On Sunday, May 4, 2014 9:32:20 AM UTC-4, Robert Macy wrote: Point WELL taken. I forgot that when any
That being said, I didn't mean to say a disruption will be easy. Eric Topol has an evangelistic streak, and to his credit, he, like that Dr. Oz, is an accomplished cardiologist. (Head of the Clevelnd Cinic.)
My focus is international medicine, and there is much less regulation there. One problem in the US is a pervasive hypnotic trance that people go into when going through the 'health' care system. But many wake up, and now "alternative" treatments are 40 b$. Big Pharma lawyers are sitting around a table all day, trying to figure out how to quash the 'alternative' movement.
And I must inject here a bit of "psycho-epistemology." I have to invent this word, because we (i believe) pretend we are not smack dab in the middle of our efforts and inquiries. I have been trying to center my awareness in myself as the source of the world. This may seem strange to bring up, but I have been inquiring into certain aspects of the quantum mechanical approach to the nature of consciousness.
Wow - I'm way off track. About your thought to do "neural control for biofeedback." Yes, why not? I have recently (past few days) been wrestling with the following question: "If you could measure the correlates of consciousness itself, what would you do with the signal?" What good would it be? You could promise various psychic powers which have been demonstrated under rigorous scientific conditions: ESP, PK, remote viewing.
But the sages of the world do not like to mix power and spiritual development, So tentatively at least, the scientific investigation of consciousness itself must somehow make people know themselves better, to be more themselves, and not hand them power when they have no wisdom. (or at least putatively so.)
Putting aside that "first cause" inquiry for a moment, your idea of a kind of neural excitation to treat disease is worth considering. On a more restricted level, the diagnostics area is definitely feasible, and it's classical physics, no navel gazing QM required.
In this discussion, I have been quite tentative. As a matter of psycho- epistemology, it is permissable to pose an "open question," without any immedate chance of a resolution. This is to "dwell in the unknown," an uncomfortable place for many humans.
So i invite any thoughts on neural excitation, however tentative. Any working hypothesis is better than none. My main WH is that there is a consciousness which is suppressed by the ordinary mind, and which has the super-normal abilities. j