title: A new perspective on "the placebo effect": untangling the entanglement.
abstract: It is generally accepted that a placebo in a standard, randomized, controlled trial (RCT), being an inert substance, cannot itself produce any effects. Yet, the magnitude of the placebo effect has increased remarkably in the last three decades. We propose that macroscopic information entanglement potentially explains a change in the placebo such that it no longer behaves as an isolated and inert element in a RCT. In modeling a theoretical perspective for the placebo effect, we will first show that human intention can change physical properties of target materials or biological systems. Second, we will explain how human intention appears to raise the gauge symmetry state of the experimental space from the normal electric, atom molecule level [U(1) gauge state] to a higher gauge symmetry level with magnetic wave information properties [SU(2) gauge state]. Under normal circumstances, these two separate gauge states do not interact with each other. Human intention is able to "condition" space so that the U(1) and SU(2) gauge states can interact or become "coupled". Intention effects are robust in the coupled space. Entanglement or connectivity of systems is seen by virtue of the SU(2) magnetic wave information component in coupled space. A medical trial has several "subsystems" including the doctors, subjects, treatment, and placebo. Although these subsystems in U(1) gauge state appear to be separate, they are entangled by the magnetic information wave component. Thus, the placebo becomes information entangled with the other subsystems in the overall experiment, including the treatment, and the end result is that the treatment and the placebo may behave in a very similar fashion.
authors.affiliation: Division of Rheumatology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN 55905, USA. manek.nisha@mayo.edu
authors.forename: Nisha J
authors.initials: NJ
authors.lastname: Manek
authors.forename: William A
authors.initials: WA
authors.lastname: Tiller
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D015990:Placebo Effect; D016032:Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic