The matter/energy equivalence deepity
From a minor update to my energy medicine article, on the subject of using matter/energy equivalence as a justification for techniques like reiki and therapeutic touch…
A deepity is a vague idea that is either true but trivial, or profound but bullshit, depending on which aspect is more useful in a given moment. Energy medicine leans heavily on one of the most classic of all deepities: that we are “made of energy,” or (even more broadly) that “everything is energy.”
The prosaic interpretation of this certainly true — an undeniable fact of physics — but it’s also irrelevant to human affairs, unless you work at a particle accelerator or a nuclear power plant.
The profound implication — that a concept from advanced physics is somehow useful in medicine and therapy — is utter nonsense.
