed comprehend entire single organisms, including Apis or Lachesis (organisms analogous to his third class of examples, which was the class of whole plants).

I can't imagine what difference that will make to you, but I hope it helps sort out something.

The difficulty in answering the question of just when a mixture becomes a "single remedy" arises not from a failure of measurement, incidentally, but from a failure of imagination. I trust that you've digested my last message concerning four of the many unrebutted arguments for a straightforward, non-mystical interpretation of Hahnemann's words in §§ 273 and 274, and trust that you'll appreciate that to overcome indoctrination can require some mental effort, without which the imagination requisite to real thought remains static, trapped by meaningless doctrinal phrases into substituting doctrinal answers for critically responsive thinking.

Kindest regards,

John
2009/8/3 >
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OK then John - We have a great advancement in your admittance that APIS is a simple medicinal substance.
Now, please, with respect to the starting point of this remedy - please explain how this is possible. At what stage was SINGULARITY or SIMPLICITY achieved?
Rgds
Soroush

________________________________

From: minutus@yahoogroups.com [mailto:minutus@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of John Harvey
Sent: 02 August 2009 17:16
To: minutus@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Minutus] Re: was Swine flu
Hi, Soroush --

Yes, according to § 273 footnote 159, and as explained under "Of substance" (a post I can refer you to again if you're interested), Hahnemann's meaning of "one single, simple medicinal substance" does indeed comprehend entire single organisms, including Apis or Lachesis (organisms analogous to his third class of examples, which was the class of whole plants).

I can't imagine what difference that will make to you, but I hope it helps sort out something.

The difficulty in answering the question of just when a mixture becomes a "single remedy" arises not from a failure of measurement, incidentally, but from a failure of imagination. I trust that you've digested my last message concerning four of the many unrebutted arguments for a straightforward, non-mystical interpretation of Hahnemann's words in §§ 273 and 274, and trust that you'll appreciate that to overcome indoctrination can require some mental effort, without which the imagination requisite to real thought remains static, trapped by meaningless doctrinal phrases into substituting doctrinal answers for critically responsive thinking.

Kindest regards,

John
2009/8/3 >
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"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)

That's a very interesting question - is it dilution or trituration or sucussion which renders a substance dynamic? My understanding is that dilution alone is not enough to release the energy of the substance - it needs something more, and that was the discovery of Hahnemann (probably based on his knowledge of early alchemical experiments) Sucussion, and I would imagine to a certain extent, trituration too, release the energy of the substance. But not dilution, or maceration (as with plants, for example).
However, I have heard that homeopathic mother tinctures are not equivalent to herbal tinctures, but that they are stronger, because not prepared in the same way as herbal tinctures. Does anyone know the difference?
Liz

I got in touch with John Morgan once at Helios on this very question. A MT at Helios is a 1x so basically if you take your much cheaper herbal tincture and dilute it by 9 you have got the same thing. Since if I give a herbal tincture to someone as an organ support e.g. crateagus I always say put in a little water so wants the difference!! I can buy 1/2 litre of most herbal tinctures for not much more than 10ml MT!! I don't do this very often but recently Chelidonium HT (6 drops tds in water) got rid of all the indigestion which went to the right scapula and didn't interfere with the constitutional Rx I was giving the patient. In fact it was that Rx which brought out the problem which obviously called for the liver support.
Rochelle
Rochelle
Registered Homeopath
EFT(Advanced) Practitioner
www.southporthomeopathy.co.uk

Dear Soroush,
Your joy in my "admittance" is very amusing, as is your persistence in pretending that you're discussing the same topic I am.
Unless you're being disingenuous, your joy in the novelty of my confirmation of Hahnemann's inclusion of entire organisms as one class of what he called single, simple substances appears to indicate that you've found yourself unable still to read my 4:31 p.m. GMT 10 Jul 09 post under "Simple Substance"; unable still to read my original (1:35 p.m. GMT, 13 Jul 09) post under "Of substance"; and unable still to read my 6:59 a.m. GMT 16 Jul 09 follow-up post under that topic.
The first of these clearly differentiates between arbitrary mixtures such as you propose and the "mixtures that are inherent to a single plant" (or animal, which is of the same chemical order: a mixture naturally occurring within one organism).
The second post clearly defines substance (ii) as "a well-mixed mass, again not necessarily homogeneous, that has derived from one source: a plant, for instance, or a chemical reaction. This sense has all the properties of the first sense of the word but requires in addition that the mass under consideration not have been mixed from two sources".
The third presents reasons to believe that substance (ii) must be the sense in which Hahnemann was using the word substance in § 273 (an argument that remains unrebutted). It also mentions Hahnemann's third illustrative class of single, simple medicinal substances as being of single entire plants, which obviously are of the same broad chemical class as single entire animals: a mixture naturally occurring in one organism. (For the fundamental difference between an arbitrary mixture such as the Duckwater Hypothesis has form a "single remedy", "single substance", "simple substance", etc., and a naturally occurring mixture whose composition is controlled by the recipe for an organism, please try to understand the final two paragraphs of that post, which, though you asked a related question, you still have not addressed.)
More than merely demonstrate that Hahnemann's meaning of one single, simple medicinal substance comprehended an entire organism as one such, I attempted also, in the first of those posts, to outline some of Hahnemann's reasoning in excluding artificial medicinal mixtures as one single, simple medicinal substance whilst including mixtures occurring naturally in a single organism.
That reasoning, in a nutshell, was that although we know that pathogeneses remain reasonably stable from crude substance to potency to potency when they are the pathogeneses of a single substance, we know nothing of such stability in arbitrary mixtures and have less than no reason to believe that arbitrary mixtures will display any such stability.
My reasons for saying so have been given in previous posts in greater detail than you are comfortable with, but please feel free to ask me to refer you again to them.
As I've also reminded you before under "Substantiality and substance", my "Simple Substance" post of 2:15 p.m. GMT 12 Jul 09 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. As I pointed out in my reminder, 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 Hahnemann intended "one single, simple medicinal substance" to comprehend all potentised preparations.
Your lack of responsive reply to any of this illustrates further that rather than explore whether your doctrinal beliefs could possible be just the least bit wrong, your intent remains wholly and solely to prove them right -- or at least to appear to do so, by any means at your disposal.
That such "proof" necessitate serious distortion of the plain words single, simple, medicinal, and substance says it all. That it took Ardavan's intervention to put a stop to your arbitrary censorship of posts by Magda (and whom else whose views you find heretical to the Sheilagh doctrine? Irene, perhaps? Where, after all, is Irene's unreasoning on this topic?) doesn't bode well for your potential to distinguish approval from understanding, definition from assertion, or truth from meaning.
These failures admittedly arise partly from our not attempting the same project in this discussion. Whereas you persist in noting your beliefs and asking me to clarify mine concerning what is and what is not acceptable, and have taken to casually noting Hahnemann as the source of your beliefs in the twistedness of his meaning without any particular reference to support such interpretation, this twiglet of my discussion concerns something of another order entirely: Hahnemann's meaning in deliberately using the extremely plainly spoken phrase "more than one single, simple medicinal substance".
This entire branch of discussion concerns Hahnemann's meaning in defining the word homoeopathy as a practice; not what is acceptable to you, me, or Irene as either good, or Hahnemannian, or any other kind of practice.
Not until one recognises homoeopathy's single but comprehensive requirement can one entirely free oneself of doctrines that depend upon overlooking it.
My motivation in pursuing a process of reasoning together is to arrive at the clearest possible view of Hahnemann's intent and thereby of his definition. What is yours, in steadfastly avoiding it?
Kindest regards --
John
2009/8/3 >
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