Thread: Indian man 'survives without food or water for decades'

Photolysis, i'm not even going to bother with your post.

If you want to be scientific, you would need to admit that you don't really know what cured you. There are literally a million other possibilities that should be considered, but you came to your conclusion based off of what you feel cured you, not what you know. You can't consciously know what made your ulcer go away unless a doctor or someone with the means to run tests tells you. If they are stumped, then it remains a mystery. I agree that the mind is very powerful. There is evidence that a severe neurosis can physically manifest some type of ailment, but the case for mind healing is not as well documented as you say it is

Juroara. What I was saying is the pain from ulcers goes away sometimes. For weeks or months. In this time your ulcer could have healed without you even realising.
And I acknowledge that meditation can also have powerful effects like blocking pain etc.
But the point is, you are calling me close minded when you are the one that isn't acknowledging that there are other answers which are equally or more valid than yours.
Because the truth is, you don't know.

I know what I experienced. I know that all the symptoms of my ulcer were gone within an hour. That is, the hour before I had all of the symptoms. There is no adequate explanation by the modern medical field. And you are forgetting even the modern medical field acknowledges what they call spontaneous remission, which translates to "we doctors have no idea why you got better so quickly".

But there is a real science that can explain what happened to me. I am not talking about something I just randomly made up one day. And this new science is able to explain the spontaneous remission and what happened to me in that short little hour. Why not read the book to understand where I am coming from, because I would do no justice paraphrasing it. There is also a video online you can watch somewhere floating on youtube but the book goes into more depth. The book is Biology of Belief.

You also have to be wary of claims like this. It's like religion.

I don't care whether this man did go 70 years without food or water, or seven months. I do not take anything anyone says as the absolute reality. But instead I ask myself what would it mean and how would it affect my reality if it is true. It's only the possibility that I am interested in. The reality is, it would make no difference to me if this man was a fraud.

If someone were to try this and fail, these believers would just say "Oh you didn't really believe you could do it, you held yourself back through your lack of faith".

Faith can and does translate to biology. Faith is a tricky thing because it means to believe in something 100%. To even believe in something 99% is doubt. But if you think this means faith is something science can never study, well that's not true. Scientists and doctors have come up with ingenious ways to study just how far faith/belief effect our biology. And if you believe in the scientific method, then the conclusion is simple, faith/belief effects our biology every time!

In one experiment children were asked to participate. Now the children grow up in area where a poisonous plant is prevalent. They know that this plant is poisonous. Now two different but identical looking leaves were rubbed on the arms of the children. The children were told which leaf was poisonous and which wasn't. As expected, the arm rubbed with the poisonous leaf became red and itchy. And as expected, the arm rubbed with the non-poisonous leaf was completely fine.

However, the children were lied to! The leaves were reversed without the children knowing it. The arm that became red and itchy. . was rubbed with a non-poisonous leaf. And the arm that remained completely fine, was rubbed with the poisonous leaf.

Now that's just a SIMPLE example of how faith/belief effects your biology. There are more documented and extreme cases. In historical documented case, one scientist disagreed that said bacteria was deadly to the human being. To prove that the bacteria was harmless, he drinks a vile of it in front of his colleagues. No symptoms, not now, not later. The colleagues just completely dismiss what they've witnessed, and continue to label this bacteria deadly to the human being. Even Bruce, author of Biology of Belief acknowledges that he has grown up believing so deeply that this bacteria is dangerous to the human being, that even he doubts he could ever drink that vile.

There is no middle ground with faith. That doesn't make the science harder to study, it makes it easier, because that's only two factors the scientist has to consider. Yes or no.

I survive solely by hoping I don't die. Are you all going to believe me now?

Photolysis, i'm not even going to bother with your post.

That's fine. It would only make you look more stupid if you attempted to refute it. My post stands on its own merits.

You on the other hand lost all credibility when you made claims like "medication is now one of the leading causes of death" when 10 seconds of checking your facts would show it to be complete nonsense.

Originally Posted by Photolysis

You on the other hand lost all credibility when you made claims like "medication is now one of the leading causes of death" when 10 seconds of checking your facts would show it to be complete nonsense.

Actually I did some quick checking, and there is apparently some validity to that claim. If you group all medical errors, and non errors where they knew the risk and side effects involved, then the leading cause of death in the US is caused from the medical field.

If you go by just medication, its 4th or 5th. If you go just by medical mistakes, its around 3rd. Studies vary on this however. Most seem to put medication death in the top ten however.

So while she was probably exaggerating when she made that claim, she wasn't entirely clueless on the subject either.

Originally Posted by Alric

Actually I did some quick checking, and there is apparently some validity to that claim. If you group all medical errors, and non errors where they knew the risk and side effects involved, then the leading cause of death in the US is caused from the medical field.

If you go by just medication, its 4th or 5th. If you go just by medical mistakes, its around 3rd. Studies vary on this however. Most seem to put medication death in the top ten however.

So while she was probably exaggerating when she made that claim, she wasn't entirely clueless on the subject either.

Firstly, where the hell are you getting these stats from?

Let's look at the US figures on the causes of death from the CDC. 2006 is the latest year they have the complete figures for so we'll use that.

http://www.cdc.gov/NCHS/data/nvsr/nvsr57/nvsr57_14.pdf

Roughly 38000 people died from drug usage in 2006, out of 2.42 million deaths. That figure includes death by consumption of recreational drugs as well as medical drugs, and it doesn't differentiate between the two.

