Kumar said:
Rolfe,
Thanks, you posted good post in simple(my) language. I was feeling that Dr.Mas may tell that molecular effect, by its presence in any form can be possible in every potency. But if he is just considering possibilities of chemical reactions, I may think this may be invalid unless chemical equations are mentioned of every potency & effect of different substances, so produced by the reactions are justified in accordance with the remedy's picture. I also feel that this basic consideration would had already looked into in view of so much head breaking & I feel ashamed of science & homeopathy, if it could be justified that homeopathic effects happened due to chemical reactions.
Well, we'll have to wait and see whether Dr. Mas ever comes out and explains what he actually means.
If he means that the remedy materials can break down to their component atoms, then in fact that doesn't change the situation very much at all. It might mean that under certain circumstances you run out of particles at 14C or 16C rather than 12C, that's all. And exactly what properties of the original remedy would be present if all that was left was dissociated atoms I really don't know. Even if it was possible to dissociate the atoms like that, which in most cases it wouldn't be.
He also seems to be implying that the remedy molecules may react with the solvent molecules to form different substances, or perhaps more of the original substance, at each stage of the dilution process. As you so very rightly say, Kumar, you would in fact have to show the details of each chemical reaction for each remedy. This Dr. Mas has not done. He merely
speculates:
.... if the starting material breaks into its constituents (whether by chemical means or through physical process), then according to the probability law, the second dilution might form another chemical structure which can be termed as opium 2 (although the starting material at start was opium), so if on a dilution bottle, opium 30c is printed than it is quite possible that it may not contain pure molecules of opium rather many molecules of opium and its ingredients.
He has done no experiments or demonstrations to show this. He does not tell us what "opium 2" is. He does not show that it exists. So even for the example he has chosen, he gives no credible detail, and does not explain which chemical reactions he thinks are taking place.
And remember, this explanation is not possible with many remedies. Homoeopaths tell us that you can make a remedy from absolutely anything. And indeed there has never been a proving where the homoeopaths announced, this substance produces no symptoms. What about NaCl? Or Au? (Gold.) Or even the sodium sulphate Dr. Mas claimed could cure hepatitis (Na<SUB>2</SUB>SO<SUB>4</SUB>)? These materials can only be subdivided in a very limited manner, they cannot be further synthesised from the material of the solvent, and neither will they react with the solvent to produce another substance.
Nothing will happen to the gold at all. It is an element, and a very unreactive one. It is a perfect example of something indivisible that will simply become less and less in concentration until the point comes when a practical volume of "solution" is extremely unlikely even to contain one atom.
The salts will dissociate, so that indeed one mole of NaCl will become one mole of Na and one mole of Cl. But that's that. You may get some complexes forming with water, but once you run out of ions, these complexes will not remain in the solvent. This is actually another version of the "memory of water" theory, which has no evidence to support it. How can Dr. Mas say, have you looked to see if these things are not there, when he himself has not looked to see if the
are there?
Similarly, the Na<SUB>2</SUB>SO<SUB>4</SUB> will dissociate to two ions of Na and one of SO<SUB>4</SUB>. So if you had a mole of the salt, you do indeed get three moles of ions. But that's that. The sulphate will not break down further - and even if it did, there are only seven atoms here in total, so the most you could get would be seven moles of atoms from one mole of the salt - not enough even to need one more C dilution to be back exactly where you were with the gold.
Does this help to explain the impossibility of the idea that if you keep adding more solvent, more of the original substance will form? Rather than take time to explain the impossibility of opium reacting with water and alcohol to make more opium (hey, nobody would ever need to grow any more of the plant in that case!), think about the gold, or the salt. Water is H<SUB>2</SUB>O, and alcohol is C<SUB>2</SUB>H<SUB>5</SUB>OH. Where is the Au, the Na or the Cl? There's some O, yes, but no S. So how can you possibly get more Au, or NaCl, or Na<SUB>2</SUB>SO<SUB>4</SUB> from this mixture? The elements don't exist. They aren't there.
Even if you did have a remedy which was entirely made up of hydrogen, oxygen and carbon atoms, the only atoms present in water and alcohol, you would have to show that the substance was capable of catalysing its own synthesis from these simple molecules, or catalysing the formation of something else from these simple molecules. There is no evidence that this is possible for any molecule I know of, and Dr. Mas has certainly presented no evidence to show that it can happen.
When he says, have you looked in this 30C preparation to show that there are no remedy molecules there, why do you not ask him, have you looked in your potency of opium to show that there
is opium there? Or "opium2", whatever that is? Of course he hasn't.
The simple fact is that you cannot acquire more of any molecule or substance simply by adding water and alcohol to it repeatedly (except more water and alcohol, of course). However much you started out with, the sizes of atoms and small molecules are such that by the time you are passing 12C, give or take a bit depending on what you started with, any practical volume of the solution is vanishingly unlikely to contain any particle that was part of the original mother tincture. Any way you or Dr. Mas tries to slice it, that cannot change.
Kumar, I can't say for sure about India or Pakistan, but here in the UK, where there are some qualified doctors and scientists who really do believe in homoeopathy, you will find no one at all prepared to defend the concept that there is material substance of a remedy in a 30C preparation. Everybody, all the MFHoms and the FFHoms and the homoeopath to the Queen and everybody, they will all tell you that there is nothing material there. Dr. Mas is out on a limb even in the world of homoeopathy!
Kumar said:
Rolfe, I want one help from you as you know much of science. Recently, there was a occasion in which fast/concentrate colours were put on each other on playing. Since colours were more concentrated & become permanent on some body parts esp. some skin, hair & nails(more on toe nails). These colours are not going immediately, inspite of several shop/shampoo washes, rubbing etc., but just going very slowly. I am just thinking & thinking, how these are persisting? Can you tell how these colours are persisting & how can we remove these?
This is a
completely different question. It has nothing to do with the first matter. This is a question about the properties of dyes or stains. It is a matter of chemistry, and I'm sure Geni can explain it to you better than I can.
Hair and nails are composed of keratin. Some stains and dyes will bind quite strongly to keratin, and will not wash off easily because of this. They will simply fade gradually as the old keratin grows out, to be replaced by new, undyed keratin.
This provides no parallel to homoeopathy. It would be like saying, the remedy molecule binds to the glass container, so it is not thrown away when the 99% of the volume is discarded at each dilution. However, this would only hold for the Korsakov dilution method, where the same container is used repeatedly. The classical method, used by Hahnemann, uses new clean containers and glassware for every dilution. So there is nothing constant to all steps for the remedy to adhere to.
It simply isn't a parallel at all.
Kumar, I'm really trying to help you here. But if you persist in saying that you will believe Dr. Mas rather than me because he is a homoeopath, or seems confident, or just because you like the colour of font he posts in, then I'm going to revert to nasty-Rolfe very quickly.
Rolfe.
