Heroes Not Zombies

Interesting article on ScienceDaily today about a physicist postulating the existence of non-particles. It’s one of those mind-bending thoughts that physicists are so good at – maybe not everything is made of particles? Maybe there’s something else? “Non-particles”?

The line that really caught my attention was this –

a theorist who restricts their imagination to merely the likely possibilities probably isn’t trying hard enough.

I totally agree. This is true in life as well as physics. If you only think about the kinds of things you’ve already thought about you’re either stuck in a loop or you’re restricting your view.

The area of clinical practice in which I work is Homeopathic Medicine – as a doctor in the National Health Service, in Scotland’s only NHS Homeopathic Hospital. Some people ridicule homeopathy because they say there is “no plausible mechanism” to explain how it can work. But two thirds of the patients we see at the Homeopathic Hospital have already failed to have their pain, wheeze, depression, whatever, relieved by the best “Evidence based” treatments, but get relief after treatment with homeopathic medicines. It might be hard to accept that a treatment we can’t explain can have a useful place within the Health Service but the daily reality is that it does. So, I say to other doctors or “scientists” who dismiss this form of treatment, learn from the physicists…..

Try harder, imagine the unlikely as well as the likely.