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moridinamael comments on Open Thread, January 4-10, 2016 - Less Wrong Discussion

5 Post author: polymathwannabe 04 January 2016 01:06PM

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Comment author: moridinamael 06 January 2016 02:42:42PM 1 point [-]

Verdict on Wim Hof and his method?

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 12 January 2016 03:52:55PM 1 point [-]

I've also seen a milder claim from his that exposure to moderate temperature extremes (cold/hot showers, I think) makes one's blood vessels more flexible.

Comment author: ChristianKl 06 January 2016 02:52:03PM 1 point [-]

Being able to withstand extreme colds isn't a pretty useful skill?

Comment author: moridinamael 06 January 2016 02:56:37PM *  1 point [-]

I probably should have provided more detail in the post. He claims not only to be be able to withstand cold, but to be able to almost fully regulate his immune and other autonomic systems. He furthermore claims that anyone can learn to do this via his method.

For example, he claims to be able to control his inflammation response. This would be very useful to me, at least. There seems to be some science backing up his claims - he was injected with toxins and demonstrated an ability to control his body's cytokine, cortisol, etc. reaction to the toxins. So when I'm asking for a verdict, I'm sort of asking what people think of the quality of this science.

Comment author: ChristianKl 06 January 2016 05:07:19PM 1 point [-]

Nothing in the Wikipedia article sounds surprising to me. The Wikipedia article says nothing about him achieving therapeutically useful effects with it or claiming to do so.

I have two friends who successfully cured allergies via hypnosis. One of them found that it takes motivation on the part of the subject and doesn't work well when the subject doesn't pay for the procedure so an attempt of doing a formal scientific trial failed due to the recruited subjects who got the treatment for free being not motivated in the right way.