Accidental deaths were responsible for 5% of US deaths in 2006. about ~122000 deaths. This can be broken down in to

~44000 - car accidents
~22000 - alcohol related deaths
~38000 - recreational drugs (non alcohol) and accidental poisoning via prescription drugs
~18000 - other accidental injuries

The fact that deaths due to recreational drugs and prescription drugs are not differentiated is not helpful.


To be honest, the stats are so detailed that it would take far too long for me to go through them, but I did not see any stats that indicate medical errors and side-effects are a leading cause of death.

Secondly you completely ignored my argument above. If you completely wipe out all diseases but as a result kill some people due to the medical care, then of course the medical care becomes the leading cause of death. That doesn't mean medical care is evil and must be stopped; it saves millions of lives.

To argue that it's dangerous because of this is an incredible demonstration of a lack of reasoning and logic. It's an attempt to appeal to emotion "medical care is the leading cause of death!".

Furthermore, how many deaths occur due to risky prescription drugs where the patient has nothing to lose?

I find this hard to believe, but I'm open to what the reality of it may be. At first I instantly thought "...70 years without food and water? Well the body would dehydrate". The guy actually doesn't look that starved, but what if he is dehydrated and is simply alive at the same time? Could the laws of physics still be in play while he is actually conscious? I won't deny this does seem nonsensical at first.


Photolysis you need to stop acting so arrogant. Your Science/Faith image is completely biased. You have faith in your model as does anybody else have faith in theirs.

Originally Posted by juroara

I know what I experienced. I know that all the symptoms of my ulcer were gone within an hour. That is, the hour before I had all of the symptoms. There is no adequate explanation by the modern medical field. And you are forgetting even the modern medical field acknowledges what they call spontaneous remission, which translates to "we doctors have no idea why you got better so quickly".

You know what you felt, you don't know what you experienced. Intuition can't tell you what is happening inside your body. No matter how convinced you are, you have to be open to the possibility of your mind deluding you. You need to otherwise stop trying to be scientific because this is anything but science. You can have all the faith you want if that makes you happy, just don't play it off as science.

Doctors label things as "we have no idea why you got better so quickly" because they are rational individuals who don't try to guess things, they can only know things. If a doctor, a qualified expert, can't tell you what happened to you, how can you be comfortable filling in the blank?

Originally Posted by juroara

But there is a real science that can explain what happened to me. I am not talking about something I just randomly made up one day. And this new science is able to explain the spontaneous remission and what happened to me in that short little hour. Why not read the book to understand where I am coming from, because I would do no justice paraphrasing it. There is also a video online you can watch somewhere floating on youtube but the book goes into more depth. The book is Biology of Belief.

There's only one book? There's your first red flag juroara.

Originally Posted by juroara

Faith can and does translate to biology. Faith is a tricky thing because it means to believe in something 100%. To even believe in something 99% is doubt. But if you think this means faith is something science can never study, well that's not true. Scientists and doctors have come up with ingenious ways to study just how far faith/belief effect our biology. And if you believe in the scientific method, then the conclusion is simple, faith/belief effects our biology every time!

Here I think we have found the root cause of your misunderstanding. You don't understand science at its most fundamental level. The scientific method was designed to be human proof, made so that humans can't screw things up with their biases and predjudices. It is a universal tool that would work for any intelligent being (even aliens.) You don't believe things in science, you know things. If you are unsure of the workings of your inner body, you have to remain ignorant until you can know for sure.

Originally Posted by juroara

In one experiment children were asked to participate. Now the children grow up in area where a poisonous plant is prevalent. They know that this plant is poisonous. Now two different but identical looking leaves were rubbed on the arms of the children. The children were told which leaf was poisonous and which wasn't. As expected, the arm rubbed with the poisonous leaf became red and itchy. And as expected, the arm rubbed with the non-poisonous leaf was completely fine.

However, the children were lied to! The leaves were reversed without the children knowing it. The arm that became red and itchy. . was rubbed with a non-poisonous leaf. And the arm that remained completely fine, was rubbed with the poisonous leaf.

Now that's just a SIMPLE example of how faith/belief effects your biology. There are more documented and extreme cases. In historical documented case, one scientist disagreed that said bacteria was deadly to the human being. To prove that the bacteria was harmless, he drinks a vile of it in front of his colleagues. No symptoms, not now, not later. The colleagues just completely dismiss what they've witnessed, and continue to label this bacteria deadly to the human being. Even Bruce, author of Biology of Belief acknowledges that he has grown up believing so deeply that this bacteria is dangerous to the human being, that even he doubts he could ever drink that vile.

There is no middle ground with faith. That doesn't make the science harder to study, it makes it easier, because that's only two factors the scientist has to consider. Yes or no.

I would like to see the results of that experiement for myself, because I can almost gurantee there was some shoddy detective work going on here, either that or someone fudged the results to match their preconceived result. How come this experiment hasn't been repeated? It has to work nearly everytime for it to be a legitimate positive experiment. And how do you explain how people get poison ivy without knowing they touched it? I used to get poison ivy all the time as a kid, but I didn't do it on purpose. I unknowingly brushed up against it and then later the rash would appear. I didn't expect for a rash to form, it just did, without the help of my mind. The same goes for people who think they can prevent disease with their minds. You don't know when you are going to get sick.

If I have never heard of this experiment, it means there is something about it that calls its validity into question, because those are obviously some pretty remarkable findings. So why are you so willing to take these stories at face value but in the same breath denounce all legitimate doctors? You are being played by your mind.

Originally Posted by LRT

I survive solely by hoping I don't die. Are you all going to believe me now?

No, that will never work. You have to say "I will live forever," that way it's a positive statement.

:-)