Homeopathy is scientifically banned, both for lack of consistent empirical findings, but more so for lack of a sound theoretical model to explain its purported effects. This paper makes an attempt to introduce an explanatory idea based on a generalized version of quantum mechanics (QM), the weak quantum theory (WQT). WQT uses the algebraic formalism of QM proper, but drops some restrictions and definitions typical for QM. This results in a general axiomatic framework similar to QM, but more generalized and applicable to all possible systems. Most notably, WQT predicts entanglement, which in QM is known as Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) correlatedness within quantum systems. According to WQT, this entanglement is not only tied to quantum systems, but is to be expected whenever a global and a local variable describing a system are complementary. This idea is used here to reconstruct homeopathy as an exemplification of generalized entanglement as predicted by WQT. It transpires that homeopathy uses two instances of generalized entanglement: one between the remedy and the original substance (potentiation principle) and one between the individual symptoms of a patient and the general symptoms of a remedy picture (similarity principle). By bringing these two elements together, double entanglement ensues, which is reminiscent of cryptographic and teleportation applications of entanglement in QM proper. Homeopathy could be a macroscopic analogue to quantum teleportation. This model is exemplified and some predictions are derived, which make it possible to test the model.
Homeopathy is scientifically banned, both for lack of consistent empirical findings, but more so for lack of a sound theoretical model to explain its purported effects. This paper makes an attempt to introduce an explanatory idea based on a generalized version of quantum mechanics (QM), the weak quantum theory (WQT). WQT uses the algebraic formalism of QM proper, but drops some restrictions and definitions typical for QM. This results in a general axiomatic framework similar to QM, but more generalized and applicable to all possible systems. Most notably, WQT predicts entanglement, which in QM is known as Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) correlatedness within quantum systems. According to WQT, this entanglement is not only tied to quantum systems, but is to be expected whenever a global and a local variable describing a system are complementary. This idea is used here to reconstruct homeopathy as an exemplification of generalized entanglement as predicted by WQT. It transpires that homeopathy uses two instances of generalized entanglement: one between the remedy and the original substance (potentiation principle) and one between the individual symptoms of a patient and the general symptoms of a remedy picture (similarity principle). By bringing these two elements together, double entanglement ensues, which is reminiscent of cryptographic and teleportation applications of entanglement in QM proper. Homeopathy could be a macroscopic analogue to quantum teleportation. This model is exemplified and some predictions are derived, which make it possible to test the model.
BACKGROUND AND PROBLEM: A main problem for the acceptance of many methods belonging to the broad spectrum of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is that there is no conceivable theoretical bridge between the mainstream biomedical model and CAM theories and practice. Although empirical evidence is one important side of the coin of credibility, theoretical feasibility is the other. History of science teaches that no amount of empirical evidence will convince sceptics and followers of more conventional paradigms as long as there is no good theoretical model to make empirical findings plausible. METHODS AND SOLUTION: I therefore propose to broaden the spectrum of theoretical concepts beyond the reigning local-causalist model toward a non-local model that encompasses effects as encountered in CAM. Such a model can be derived from a generalized and weaker version of quantum theory recently developed and published by my colleagues and I as weak quantum theory (WQT). This theoretical model predicts nonlocal correlations analogous to Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR)-like correlations in quantum mechanics proper. The discerning moment, though, is that these nonlocal correlations within WQT are not EPR correlations postulated to extend into the classical world, but a broader, generalized version of entanglement not dependent on the strict quantum nature of the system under question. WQT predicts entanglement between elements of a system if two variables or observables are complementary: one describing a global and one the local aspects of the system. Entanglement then ensues between those local elements of a system that are complementary to the global description or observable of that system. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS: This paper explores this rather abstract and general notion and expands it into more concrete examples. It is at the moment a purely explanatory structure, which, however, lends itself to exact empirical testing due to rather precise predictions, which will be developed. Because this structure of generalized entanglement is ubiquitous and also operative in conventional medicine, and because it is derived from one of the strongest theories that science has developed so far, it would constitute a theoretical bridge between the different medical and scientific traditions.
The possibility of classifying and unifying some of the recent entanglement models for homeopathy is discussed. Unification involves combining the previous GHZ/WQT-based entanglement model, itself a fusion of Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) three-particle entanglement and a generalised version of quantum theory, called Weak Quantum Theory (WQT), with Walach's semiotic model involving double entanglement. The new combined model invokes a 'geometry' of patient-practitioner-remedy (PPR) entanglement embedded in a therapeutic state space.
