Posted: Feb 12, 2016 9:30 pm
Keep It Real wrote:Thommo wrote:Seriously though, you may as well rearrange your furniture as pray, it can have an equally beneficial effect. Just remember that the effect tails off over time, so you'll need to move it back again in a few weeks for further benefits to fortitude.
One still need maintain the fiction in the mind that the remedy will be effective. A pill is substantive, as is god. Moving the furniture around is not.
It is actually. And god is not substantive.
I can't think of the name of the particular study I'm thinking of right now, but perhaps it will come to me later or someone else will do it. It's related to the novelty effect, but the principle of the study was to measure workers happiness and productivity when their office furniture was rearranged (might have been justified by Feng Shui or some other equally bullshit reason). An increase was found, but tailed off with time. The same thing then happens if the furniture is rearranged again, even if back to the original setup.
Similarly sex and masturbation have real effects on mood, so again they can be used to promote placebo effect, it's very easy to believe you're relaxed and happier when you are. Calling something god and claiming it has special powers or whatever is just bullshit. There's no need to do that to get a placebo effect. Buy yourself a packet of magic jellybeans and meditate in an entirely non religious manner before bedtime, then reward yourself ritually with one or something, won't make any difference.