Why do some people seem to be able to control their destinies while others seem to simply drift along in life? Like Yogi Berra once said “If you don’t know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else.”. Maybe the edge that the “controllers” have over the “drifters” is something I call “quantum wishing”.
Let me start by saying that I am not deeply into mysticism, magic and such, although the subject matter of this blog may give that impression.
What do quantum mechanics and wishes have in common? Well, hold on tight for a wild ride.
Understanding this relationship requires a little bit of background in one crazy discipline … quantum mechanics (QM). QM is a branch of physics that deals with the universe at the most elementary levels. It also has some strange implications concerning the way human consciousness and the world interact.
The results of experiments empirically show that the mere act of observation can have an effect on the results of the experiment itself. Basically what this means (in some QM interpretations) is that the act of observing changes the nature of reality. Hmmm, sounds weird huh? Well get this, until observed, every particle is everywhere simultaneously and reality isn’t defined until it is observed. You need to trust me on this one. I don’t have the time or space to go into collapsing wave functions, quantum superposition or quantum decoherence. For those skeptics among you, Google phrases like “Young’s double slit experiment”, “Schrödinger’s Cat”, “Copenhagen Interpretation” or “Multi Worlds Interpretation” for a more in depth explanation of QM. You fans of “the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” probably recognize that the spaceship Heart of Gold’s infinite improbability drive is a humorous adaptation of the Copenhagen interpretation.
So far we know that observation changes, or in some sense, creates reality. But how does that tie into wishing? Well, let’s define what we mean by a wish. Traditionally a wish is a supernatural granting of a person’s specific and stated desire. I said I I’m going to try not to be metaphysical, so let’s get rid of the words “supernatural granting” with replace them with “the fulfillment”. That leaves us with the definition of a wish as …the fulfillment of a person’s specific and stated desire. Without evoking the supernatural, our definition no longer describes how a desire is fulfilled. That’s where the “quantum” part comes in.
As we saw above, QM allows for a reality which is somewhat fluid and malleable. If there were a mechanism which allowed for the selection of certain quantum values (for the techies “wave function collapses”), “reality” could be manipulated. I think that there is such a mechanism and it is the human mind, both singularly and collectively.
You probably have seen people concentrate on a task before they act. A golfer will visualize a shot before executing it. They want to “see” what will happen. Successful people in business, particularly entrepreneurs know what they want … they have a “vision”. Even unsuccessful people have visions. How many of you know a worry wart whose worst fears eventually materialize or the hypochondriac who eventually succumbs to a disease they fretted over? We sometimes call these self fulfilling prophecies. All these actions have one thing in common … they mentally reshape the world for the one doing the visualizing. For the purpose of this blog we will make “visualization” and “wishing” synonymous.
People who successfully visualize or “wish” are interacting with their environment and making slight changes in the direction in which the future “flows”. They are “observing” a future state and “collapsing” that state’s quantum wave function. They have made a “quantum choice” and selected a reality.
Whew! This stuff is pretty strange … but QM is strange … and it is science!
Why is it that some visualizations/wishes are successful and others are not? That’s a little trickier to ascertain. From personal experience it seems that “wishes coming true” is tied to strong emotions. The athlete with butterflies in their stomach or the hypochondriac gripped with fear is experiencing an emotional event. Limerence and passion can be particularly powerful compliments to visualization for wish fulfillment. However, visualization or emotions alone are not sufficient to make a quantum state selection. Not every wish comes true. Those that do are the result of a very clearly defined vision coupled to a deep and strong emotion.
If “quantum wishing” is so powerful, why is it that we don’t find ourselves caught in some ever changing reality? Guess what? We are! Successful “wishes” are indeed making constant and subtle changes to our reality. We are unaware of these shifts in reality because we were not participants in the choices of others. As far as we are concerned, the reality we are experiencing is solid and firm..
The general background of reality is a fabric woven by the collective conscious of humanity. These are the “quantum choices” which have stacked up over the ages to produce what we generally perceive as “reality”. Trees are known to all as trees and clouds as clouds. It would take an awful lot of visualizations and emotions to repaint that whole picture. Even young infants have a certain intrinsic understanding of the world. Before they develop intellectually enough to have their own, private reality, they have the collective reality. Even the mentally handicapped have a limited perception of reality which they didn’t develop on their own. They share part of the collective view. An individual can, however, influence quantum reality in subtle and limited ways. It happens all the time. When we are not wishing (which is 99%+ of the time) we are drifting along the flowing stream of collective consciousness as defined by the ages and others who are putting small ripple in the stream with their own successful “wishes”.
I myself have had “wishes” come true. When they did, they were a combination of a strong emotion coupled with a very clearly defined and visualized expectation. I was surprised when I found out that my “reality” ended up matching my desire, at least for a period of time. Prior to actually experiencing this “reality” and actually “wishing” I gave the probability of the outcome as slim to none. A QW which happened quite a while ago involved travel to another country. I desperately wanted to go to Europe but I had nothing to support this desire except, well … desire. This “QW” came to pass.
How does one control this “quantum wishing”? I don’t have the answer to that. It takes a very special combination of concentrated visualizing and emotional energy to shift reality. There are a couple of regions in the human brain which seem to come into play. These are the limbic system and the prefrontal cortex. The limbic system is a relatively “primitive” (evolutionarily older) part of the brain where the emotions are thought to arise from. The “flight or fight” reactions, along with love, hate, anger and such are thought to be generated here, deep within the brain. The prefrontal area of the brain (right up under your forehead) is the “developed” (evolutionarily young) part of the brain which gives us, as humans, our consciousness and the ability for creative thought. Under the right set of circumstances these two brain regions interact in a way that permits a “quantum observations” of the future and thus wish fulfillment.
With the tie to the physical brain, it seems that “quantum wish” fulfillment is the result of certain pharmacological changes in these areas, particularly in the limbic system, combining with the focus of consciousness centered in the prefrontal cortex. Strong emotions evoke strong chemical responses in the brain. During orgasm, Lovers exude oxytocin which produces pair bonding and quiescence, but can also somewhat quell the powerful emotion of fear. Fear produces adrenaline, corticosterone and other compounds. Infatuation can be seen as a combination of love and fear which produces a particularly high emotional charge. How these areas of the brain interact to form conditions favorable to fulfillment of “quantum wishes” remains to be seen. Going “way out there” and speculating about the future, it may someday be possible to control reality through the use of very specific chemical cocktails combined with consciousness focusing techniques like meditation or bio-feedback. That would be very scary if it it came to pass and fell into the wrong hands!
It could be that our reality is shifting around us more than we know. Religions have at their basis the ability to dictate the beliefs of their members with the goal of having everyone partake in a common “vision”. If a religion can have their devotees share the same clear vision and then whip them into an emotional fury, perhaps through hate, a major reality shift could happen. A large enough body of people in this condition may very well be sufficient to make changes to the “collective consciousness” I mentioned earlier. If so, then that collective vision would become the “default” reality. There are certain radical religions that seem to be attempting just such a thing right now.
Well, enough blogging for now. If you’ve managed to read this far I’m sure that I have already bored you to tears. Perhaps I’ll expound on this subject sometime in the future. I guess what this all boils down to is that reality is not some fixed, unalterable condition, but rather it is subject to the “quantum wishes” of individuals or groups. Just remember: Be careful what you wish for … you may just get it!
