There is no paranormal things in homeopathic potencies

[Ducky]

Hmm.

I see nothing paranormal about homeopathy.

Fraud is very much non-paranormal.

"Dr." Sheikh: prove me wrong. Tell me how to cure Multiple Myeloma with homeopathy.




(edited to clarify statement)

 

[steenkh]

Thanks God, you given them courage to accept certain facts.

Now please accept it that in 2nd potency too a possible reaction can occur because you still have lot of molecules of chemicals of a plant.

Probably no reactions with the solvent is taking place at all: Anor277 can tell you that. But please understand that even if such reactions take place at the second stage, there are only 1% left of the original MT, no matter if it has reacted with the solvent and formed entirely new molecules. And at the third stage, there are only 0.01% of the original MT left. Possible new molecules formed by reactions with the solvent have no bearing on the situation: They will all disappear the more you dilute!

If I sound exasperated, it is because you apparently only read what you want to hear, and not what we actually write! At one point you seemed to start to grasp some of the concepts, but now you just repeat the faulty reasoning.

Why not admit, along with most other homoeopaths in the world, that there are no MT molecules left in the high dilutions, and that the homoeopathic effect is pure magic (if it existed)?

 

[Z]

I wouldn't have near as many problems with homeopathy if the practicioners would just admit that the entire process works via faith or magic. THAT, at least, I can believe in.

This nonsense is ridiculous... a scam targetting the average idiot, not the educated JREF poster.

 

[steenkh]

Same here. It irritates me that homoeopaths try to present their magic as science, and that ordinary people do not see through this ruse. I also think it is no coincidence that the whole issue about the serial dilutions is usually hidden away when homoeopaths explain what they do. Instead they focus on the equally magic concept of 'like cures like'.

And that is by the way one reason why Sheikh seems to misunderstand skeptics: he thinks that if he can defend the idea that there are MT molecules left in the dilution, then homoeopathy is suddenly a valid concept! But actually homoeopathy just runs into the next magical concept that cannot be defended!

 

[Mojo]

Now please accept it that in 2nd potency too a possible reaction can occur because you still have lot of molecules of chemicals of a plant.

Er, nope. Assuming that your solute actually does react with the solvent, in your first dilution you add one hundred times as much solvent as you have mother tincture. The solute reacts with the solvent until it produces a compound that is stable in the remaining solvent. Therefore, when you add more solvent in the second dilution, the solute has already reacted; there will be no further reaction.

 

[Dr. A Sheikh]

Probably no reactions with the solvent is taking place at all: Anor277 can tell you that. But please understand that even if such reactions take place at the second stage, there are only 1% left of the original MT, no matter if it has reacted with the solvent and formed entirely new molecules. And at the third stage, there are only 0.01% of the original MT left. Possible new molecules formed by reactions with the solvent have no bearing on the situation: They will all disappear the more you dilute!

If I sound exasperated, it is because you apparently only read what you want to hear, and not what we actually write! At one point you seemed to start to grasp some of the concepts, but now you just repeat the faulty reasoning.

Why not admit, along with most other homoeopaths in the world, that there are no MT molecules left in the high dilutions, and that the homoeopathic effect is pure magic (if it existed)?

When a new compound has formed as you admitted here then you cannot take 1mole of old starting material. you have to take one mole of the new compound (now we will called it new starting material). In this way, BSM avogadros equation can be improved further. right?

 

[steenkh]

When a new compound has formed as you admitted here then you cannot take 1mole of old starting material. you have to take one mole of the new compound (now we will called it new starting material). In this way, BSM avogadros equation can be improved further. right?

Not right!

You forget that there is a finite number of atoms in the MT to start with! How many new molecules can be formed through reactions with the solvent? The extreme case must be 1 new molecule per atom in the MT. If there was not an atom from the original MT present in the new molecule, it would be a molecule that had resulted from reactions among solvent molecules, right? So if there was X atoms in the MT, you can now at most have X new molecules after reactions with the solvent. And these X molecules cannot turn into more molecules after more dilutions, because then you would have some molecules without a single atom from the original MT.

The X new molecules will eventually be diluted away just as when no reaction had taken place.

 

[Rolfe]

When a new compound has formed as you admitted here then you cannot take 1mole of old starting material. you have to take one mole of the new compound (now we will called it new starting material). In this way, BSM avogadros equation can be improved further. right?

Doesn't matter. You still only have one mole of solute. So when you make the dilution, then you only have 0.01 moles. It doesn't matter in what form the substance exists, the minute you do a 1:100 dilution you only have a hundredth of the quantity.

Rolfe.

 

[petre]

I believe his hope is that through reaction, at some point x molecules will result in y > x molecules of non-solvent. It is also his arguement that there could be a series of reactions that are so slow that the process can progress many (or even all) stages before all the reactions are complete. These are possible scenarios, so let us examine them.

So, let me start by making an assumption up front to prevent a ton of confusing variables running around. It is perfectly valid to argue it is incorrect, but be prepared to explain why you believe that is so.

Assumption: No molecules with effect (homeopathic or otherwise) can be made entirely from solvent. That means that there is no catalyst which turns solvent into something useful without adding any atoms to any of the products. If you wish to debate this assumption, name one solvent molecule and the resulting molecules that have a homeopathic effect. He often argues from ignorance, claiming that though he knows of no such substance that he believes one exists, and leaves it for others to disprove such. I will also leave that matter in more capable hands (perhaps it would suffice to demonstrate that any stable by-product of homeopathic solvents already occurs naturally in the body, or that solvents used in homeopathy react chemically at all at room temperature, etc).

Based on that assumption, let me continue.

Is it possible for a solute molecule A to run into a solvent molecule B and produce multiple molecules? What would be the greatest number of molecules produced? My chemical knowledge is incomplete, but I suspect it is quite possible to have A and B combine, and result in C, D, E, F, and G (or more), especially if A is a very large and complex structure. This seems to be the basis of his continued arguement. Of course, if A is a very large and complex structure, it will be very heavy.

Now, work backwards from the final result. Let us suppose that a single non-solvent molecule in the 30C preparation has magical homeopathic properties, so that's our target result. Maybe it could still react with the solvent to produce more molecules, I don't care. The important thing is, you need at least one molecule, because zero just isn't going to do anything obviously. So, statistically, you'll want about 100 of those molecules to appear in the 29C preparation for a good chance at ending up with just 1 in the 30C.

Because of the assumption above, each of those 100 molecules must contain at least one atom from the original solute (if they do not, then they are composed purely of atoms from solvent, and violate the assumption above). Therefore, there must be at least 100 such atoms. Maybe they came into the 29C solution as a single 500-atom molecule (100 of which were from the original solute, and 400 of which were from solute) and reacted with solvent to produce 100 different molecules. Maybe they showed up as 100 30-atom molecules (1 atom from the original solute, 29 from solvent). It doesn't matter in the slightest how these molecules react with one another, no amount of chemical reaction is going to change the number of total atoms. In the end all that is important is that 100 atoms from the original solute ended up in the 29C preparation somehow.

In order for that to happen with good statistical chance, you'd want an evenly-mixed 28C solution that contained about 10,000 atoms of original solute in some combination of molecules. And by the same resoning, for the 27C solution you'd need 1,000,000 such atoms and so on. The only way to break this chain of reasoning is to argue against the assumption above and claim some derived-only-from-solvent molecule will have some homeopathic effect.

If you continue this back to the first preparation, you find that you need to have started with 10^58 atoms of solute in the 1x solution. Even if it were the lightest atoms in the universe (hydrogen) that's still going to be a mass of around 1.66 x 10^31 Kg, which is a little more than the mass of the sun (and that's not counting all the mass of the solute that isn't useful in the end).

Therefore, since he obviously uses less solute than that, one of the following must be true:

1. Statistically, there is not one single useful molecule in a 30C preparation.
2. A useful molecule can be constructed purely from solvent (since I've not yet conclusively proved that assumption to the contrary).

ETA: More consistent use of pronouns.

 

[Dr. A Sheikh]

I believe his hope is that through reaction, at some point x molecules will result in y > x molecules of non-solvent. It is also his arguement that there could be a series of reactions that are so slow that the process can progress many (or even all) stages before all the reactions are complete. These are possible scenarios, so let us examine them.

So, let me start by making an assumption up front to prevent a ton of confusing variables running around. It is perfectly valid to argue it is incorrect, but be prepared to explain why you believe that is so.

Assumption: No molecules with effect (homeopathic or otherwise) can be made entirely from solvent. That means that there is no catalyst which turns solvent into something useful without adding any atoms to any of the products. If you wish to debate this assumption, name one solvent molecule and the resulting molecules that have a homeopathic effect. He often argues from ignorance, claiming that though he knows of no such substance that he believes one exists, and leaves it for others to disprove such. I will also leave that matter in more capable hands (perhaps it would suffice to demonstrate that any stable by-product of homeopathic solvents already occurs naturally in the body, or that solvents used in homeopathy react chemically at all at room temperature, etc).

Based on that assumption, let me continue.

Is it possible for a solute molecule A to run into a solvent molecule B and produce multiple molecules? What would be the greatest number of molecules produced? My chemical knowledge is incomplete, but I suspect it is quite possible to have A and B combine, and result in C, D, E, F, and G (or more), especially if A is a very large and complex structure. This seems to be the basis of his continued arguement. Of course, if A is a very large and complex structure, it will be very heavy.

Now, work backwards from the final result. Let us suppose that a single non-solvent molecule in the 30C preparation has magical homeopathic properties, so that's our target result. Maybe it could still react with the solvent to produce more molecules, I don't care. The important thing is, you need at least one molecule, because zero just isn't going to do anything obviously. So, statistically, you'll want about 100 of those molecules to appear in the 29C preparation for a good chance at ending up with just 1 in the 30C.

Because of the assumption above, each of those 100 molecules must contain at least one atom from the original solute (if they do not, then they are composed purely of atoms from solvent, and violate the assumption above). Therefore, there must be at least 100 such atoms. Maybe they came into the 29C solution as a single 500-atom molecule (100 of which were from the original solute, and 400 of which were from solute) and reacted with solvent to produce 100 different molecules. Maybe they showed up as 100 30-atom molecules (1 atom from the original solute, 29 from solvent). It doesn't matter in the slightest how these molecules react with one another, no amount of chemical reaction is going to change the number of total atoms. In the end all that is important is that 100 atoms from the original solute ended up in the 29C preparation somehow.

In order for that to happen with good statistical chance, you'd want an evenly-mixed 28C solution that contained about 10,000 atoms of original solute in some combination of molecules. And by the same resoning, for the 27C solution you'd need 1,000,000 such atoms and so on. The only way to break this chain of reasoning is to argue against the assumption above and claim some derived-only-from-solvent molecule will have some homeopathic effect.

If you continue this back to the first preparation, you find that you need to have started with 10^58 atoms of solute in the 1x solution. Even if it were the lightest atoms in the universe (hydrogen) that's still going to be a mass of around 1.66 x 10^31 Kg, which is a little more than the mass of the sun (and that's not counting all the mass of the solute that isn't useful in the end).

Therefore, since he obviously uses less solute than that, one of the following must be true:

1. Statistically, there is not one single useful molecule in a 30C preparation.
2. A useful molecule can be constructed purely from solvent (since I've not yet conclusively proved that assumption to the contrary).

ETA: More consistent use of pronouns.

Thanks petre. You are the only new comer (new guest for one single post) have understood my point with slight misunderstanding.

I am going to correct you. when you add more water and more alcohol then those chemicals which have been splitted into their parts or have been changed into new compounds react with each other and also with new solvent which you are adding time to time and gain more quantity and in this way the quantity never comes down. Except that in higher potencies these molecules are very less in numbers but have more area to vibrate.

 

[chrisjeans]

Except that in higher potencies these molecules are very less in numbers but have more area to vibrate.

Ah. Vibration.

Please please please go and read a chemistry textbook.

 

[Rolfe]

Sheikh, are you proposing that new molecules are made from the solvent alone? If your original remedy has atoms in it other than hydrogen, oxygen and carbon, then how is this possible?

Take the sodium sulphate remedy. You add a finite amount of sodium sulphate at the start. There is no sodium and no sulphur in the solvent. How then can you derive more sodium sulphate, or any compound arising from sodium sulphate?

Rolfe.

 

[petre]

Thanks petre. You are the only new comer (new guest for one single post) have understood my point with slight misunderstanding.

I am going to correct you. when you add more water and more alcohol then those chemicals which have been splitted into their parts or have been changed into new compounds react with each other and also with new solvent which you are adding time to time and gain more quantity and in this way the quantity never comes down. Except that in higher potencies these molecules are very less in numbers but have more area to vibrate.

