Expecting your brain to operate in a way that produces certain frequencies because your ears are detecting air vibrations with those frequencies sounds extremely homeopathic.
I wouldn't go so far as to say such an idea is on the level of homeopathy—scientist certainly do induce ("entrain") the brain to certain frequencies of operation using flashing lights. The general principle is sound.
But, I would emphasize, they usually do that by first genetically modifying the creature whose brain they want to manipulate to make some of its neurons into opto-couplers. They wouldn't be doing that if there was an easier way. :)
(It turns out that—even without the genetic modification—some frequencies of flashing light do cause the brain to do certain things. See, for example, https://cosmosmagazine.com/biology/flashing-light-clears-tox.... But the effects of this, from what I understand, aren't the same effect you would get by actually getting the brain to entrain to that frequency; it's maybe entraining the pulse-rate of the brain's glymphatic channels or somesuch, but not synaptic firing.)
We perceive visual stimuli as distinct events (up to a certain frequency), but when hearing, a 40 Hz sound isn't perceived as 40 individual sounds per second.
That's kinda what I'm getting at. My understanding is that brain waves are more akin to a CPU clock, with various processes being synchronized, than to a sound wave. If that's the case, then you wouldn't have any reason to expect sound to make a difference in your brain's clock rate, but you could reasonably expect light pulses to.
Who is the arbiter of whether something is "extraordinary"? You? Perhaps you should do some cursory investigation on published research before being so quick to judgement.
To be clear, we're talking about binaural beats. There's no such published research showing any kind of results. I haven't been "quick to judgement", binaural beats have been on the level of homeopathy for over 20 years now.
Whether or not there is evidence of this particular thing is irrelevant, because this subthread is about whether skepticism is just as irrational as blind belief when confronted with unsupported claims.
Better still, default to having a strong opinion only with good reason, and the capacity to quickly give it up when presented with a more compelling view.
And then of course... we shouldn't expect to be able to sum up highly effective heuristics for understanding the world in a single sentence.
Someone who maintains something is true while lacking any evidence of that. There's an infinity of possible untrue statements, but only finite amount of research resource. Disproving every crackpot theory doesn't advance actual science one tiny bit.
The proposition "listening to music affects your mood" is very different from the proposition "listening to a certain frequency of tone causes your brain to produce waves at a corresponding frequency."
Sure but who said anything about music? The word music doesn't appear in the original link or in any other comment on this page, or in the link I posted.
Large amounts of sensory input with a certain rhythm affecting brain firing is known to happen; see seizures. And the idea has a pretty obvious mechanism. So your comparison is not fair at all.
