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jimmy comments on Study shows placebos can work even if you know it's a placebo - Less Wrong
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I wonder how far he can take it.
If he can't find aspirin, can he write "aspirin" on a piece of paper and put that in his pocket? Can he just imagine doing it? Or can he do absolutely nothing and have it still go away?
Regarding writing it on a piece of paper: apparently some homeopaths actually do that. (And this is regarded by mainstream homeopaths as superstitious pseudoscience.)
Well it's obviously not homeopathy, since you can clearly distinguish between a piece of paper saying "homeopathic remedy" and a piece of paper saying "ordinary water".
What they need to do is write "homeopathic remedy" on some paper, pulp it with clean paper in a 1/1,000,000 proportion, make recycled paper out of it, and give the patient some of that recycled paper. Without writing anything on it.
I've wondered that myself, though I've never asked. I expect he could train himself to eliminate the headaches without the ritual, were he inclined to do so.