I'm hoping for further clarification on your description I've bolded here. Assuming you mean only chemical reactions, those are not capable of creating any new atoms, only rearanging the atoms in the molecules present. Do you mean that these repeated reactions create new molecules composed entirely of atoms that originated only in solvent, that then have an effect? If this is not the case, I've already demonstrated that any atoms in the original solute cannot occur with any likelyhood in the final preparation.

Or perhaps you mean to say that some non-chemical reaction takes place that will alter the atoms themselves, fusion of two atoms into one, or splitting one atom into two perhaps? That would be the only way to increase the number of atoms (or at least change them) that originated with the solute. Some here may soon bring up the difficulty of such non-chemical reactions, but first I would like to know if you believe these do occur.

While I await clarification, let me add a new analogy to the mix. It appears that the repeated dilution could be simulated in a single step. As I understand it, one normally takes a solute, dilutes it into 1 litre of solvent, takes 1/100 of a litre of that, and further dilutes it into 1 litre of solvent, and repeats 30 times to arrive at a 30C solution. That would appear to be analogus to taking the same solute and diluting it in one step into a large vat of 100^29 litres of solvent, mixing it completely, and then allowing it to react a sufficient length of time with all of that solvent. Then for each dose, simply tap 1/100 of a litre. Would such a hypothetical process result in the same product as the normal one?

 

[Rolfe]

It's quite entertaining that Sheikh entitled this thread "There is no paranormal things in homeopathic potencies" (sic), and yet he seems hell-bent on maintaining that there are indeed very paranormal things in homoeopathic potencies.

Sheikh, these things you're trying to evoke don't exist. If you could demonstrate them, you would be showing that there are paranormal things in homoeopathic potencies.

Do homoeopaths use sodium sulphate at 30C? (Answer is yes.) So, explain what is there (apart from the simple, unchanged solvent) in that potency, and how it gets there.

Rolfe.

 

[steenkh]

I am going to correct you. when you add more water and more alcohol then those chemicals which have been splitted into their parts or have been changed into new compounds react with each other and also with new solvent which you are adding time to time and gain more quantity and in this way the quantity never comes down.

The number of original MT atoms are not going to grow even though you add lots of solvent. Can you please explain how you can get more new molecules than there are atoms in the MT?

Except that in higher potencies these molecules are very less in numbers but have more area to vibrate.

So you have a theory about how homeopathy works? (If it worked)

 

[Nucular]

It's quite entertaining that Sheikh entitled this thread "There is no paranormal things in homeopathic potencies" (sic), and yet he seems hell-bent on maintaining that there are indeed very paranormal things in homoeopathic potencies.

Sheikh, these things you're trying to evoke don't exist. If you could demonstrate them, you would be showing that there are paranormal things in homoeopathic potencies.

If I was feeling unkind (and I usually am) I might suggest to Sheikh that he apply to the homeopathy prize, and win 1,000,000 rupees (or 10,000,000, or "hundred of prizes"), from www.drmas.tk.org.com.fict

Sheikh, simply email MAS to obtain details. I dare you.

 

[Belz...]

I am going to correct you. when you add more water and more alcohol then those chemicals which have been splitted into their parts or have been changed into new compounds react with each other and also with new solvent which you are adding time to time and gain more quantity and in this way the quantity never comes down. Except that in higher potencies these molecules are very less in numbers but have more area to vibrate.

Creation ex nihilo ? WOW! I've got to learn homeopathy, now.

Can you make plutonium with that ?

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I am going to correct you. when you add more water and more alcohol then those chemicals which have been splitted into their parts or have been changed into new compounds react with each other and also with new solvent which you are adding time to time and gain more quantity and in this way the quantity never comes down. Except that in higher potencies these molecules are very less in numbers but have more area to vibrate.

In another thread you agreed that eventually there would be no molecules of the good stuff left. After how many dilutions does this occur?

~~ Paul

 

[Rolfe]

And what vibration would this be? Brownian motion? If you are implying that homoeopathic preparations "vibrate" more than identical preparations at the same temperature, explain how.

Rolfe.

 

[petre]

The number of original MT atoms are not going to grow even though you add lots of solvent. Can you please explain how you can get more new molecules than there are atoms in the MT?

So you have a theory about how homeopathy works? (If it worked)

I've suggested a number of ways you might end up with more new molecules than there are atoms in the MT, likely or unlikely as they may be. I'm waiting for clarification on whether or not any of these occur.