BACKGROUND: Quantum theory's notions of non-locality and entanglement have previously informed attempts to model the therapeutic process. Of these, Weak Quantum Theory (WQT) and Patient- Practitioner-Remedy (PPR) entanglement are developing into mathematically- based models of homeopathy. OBJECTIVE: The present study attempted to identify fundamental concepts within quantum field theory (QFT) that could be used to broaden the scope of PPR entanglement models, prior to constructing a more rigorous mathematical treatment. METHODS: In QFT, particles and forces are considered as fully interacting relativistic quantum matter and force fields, respectively. These interactions are visualized graphically as spacetime Feynman diagrams. Further, these interacting field systems can have ground states with broken symmetry; the so-called Higgs field being responsible for this symmetry breaking. In the new model, patient, practitioner and remedy are imagined as fully interacting quantum-like fields; patients and practitioners in terms of quantum matter-type fields, and remedies and diseases as quantum interaction-type fields. RESULTS: Disease manifestation by the Vital Force (Vf) could be an event similar to spontaneous symmetry breaking in QFT: the curative remedy acting to restore the broken symmetry of the Vf field. Entanglement between patient, practitioner, and remedy might be representable as Feynman-like diagrams. CONCLUSION: QFT demonstrates that quantum properties can be physical without being observable. Thus, an underlying similarity in discourse could exist between homeopathy and quantum theory which could be useful for modelling the homeopathic process. This preliminary investigation also suggested that key elements of previous quantum models of the homeopathic process, may become unified within this new QFT-type approach.
The notion of patient-practitioner-remedy (PPR) entanglement, previously proposed for homeopathy, is refined by adapting concepts derived from Greenberger, Horne, and Zeilinger's treatment of three-particle entanglement (GHZ states), and a generalised version of quantum theory, called weak quantum theory (WQT). These suggest that for maximum PPR entanglement during the therapeutic encounter, the practitioner's awareness needs to be directed inward as well as outward toward the patient, and that health and disease are mirror images of each other, similar to and represented by, the relationship of complex numbers to their complex conjugates.
BACKGROUND: One of the principle obstacles to homeopathy's general acceptance has been its perceived lack of sound theoretical basis within accepted deterministic bio-medical thought. This impasse might be circumvented if instead, appeal was made to the nondeterministic concepts of the physical sciences, e.g., quantum theory and its notions of entanglement, nonlocality, and uncertainty; Weak Quantum Theory (WQT) and Patient-Practitioner-Remedy (PPR) Entanglement representing two new complementary strands of thought with the potential to create a new theoretical basis for homeopathy. OBJECTIVE: The goal of this present study was to generate a preliminary mathematical model of the action and reaction of the Vital Force to diseases and remedies within the developing contexts of WQT and PPR Entanglement, based on the metaphor of a hypothetical 'quantized' gyroscope as its physical representation. METHODS: The physics of gyroscopic motion was combined with the quantum theory describing rotating objects (without some of its imposed limitations, e.g., Planck's constant, in line with the relaxation of some of orthodox quantum theory's axioms as proposed by WQT). Thus, increase or decrease in the rate of spin of the Vital Force's hypothetical gyroscope was described in terms of quantized 'shift operators' constructed mathematically from the known 'complementarity' of a remedy's primary and secondary symptoms, expressed in the notation of complex numbers. Ultimately, this generates a hypothetical 'wave function' for the Vital Force. RESULTS: This hypothetical 'wave function' has been used to illustrate certain empirical observations of homeopathy and conventional medicine, e.g., the biphasal action of remedies encapsulated in the Arndt-Schulz Law, Wilder's Law of Initial Value, and some of the results of homeopathic provings. CONCLUSION: This preliminary theoretical analysis suggests that perhaps these less well-known empirical observations should be reinvestigated and, if confirmed, could begin ultimately to provide a much-needed alternative to the doubleblind placebo-controlled trial as a means of investigating and testing the efficacy of homeopathy.
INTRODUCTION: In two recent studies of double-blind placebo-controlled homeopathic provings, entanglement was reported to have occurred between verum and placebo arms of the trials. This contrasts directly with the entanglement-disrupting effects of blinding, recently proposed as the reason for the failure of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to demonstrate unequivocally the efficacy of homeopathy. It is proposed here that such entanglement between remedy and placebo during these double-blind placebo controlled provings is the direct result of the blinding process. METHOD: A previously developed theoretical model of entanglement in homeopathy among patient, practitioner, and remedy (called PPR entanglement) was used in this investigation. RESULTS: In agreement with the results from the proving studies, the model predicts that application of the double-blind RCT methodology to homeopathic provings leads to entanglement between both remedy and placebo arms of the trial. CONCLUSIONS: These theoretical findings can be understood in terms of the act of blinding leading to loss of information because of quantum-like state superposition of the verum and placebo proving groups. This is compared to conclusions drawn from the well-known double-slit experiment of quantum physics, and quantum information processing. It leads to a suggestion for testing entanglement in homeopathic provings.