How it was done : Logical Model 2

Hahnemann was a pioneer of experimentation on the nature of disease and how the body deals with disease. We may question his theories, but not his many documented experimental observations about the nature of disease.

He established some rules or principles, such as that *if* *a* *medicine* can produce *all* the symptoms that a disease agent causes in a patient, then the disease agent itself could not be responsible for the disease symptoms. Symptoms are produced by the body.

The complex behaviour of the body during disease led Hahnemann to the belief that there was something "higher than the chemical level" which is managing disease. He called it the Vital Principle or Vital Force. This "logical model" addresses some aspects of the Vital Principle, proposing it to be an OVERSEER system.

THE LAW OF SIMILARS:

That if a dose of a well-chosen medicine which is just stronger than the disease being treated, is administered to the patient, the disease is extinguished.

But, why should this be?
If the medicine is stronger, then it should make the problem worse, and it does temporarily. And, how does it dis-engage the disease? Hahnemann is saying that there is what I will call an OVERSEER System which "oversees" and deals with disease conditions or potential disease conditions existing at the chemical level - and should eradicate them before symptoms appear. But, the OVERSEER failed - symptoms appeared.

The medicine was needed to exaggerate this particular disease condition so that the OVERSEER system could now recognize it clearly, and then deal with it as it should have done before the symptoms appeared.

If the medicine was not well-chosen, the OVERSEER would react in a different way, thinking it to be a different disease condition, for which it would take the wrong actions.

In either case of the medicines above, the OVERSEER is being deceived by the medicines. The medicines imitate communication signals sent to the OVERSEER.

This logical explanation means that this OVERSEER system is responsible for dealing with any developing disease conditions promptly, such that they cannot express themselves *at* *all* at the chemical level (via symptoms).
It monitors everything happening at the chemical level, all the time, and deals with any problems, like a maintenance crew permanently out on a job, and on the move. The nature of OVERSEER must be quite different from conventional physiological, because it could not possibly be acting at the normal physiological/biochemical level where there are so many restrictions, and have such mobility.

(Continued)

The physiological restrictions, where messengers have so much specificity as well as the receptors they target, would prevent any conventional physiological process from fulfilling the required "free-ranging" role.

Therefore, the specificity at the foundation of all physiological control processes makes any kind of Total, or Holistic, control of the body virtually impossible at the physiological level. Perhaps this OVERSEER control system appeared and evolved over many millions of years as multicellular organisms became larger. It seems the OVERSEER can operate independently of the chemical environment, although superimposed upon it. It can enforce its control when necessary to deal with developing disease conditions it detects. The OVERSEER co-exists with the chemical level, but is using a physical property of the aqueous living environment for its activities and communication.

I include some thoughts on the logic behind how Hahnemann accomplished this manipulation of the OVERSEER System, enabling him to deal with disease. The living system described below is a system in the brain, but not the OVERSEER. The fault in the brain system should have been dealt with by the OVERSEER before any symptoms appeared. The OVERSEER had become UNTUNED from the physiological processes it is supposed to be monitoring.

A Logical Principle of complicated systems

If any complicated system produces very many detectable effects as a result of some part of it not functioning correctly, then ANYTHING that makes the system produce exactly the same effects, is acting on the whole system in a very similar way. This, of course, includes the failing part of the system.

The more complicated the system is, the more certainly that this principle holds, if a significant number of effects appear.

The ANYTHING which accurately mimics the fault is, in effect, logically associated with this unknown failing part of the complicated system, as well as the association with those many detectable effects.

The "non-functioning part of the system" is a logical term: It could actually mean one or many parts of the system and/or any faulty interactions between them. Also, this "Logical Principle" applies to all complex systems, whatever is their actual mechanism.

(Continued)

In complex living systems (e.g., systems in the brain), if the number of detectable effects can be increased for the disease condition, this will give the experimenter a more detailed and unique picture of that particular disease condition. Repeating this process for all disease conditions would eventually also provide information about the behaviour and characteristics of the whole system.

In living systems, the ANYTHING would be a substance.
If many substances were used to probe the system under investigation in the above way, recording the total detectable effects for each substance, would add to "logical" or "conceptual" knowledge about faults in the system, especially if the experimenter was able to increase the total number of detectable effects for each substance.

The "many" substances that should be tested to obtain a detailed picture of faults in the complex system, may run into the hundreds or thousands. During this activity, the experimenter would not fail to learn a great deal more about the functioning of the system as a whole, and then, by logical deduction, introduce a concept such as the Vital Principle/Force.

Regarding this brain model: Since all the substances tested would be increased from a low dose to high doses until they produce the many effects needed to specifically identify them, they would always include toxic effects largely common to all substances.

The primary objective of this exercise then, would be to find substances that exhibit effects which are different from the commonly expected toxic effects. Such unusual effects normally appear as the first effects appearing, before the dose has increased to toxic levels.

In practice, unique or unusual effects are rare, so it is necessary to include all the toxic symptoms, and to use the "totality of effects" to hopefully identify the uniqueness of this substance, and therefore its value as a medicine.

Also, in practice, the *large* *majority* of substances tested for their medicinal vale have no effect at all in low doses, and only the very common toxic effects at higher concentrations, resulting in a very common "totality of symptoms". This suggests that these have no interaction with any specific component of the system at all, and are of no use as medicines.

Another feature noted in practical clinical studies on people is the very large variability in the sensitivity of each substance among individuals. Since the objective is to try to find unusual presenting effects, and since these only appear as the first symptoms presented, the testing must begin with very low doses to begin with.

(Continued)

Certain persons may be particularly sensitive to this substance, presenting some unexpected symptoms after low doses - this means the substance is having some specific effect on the system below toxic levels, and is therefore has potential as a medicine.

Hypothetical System

In a hypothetical isolated system of ten components which interact with each other, consider the types of problems which may occur in biological systems:

1. a component of the system is failing or inefficient in performing its function, i.e,

1.1 its product, or its signal is not produced.
1.2 its product, or its signal is faulty or weak.

2. a component is failing to detect a signal to it, from another component(s).

3. the components which feed back to switch off other components (product/signal) are failing, or not triggered as a result of the failing steps 1 & 2 above.

In practice, even a small biological system is likely to be much more complicated than this, with each component interacting with more than one of the other components OR with some components not participating at all, depending on the input to the system.
Also, in practice, the system will not be ISOLATED, as assumed in this hypothetical case. There will be inputs to, and outputs from, the system which are potentially faulty.

If the input is not accepted or processed correctly by this hypothetical system, it will accumulate. It is the accumulation of products as a result of the fault in the system that will cause the observed effects, and toxicity.

And, the kind of accumulations and their effects depends on where in the system the fault has occurred. By matching symptoms closely, the medicine is "logically" targetting the fault in the system. The twist in the tail is that the medicine is not acting on any fault in the physiological system at all, but by imitating and exaggerating the precise signal that *should* *have* *been* received and processed by the OVERSEER system (Vital Principle) to manage the disease.

Para 33 of the Organon:

"Natural disease agents have only a subordinate and conditional power to alter human health, while medicinal forces have a far superior power to do so, one that is absolute and unconditional."

This shows a fundamental difference between the "disease" and the "medicine". The disease condition of the patient, known through symptoms, is the outward expression of the failing physiological processes of a system in the brain.

The medicine which produces very similar symptoms is *something* *else* *completely*. It is *the* *signal* which acts directly on the OVERSEER system which then performs its function of resolving the disease.

[ 29. July 2003, 11:13: Message edited by: Timokay ]