This morning as I was getting ready for work, the Today Show did a segment on this new medical treatment in neuropsychiatry called Brain Music Therapy
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Thank goodness I don't need to try everything before making a educated judgment on it. I've learned enough about bullshit that I can recognize its calling cards.
Music affecting human moods is nothing new; many people, nearly all humans ever, listen to music to relax or energize themselves. This "brain music" advertisement is not selling relaxing music. It's selling 500 bucks or more of placebo effect, with exactly no scientific evidence to support their claims of magic fluffery.
I wish, oh how I wish, that more people, and perhaps some day, all people, understood how to recognize bullshit; that they would someday all possess a baloney detection kit, as Carl Sagan called it. Anecdotal "evidence", unfalsifiable claims... such things set off alarm bells.
The human brain produces various frequencies according to what it is doing; alpha, beta, delta, mu; feel free to read up on them in wikipedia or where ever. Neurofeedback, a specific kind of biofeedback, is effective in treating certain disorders. Like all biofeedback, it's effectiveness is dependent on informing you of your body state(s) in real time.
Look, read up on it if you want... just no one give money to such con men, scammers and salesmen.
Not saying i'm "buying" into it, just saying there could be something to it and your just paranoid enough that it's a scam, you would never believe it even if there were scientific evidence..
I wouldn't have the money to give either. Nope nope, way too poor for that. I've got more important things to take it all up right now. *sigh*
I seriously do not understand why money became such a huge part of this conversation. Everyone else is entirely missing the point of this post by like 800 miles here. I still think it would be really cool to see what kind of music your brain makes, I'd love to see it. I'd totally do it if it were free or pretty cheap. I wouldn't mind seeing if it affected my mood any either. I'm just curious, and I think it's cool. Think of it like a display at the Boston Museum of Science or something. Wouldn't you be excited to go play with it and see?
I'm not paranoid, I'm skeptical. And the thing that sets science apart, is science is willing and able to change its conclusions when new evidence is available. If anyone uses the scientific method to investigate "brain music" and publishes their experimental set up and results for the scrutiny of other scientist in the field, then yes, I would believe it.
Just because I don't believe everything I am told doesn't mean I won't change my mind when real evidence is available.
"Music affecting human moods is nothing new; many people, nearly all humans ever, listen to music to relax or energize themselves."
"Neurofeedback, a specific kind of biofeedback, is effective in treating certain disorders."
Wait, now I'm really confused. How do you now make these two statements after spending so much time saying that the music they create from neurofeedback is "bullshit"?
Because brain music ISN'T biofeedback. Biofeedback works by telling you what your body is doing in real time, so you can make changes. This brain music thing is not biofeedback of any kind. If you want to understand, you could read up on it. Have you ever played the game hot and cold as a kid? One person hides something, and another looks for it. When the seeker moves closer to the object, the kid who hid it says "warmer, warmer...much warmer.." and when the seeker moves away, the other kid says "colder, colder, very cold". In a large house, where you might never find a small hidden object if searching randomly, you'll find an object in a game of hot and cold much more quickly. Here is another metaphor: Let's say you wanted to learn how to throw knives. What if you could not see the target or hear the knives hitting it? You'd never get any better. Biofeedback is like letting you see and hear the knives hitting the target. With each throw, you'd get real time feed back on how you were doing..."I need to throw a little harder; okay, I need to aim a little higher than the target, alright, that's too high, and I'm hitting slightly left of the target as well, now. " With all this information, you'd get better and better. Now, in this metaphor, brain music would not act like biofeedback. It would not let you see and hear the target and knives as your were throwing them. Instead it would take a picture of where the knives landed, and weeks later, it would send you some music interpreted from the locations of the knives; you'd never even get to see a picture of the target; you'd never know which of your throws were closest, which ones bounced, which ones were too high or too low. Would this help you improve your aim? It doesn't seem likely that it would, but hey, let's give it a chance. We could use the scientific method to gather scientific evidence. But the brain music does not do that. Instead, they found a few people willing to say that it worked for them; anecdotal evidence, the worst kind of evidence, the kind that is worthless to anyone who understands how to gather information about reality.
Ok, so it's not feedback, and it doesn't tell you anything. Ok.
But if music affects your moods and whatnot, brain music can too, it's still music! It just might not be a targeted effect like you might be looking to get. Oh well.
But wouldn't you still like to see a swirly picture or listen to cool music? You are the one who posted that web thing that turns pictures to sounds, after all.
Forget about the money, pretend it was free. Pretend it was a display at the Boston Museum of Science, or the center of the mall. Wouldn't you wanna see what kind of music your brainwaves sound like? Just for fun? Just for curiousity?
