Minutus

Or not much anyway. I dont think an electric field stored in water, assuming its true (and J. Bienveniste had multiple institutions duplicate his results) is enough to explain _all_ of the power of homeopathic remedies, or even very much of it.

I just finished the 2009 5th Ed. of Rupert Sheldrake Phd.'s book, now called "Morphic Resonance, the nature of formative causation." He makes the case for a morphogenetic field that influences the developmental form and even the behavior and instincts of similar entities (including organic & inorganic structures & organisms). I think it is more likely that homeopathic remedies tap into the morphogenetic field of an entity.

I think that the response to a remedy is on so many levels, that a few-dimensional electro-magnetic field could not account for all of the these levels of activity. It must account for some of a homeopathic remedy's response since JB was able to transmit the EMF fields electronically and then get the same response at the recving end. He only tested for certain limited responses. But I dont think it accounts for all of the responses to a homeopathic remedy that are triggered in a complex organism. Perhaps the signal of the EMF field interacts with or triggers the morphogenetic field.

Fascinating book that I think I will have to re-read. According to RS simple genetic material in the DNA and the epigenetic "stuff" does not seem up to the task of transmitting all the inherited structure, instincts and behavior for even the simplest organisms, which all the "materialists" (like Crick) want to ascribe to it, and for which they have little evidence. RS (and others) feel that there are morphogenetic fields outside of Mind and Matter that interact with M & M.

Roger

I think the 'memoryu of water' goes a long way towards opening up the idea that a substance can be diluted
out of material existence but still leave its energy imprint behind.
For that matter we can even get into the energy imprint of the soul/spirit and go into the paranormal, for that matter (lol).
But I do agree that memory of water does not explain how the captured energy works in the body. Can you explain further
the idea of morphogenic fields? I do not understand what you are really describing.
tanya

I understand you to be discussing the sufficiency of an explanation to account for the complexity of effects of an ultramolecular dynamised dilution, and to be arguing that the electric field produced cannot be complex enough to account for such complexity and that therefore morphological fields, whatever they may be, are a superior explanation.

But science does not concern itself with plausibility; it concerns itself with reducing hypotheses to those explanations consistent with all the available evidence that most elegantly and most powerfully enable predictions.

I think that there may be three problems with your argument.

First, is the "field" you're referring to necessarily a simple electric field such as surrounds a wire carrying a constant current, or does the "field" vary over time and/or space? Is it a field at all, or are you referring to the very complex electronic patterns induced in the molecular (O-H) bonds in water and lactose by dynamisation, which have tremendous potential complexity, and is there any reason to exclude the other known physical effects of dynamisation? Essentially, the problem is that the field you're saying is insufficiently complex may be as complex as you like.

The second problem is that, though Sheldrake's morphological fields are a very appealing concept, they need definition. Without it, they may be indistinguishable from the very fields that you're saying are insufficient. And without defining them and being able to measure or at least distinguish their presence or absence, there is no predictive power in the concept. And without some measure of their existence, their mere induction as a concept unnecessarily complicates the task of explanation and reduces, rather than increases, predictive power.

The third problem is that there is no reason to suppose that the complexity of biological effects of any chemical resides purely in the chemical itself. If it were so, then surely simple chemicals would have simpler effects. Yet a chemical as simple as sulphur is known for a vast range of biological effects of great depth. The complexity lies in the degree with which that simple substance may interact with the organism, which in the case of sulphur is great.

The requirements upon the potential for complexity in the transmission of some essential atomic or molecular sulphur pattern of dynamic effect to molecules of water, silica, alcohol, and lactose are actually very few, and there is no evidence at all to suggest that the unusual properties of water subjected to dynamisation are insufficient in complexity to mimic sulphur's electronic and bond patterns. Water's unusual properties include the formation and echoing of transient ice crystals at room temperature and a great versatility in the resonance in its O-H bonds with molecular vibrations of various molecules. It has at least 37 very unusual properties. (Ethanol shares some of those and is known to enhance some in aqueous solutions.) It would be surprising if it did not have the capability of storing in some physical dynamic manner the electronic and bond properties that give to sulphur and all other chemicals their primary biochemical properties.

I'm not arguing that morphological fields don't exist or that they're insignificant if they do. I am arguing that there is no evidence yet to support the notion that the purely physical properties of water are insufficiently versatile to store and to transmit to biological organisms the biologically significant properties of a chemical.

Cheers!

John
2010/1/2 R >

I gave the link to Rupert Sheldrakes website, and his book has been through 5 editions since '83 or so. I would encourage you to read about morphic resonance.

What you are essentially saying is that water "structure" can mimic _anything_. We can make a remedy out of _anything_ in the universe and water supposedly has the ability to imprint and carry a signal that can mimic _anything_.

I dont doubt that water "signals" can be versatile but that pushes beyond what I think is possible. Just a feeling on my part. And homeopathicity doesnt require dilutions which strengthens my gut feeling about the lack of necessity for water's signal carrying capacity for homeopathicaly diluted remedies.

On the other hand the morphogenetic fields for anything and everything in existence are in place and as new substances and organisms are created, their MF's are created. If something can act as an "antennae" and tap into those fields it has access to all that complexity. Water may be complex enough to act as that antennae.

As an experiment if a substance, say alcohol or sac lac, could be made absolutely water free, and used to create a remedy in a moisture free environment (perhaps in outer space vacuum conditions). And yet this remedy still had full potency, it would discount water as the vehicle for carrying the remedy.

Roger
--- In minutus@yahoogroups.com, John Harvey wrote:

Hi, Roger --

You make good points here. I have read about morphic resonance, actually, and enjoy the idea very much. As I say, my thought is not to discount that possibility but to use the possibility that most elegantly and consistently explains what we know and predicts what we don't.

I'm actually not saying that water structure (or rather its dynamics) can mimic anything; I think that it's perfectly understandable that it not be able to interact sufficiently intimately with water-insoluble substances. What I am saying is that I don't know of any reason to think that molecular complexity creates any barrier to the ability of water dynamics to mimic a substance, and that symptom complexity does not appear to depend upon molecular complexity of any kind.

The concept of a morphogenetic field -- to interpret the phrase literally -- is one that's been around for thousands of years in five-element Chinese medicine, whose success suggests that the hypothesis may have something going for it, though there may be equally elegant hypotheses that would predict the same results.

On the other hand, the idea of water acting as an antenna for morphogenetic fields is an elegant one in itself. The stumbling block may lie in whether the underlying concept of the fields is unnecessarily complex or doesn't permit predictions.

Reading your last paragraph as a single sentence, if that's how you actually meant it, I think I'd have to disagree on the last point, as there's no reason to suppose that any solvent might not act as water does. In fact, much of the highly illuminating work of Rustum Roy has used solvents we'd never consider using in medicine, and the results have clearly shown the existence of the phenomenon we call potency. If the morphogenetic field does happen to be the correct explanation of that phenomenon, it would seem that water is not the only antenna, or resonator, that is useable.

Cheers!

John
2010/1/8 R >