So what exactly is your point here? We appear to be on the same page that the placebo effect, whatever the cause, is some kind of psycho-physiological response originating in the brain. Your article even says as much. And?
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'