I think I'd actually like to see them do a study on people, and see what all kinds of people's brainwaves would sound like when translated to music, and then they could study the people and see if the way their brainwaves sounded corresponded to any specific personality types and behaviour patterns, how people were likely to end up, what they were likely to do, etc. I think that would bet absolutely fascinating.
I've learned enough about bullshit that I can recognize its calling cards.
Music affecting human moods is nothing new; many people, nearly all humans ever, listen to music to relax or energize themselves.
This "brain music" advertisement is not selling relaxing music. It's selling 500 bucks or more of placebo effect, with exactly no scientific evidence to support their claims of magic fluffery.
I wish, oh how I wish, that more people, and perhaps some day, all people, understood how to recognize bullshit; that they would someday all possess a baloney detection kit, as Carl Sagan called it.
Anecdotal "evidence", unfalsifiable claims... such things set off alarm bells.
The human brain produces various frequencies according to what it is doing; alpha, beta, delta, mu; feel free to read up on them in wikipedia or where ever. Neurofeedback, a specific kind of biofeedback, is effective in treating certain disorders. Like all biofeedback, it's effectiveness is dependent on informing you of your body state(s) in real time.
Look, read up on it if you want... just no one give money to such con men, scammers and salesmen.
Reply
Not saying i'm "buying" into it, just saying there could be something to it and your just paranoid enough that it's a scam, you would never believe it even if there were scientific evidence..
Reply
I seriously do not understand why money became such a huge part of this conversation. Everyone else is entirely missing the point of this post by like 800 miles here. I still think it would be really cool to see what kind of music your brain makes, I'd love to see it. I'd totally do it if it were free or pretty cheap. I wouldn't mind seeing if it affected my mood any either. I'm just curious, and I think it's cool. Think of it like a display at the Boston Museum of Science or something. Wouldn't you be excited to go play with it and see?
Reply
And the thing that sets science apart, is science is willing and able to change its conclusions when new evidence is available.
If anyone uses the scientific method to investigate "brain music" and publishes their experimental set up and results for the scrutiny of other scientist in the field, then yes, I would believe it.
Just because I don't believe everything I am told doesn't mean I won't change my mind when real evidence is available.
Reply
"Neurofeedback, a specific kind of biofeedback, is effective in treating certain disorders."
Wait, now I'm really confused. How do you now make these two statements after spending so much time saying that the music they create from neurofeedback is "bullshit"?
Reply
This brain music thing is not biofeedback of any kind.
If you want to understand, you could read up on it.
Have you ever played the game hot and cold as a kid?
One person hides something, and another looks for it.
When the seeker moves closer to the object, the kid who hid it says "warmer, warmer...much warmer.." and when the seeker moves away, the other kid says "colder, colder, very cold". In a large house, where you might never find a small hidden object if searching randomly, you'll find an object in a game of hot and cold much more quickly.
Here is another metaphor: Let's say you wanted to learn how to throw knives. What if you could not see the target or hear the knives hitting it?
You'd never get any better. Biofeedback is like letting you see and hear the knives hitting the target. With each throw, you'd get real time feed back on how you were doing..."I need to throw a little harder; okay, I need to aim a little higher than the target, alright, that's too high, and I'm hitting slightly left of the target as well, now. " With all this information, you'd get better and better.
Now, in this metaphor, brain music would not act like biofeedback. It would not let you see and hear the target and knives as your were throwing them. Instead it would take a picture of where the knives landed, and weeks later, it would send you some music interpreted from the locations of the knives; you'd never even get to see a picture of the target; you'd never know which of your throws were closest, which ones bounced, which ones were too high or too low.
Would this help you improve your aim?
It doesn't seem likely that it would, but hey, let's give it a chance.
We could use the scientific method to gather scientific evidence.
But the brain music does not do that. Instead, they found a few people willing to say that it worked for them; anecdotal evidence, the worst kind of evidence, the kind that is worthless to anyone who understands how to gather information about reality.
Reply
But if music affects your moods and whatnot, brain music can too, it's still music! It just might not be a targeted effect like you might be looking to get. Oh well.
But wouldn't you still like to see a swirly picture or listen to cool music?
You are the one who posted that web thing that turns pictures to sounds, after all.
Forget about the money, pretend it was free. Pretend it was a display at the Boston Museum of Science, or the center of the mall. Wouldn't you wanna see what kind of music your brainwaves sound like? Just for fun? Just for curiousity?
I think I'd actually like to see them do a study on people, and see what all kinds of people's brainwaves would sound like when translated to music, and then they could study the people and see if the way their brainwaves sounded corresponded to any specific personality types and behaviour patterns, how people were likely to end up, what they were likely to do, etc. I think that would bet absolutely fascinating.
Reply
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