Reiki can’t possibly work, so why does it? • Hacker News Board

Re: Reiki can’t possibly work, so why does it?

#131

Post by 411111111111111 » Fri, Apr 03, 2020, 10:32 AM UTC

dmos62 wrote: post #129

hosh wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, the attitude one holds is important. People can sense that at some level. Subtle energy is real though. Reiki is one of the modalities that does not require being in person. There’s a bunch of weirder, more obscure modalities that can work with chronic pain, trauma, and the like.

Addressing the quiet downvoters. It upsets me how dismissive our culture can be. What if there's something to it? There's a rich history of people thinking that there is. Do they really not deserve a second thought? I wish everyone were always a skeptic, but never off-hand dismissive. To those entrusting our mainstream with authority on what's bullshit and what's not, remember that psychedelics research is still ille…

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

None was provided, so we will have to dismiss it until some proof is provided.

Nobody is dismissing proof here. They're only dismissive of the extraordinary claims that an immeasurable energy somehow inherent to some things has any effect beyond essentially the placebo effect. After all, there hasn't been any evidence which showed differently.

If you have some studies showing actual results beyond placebo's baseline, we'd all be ecstatic for the new knowledge

Re: Reiki can’t possibly work, so why does it?

#132

Post by Qasaur » Fri, Apr 03, 2020, 10:32 AM UTC

normalnorm wrote: post #97

hcarvalhoalves wrote: post #23

> The ailments that Reiki seems to treat most effectively are those that orthodox medicine struggles to manage: pain, anxiety, chronic disease, and the fear or discomfort of facing not only the suffering of illness but also the suffering of treatment. This is key. Modern medicine, with the way hospitals and health insurance are run, do not and cannot address, for economic reasons, a pretty important aspect, albeit su…

> Modern medicine, with the way hospitals and health insurance are run, do not and cannot address, for economic reasons, a pretty important aspect, albeit subjective, which is well-being. The "economic reasons" are just the preferences of the rich & powerful. Resources could be allocated in other ways. It is just that those that call the shots are not interested. In the US, they also managed to convince a large part…

>I dream of an economic system that serves human beings instead of the numerical abstractions behind which the rich and powerful hide their extreme selfishness.

This is what capitalism is in its essence - a complex decentralised pricing mechanism where every human's choices is taken into account on the free market. The problem is that it has been corrupted by cronyism which has indirectly destroyed the human element of it (through centralisation and the formation of unnatural state-sanctioned monopolies and rent-seekers) and instead, as you put it, abstracted people into numbers.

I don't think anyone actually wants to be treated as a number, and I strongly believe that personal and bespoke service is a quality that most people seek in the services they choose (especially medical and caregiving services). These preferences would normally provide strong competitive pressures. However, in the medical field at least, enormous barriers of entry (largely instituted and enforced by the state) has fortified incumbent corporations and removed the competitive pressure that startups and newcomers would provide. Just look at medical education/licensing and the enormous costs involved.

Re: Reiki can’t possibly work, so why does it?

#133

Post by barry-cotter » Fri, Apr 03, 2020, 10:37 AM UTC

andrepd wrote: post #130

hcarvalhoalves wrote: post #23

> The ailments that Reiki seems to treat most effectively are those that orthodox medicine struggles to manage: pain, anxiety, chronic disease, and the fear or discomfort of facing not only the suffering of illness but also the suffering of treatment. This is key. Modern medicine, with the way hospitals and health insurance are run, do not and cannot address, for economic reasons, a pretty important aspect, albeit su…

>The figure of the family doctor that takes his time and actually shows you attention has vanished. The average experience of a hospital visit is that of being treated like a number. This doesn't have to be so (indeed in many places it isn't yet). This is a consequence of a strained public health system which is simply running over capacity. Maybe if we stopped pumping money into banks and wealthy people's pockets we…

The US spends more on healthcare per capita than any other country, which is hardly surprising given that it’s the richest country. Whatever criticisms one might make of the US healthcare system not enough money is far down the list.

Re: Reiki can’t possibly work, so why does it?

#134

Post by Nursie » Fri, Apr 03, 2020, 10:39 AM UTC

Or for a cynical (but evidence based) rebuttal to this bullshit, have a look here - https://respectfulinsolence.com/2020/03/16/reiki-in-the-atla...

It's just another nonsense, unscientific, 'energy healing' pile of woo trying to get itself integrated into medicine.

Re: Reiki can’t possibly work, so why does it?

#135

Post by devit » Fri, Apr 03, 2020, 10:44 AM UTC

It's just a form of guided meditation where you focus your attention on the practitioner's touch, so it does exactly what meditation does (which is potentially relaxation, reduction in anxiety, reduction in pain perception, improvement of mental health).

The claims that it cures specific non-mental ailments are of course bullshit, but the meditation part is real, although you can get the same effect from any other meditative practice.

Re: Reiki can’t possibly work, so why does it?

