HOMEOPATHY AND SCIENCE (Page 2 of 3)

Stage 2: Classification

Over the last decade, homeopathy has shown new developments of classification. This has brought homeopathy its rapid development. But it’s not new. Hahnemann drew up his classification of Psora, Sycosis and Syphilis. Farrington and Leeser discussed themes and pictures of plant families. Vithoulkas listed the general characteristics of all the Kalis (Morrison).

The modern ways of working with classification are much more systematic. Mangialavori works with families. Sankaran has developed the classification of kingdoms, family themes and the miasms. Scholten classified all the remedies from the mineral kingdom through group analysis and the theory of the elements (Minerals, Elements) and plant family themes.

Classification Of Remedies

Remedies can be classified. The most obvious way is the chemical and biological classification. The principle of Perfinity (see Classification and Perfinity) predicts that the best classification on one level (the material world) will have a high chance of being the best classification at other levels (remedy pictures). That explains the success of the use of botanical and zoological families. Many family pictures have been made by Mangialavori, Sankaran and Scholten. And many remedy pictures have been predicted successfully.

With Bayes' theorem the probability of these theories can be ascertained. An example of the Element Theory (Homeopathy and Elements) makes this more explicit. The experiment is a case of a patient with severe tinnitus, where the theory of the Elements leads to the successful prescription of Cadmium carbonicum. The chance of finding this remedy with the old theory is very low, let’s say 1 in 4000 (one out of 4000 remedies). The chance of finding this remedy with the Element Theory is moderate, let’s say 50%. The probability of the Element theory is low before being tested, let’s say 1/1000, "almost unbelievable". From this we can calculate the new probability of the Element theory:

P (Theory Final) = P (Theory Initial) * P (Experiment New) /*

P (Experiment Old). P (Theory Final) = 1/10000 * 50% /* (1/4000) = 0,2.

With the above experiment, the value or truth of the new theory has increased from 0.01% to 20%. With each successful experiment the value of the hypothesis increases quickly.

Classification Of Pictures

The pictures of remedies in our Materia Medica’s are a set of unrelated symptoms. They are like colored spots on a painting that have no connection at all. No real picture arises.

For computers that will suffice, but humans are not good at remembering encyclopedias. Humans think in pictures. The need for meaningful pictures has found expression in many ways. For the last twenty years, homeopathy has been moving towards transforming remedy pictures into genuine pictures. The old proving pictures with rows and rows of unrelated symptoms are being changed into coherent, relevant pictures. Vithoulkas developed his ‘Essences’, Sankaran his ‘Basic delusion’, ‘Situational material medica’ and ‘Vital sensation’, Mangialavori developed his ‘Themes’, Scholten his ‘Concepts’ and ‘Essences’. It’s a process of abstracting from the symptoms. The goal of this process is to develop a central theme, from which all the symptoms can be deduced logically. It makes remedy pictures shorter and more understandable. The trick is to do it in such a way that no essential information gets lost.