Letters to the Editor
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Multiple personality article
I was cruising along with this piece, digging the author's thesis on uncertainty, which I agree with, when suddenly we dive down this rabbit hole into a multi-paragraph diatribe in which he riffs loudly and repeatedly on his atheist, materialist mindset. What have you got against the placebo effect, Bob? Have you considered that in your cosmos, where the mind is supposedly a bottom-up system of neural illusions that has no causal power, the placebo effect represents a contradiction of that: the effect of the "mind" on the body from the top down? Don't dismiss the placebo effect so lightly; it's one of the more fascinating mysteries of mind-body medicine.
Anyway, I thought some editorial judgment was called for here. The guy's book may be brilliant, but his application for membership in the Daniel Dennett/Steven Pinker "we're meaningless bunches of neurons" club was irritating. Yes, we know you were trying to establish your scientific street cred, Dr. Burns, but I don't care. I just want to know if I should bang down $20 for your book.