#136

Post by dmos62 » Fri, Apr 03, 2020, 10:47 AM UTC

411111111111111 wrote: post #131

dmos62 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Addressing the quiet downvoters. It upsets me how dismissive our culture can be. What if there's something to it? There's a rich history of people thinking that there is. Do they really not deserve a second thought? I wish everyone were always a skeptic, but never off-hand dismissive. To those entrusting our mainstream with authority on what's bullshit and what's not, remember that psychedelics research is still ille…

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. None was provided, so we will have to dismiss it until some proof is provided. Nobody is dismissing proof here. They're only dismissive of the extraordinary claims that an immeasurable energy somehow inherent to some things has any effect beyond essentially the placebo effect. After all, there hasn't been any evidence which showed differently. If you have some stud…

It merits skepticism. But, is it a lack of the scientific method that's motivating the backlash? Or, is it that the claim falls within an unpopular marginality?

The obvious rebut is that it's unpopular, because it lacks scientific method. In other words, mainstream is mainstream due to merit and can be used as source of truth. If anyone takes this view, I hope they're very conscious of it, because in my opinion this viewpoint can't last long.

Re: Reiki can’t possibly work, so why does it?

#137

Post by amelius » Fri, Apr 03, 2020, 10:55 AM UTC

ALittleLight wrote: post #45

"Over the past two decades, a number of studies have shown that Reiki treatments help diminish the negative side effects of chemotherapy, improve surgical outcomes, regulate the autonomic nervous system, and dramatically alter people’s experience of physical and emotional pain associated with illness." The article links, with the phrase "a number of studies" to what seems to be one study [1]. In this study it looks l…

Is placebo still called that way if the subject is aware of the "placebo" nature of the mechanism of action?

Re: Reiki can’t possibly work, so why does it?

#138

Post by TheOtherHobbes » Fri, Apr 03, 2020, 10:59 AM UTC

411111111111111 wrote: post #131

dmos62 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Addressing the quiet downvoters. It upsets me how dismissive our culture can be. What if there's something to it? There's a rich history of people thinking that there is. Do they really not deserve a second thought? I wish everyone were always a skeptic, but never off-hand dismissive. To those entrusting our mainstream with authority on what's bullshit and what's not, remember that psychedelics research is still ille…

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. None was provided, so we will have to dismiss it until some proof is provided. Nobody is dismissing proof here. They're only dismissive of the extraordinary claims that an immeasurable energy somehow inherent to some things has any effect beyond essentially the placebo effect. After all, there hasn't been any evidence which showed differently. If you have some stud…

No, you wouldn't be ecstatic at all. Even if hard evidence existed for anomalous interpretations of reality - which it does, in forgotten corners of academia [1] - you'd be utterly dismissive of it. You'd spend the first part of your answer debunking it with some untested pseudo-explanations, and the rest of your answer complaining that it hadn't been replicated.

And you wouldn't even notice the evidence linked to in an article like this one which suggests the effects can't simply be waved away as placebo.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31638407

Then you'd end with a restatement of the "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" saw and would retreat happy and contented that you had once again vanquished the evil dragon of irrationality with your objectively informed skepticism.

Unfortunately none of this is even remotely scientific, except in a bandwagon cargo cult sense.

Science is not about protecting the tribe against unacceptably dissident world views, but about dealing calmly and objectively with things that actually happen - especially if you don't understand them. It's not about trying to persuade yourself that they don't happen, because they can't possibly, because you already know for sure what's possible and what isn't with unshakeable 100% confidence, and therefore there can't possibly be anything to explain. QED.

[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/02/there-is-...

Re: Reiki can’t possibly work, so why does it?

#139

Post by dmos62 » Fri, Apr 03, 2020, 11:02 AM UTC

logicchains wrote: post #53

connectsnk wrote: post #31

Many people are commenting that Reiki is like Meditation i.e. all mumbo jumbo placebo effect. This might persuade a lot of people to reject both without going through the experience. I have been a very infrequent practitioner of meditation since 2009. I am now a very different person and there is no way for me to measure how or what has changed in me. I am way more focused, happier and might I conservatively add the…

There's a simple logical explanation why meditation works. A huge amount of suffering comes from people making value judgements about things they're thinking about: "X happened/is happening/will happen, X is bad, now I feel bad". Meditation has two effects on this: firstly, it encourages non-thinking (or focusing on some specific thing like breathing), which means less time for random thoughts, which means less time…

There's a problem with taking something as subtle as the internal workings of a human and saying "aha! I now understand what the effect of this is or why that is happening". We seek simplicity and conformance to our mental models, but nature doesn't have those constraints. It's naive to think "I've figured it out". And, that's a good thing. Many times desire for explanations is just to make oneself feel in control. Just being intimately exposed to that is therapeutic on its own.

Re: Reiki can’t possibly work, so why does it?

#140

Post by hnhg » Fri, Apr 03, 2020, 11:03 AM UTC

dmos62 wrote: post #136

411111111111111 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. None was provided, so we will have to dismiss it until some proof is provided. Nobody is dismissing proof here. They're only dismissive of the extraordinary claims that an immeasurable energy somehow inherent to some things has any effect beyond essentially the placebo effect. After all, there hasn't been any evidence which showed differently. If you have some stud…

It merits skepticism. But, is it a lack of the scientific method that's motivating the backlash? Or, is it that the claim falls within an unpopular marginality? The obvious rebut is that it's unpopular, because it lacks scientific method. In other words, mainstream is mainstream due to merit and can be used as source of truth. If anyone takes this view, I hope they're very conscious of it, because in my opinion this…

You seem to be ignoring this: 'Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.' If it helps consider it from a Bayesian pov - just give us some decent evidence and it will start to shift our prior belief, which is so far based on overwhelming evidence that this is quackery.