Quantum mechanics wanted, must have own tools, please inquire yesterday. :D I've been getting into quantum physics a lot since watching "What the BLEEP do we Know" last year. It's absolutely fascinating. As it might apply to hypnotism, I read that Joe Vitale has a hypnosis session he created to help people attract what they want. In quantum terms, this relates to superposition and collapsing potentiality waves into discrete events. I've never communicated with Joe Vitale, but we have a phenomenally accomplished hypnotist here. So, any idea if hypnotism can help focus concentration to the extent that one can collapse waves of potential into a specific, desired reality? :)

Can I be hypnotized to know what the stock market, or at least my favorite stocks, are going to do next week, month, year?????

Presumably, if reality is not set until it is observed (the Observer Effect, made famous by Herr Schroedinger and his alive-or-dead cat), then if it's possible, you could collapse the wave of possible futures for your stock into a particle, a specific future for that stock. So we don't have to just see the future, but is possible to create it. Now, seeing the future should also not be a problem. Many physicists agree that there is no actual reason that we must only move forward in time, and that we can only change the future and only see the past. Seeing into the future should be as possible as seeing forward or backward or up or down in one of the other dimensions. An example of changing the past is found in the famous double-slit experiment. An electron moving through the double-slits appears as a wave unless it is observed, at which time it collapses into a particle. Now, if the electron moves through the double-slits and is observed after emerging on the other side, it collapses into a particle _that moved through one or the other of the two slits_. By observing the effect, after the effect, we have collapsed what was a wave into something that is _and was_ a particle, and so we have in fact changed the past. :)

In response to Deception who asked: "Can I be hypnotized to know what the stock market, or at least my favorite stocks, are going to do next week, month, year?????" You know that's an interesting question, and a good one. I'm a true believer that magic works and the mind can do some extraordinary things. I've heard it said that if a person is able to focus their mind correctly, they can even magnetically pull the universe towards them to increase their odds of winning the lottery. When it comes to lottery, it's random - so it's theoretically possible. However when it comes to the stock market, it's not about the mind manipulating a random possibility. After all, real people are involved in a stock market and therefore there are basically countless amounts of people are wishing for the same thing. The best way I can explain it is kind of like looking at a football game. There are people that want Team A to win and there are people who want Team B to win. If I were to do a hypnosis session that says, "I can hypnotize you to make your favorite team win every time" it would essentially be false. Because there are universal forces that equally want each time to win. Even with that example thrown out of the equation, it all comes down to free will. Free will is a huge thing. If we as humans were able to magically or hypnotically manipulate a stock market (which I do believe could be possible but I'd have to be really high to figure that one out lol)... then that's essentially taking away people's free will. It's an interesting topic that's for sure. Even if I theoretically made such a recording, I can already predict the thousands of emails from people who aren't magically inclined all writing me with the same response: "it didn't work on me." I do believe that if people knew how to effectively heal, use magic, shamanic powers, and could travel in and out of various universal dimensions - I definitely think such a thing could be achieved. It could also be argued that such a strong power like that could be seen as being destructive with the ability to null and void other people's desires.

Actually, Isabella, I can, and do, control the stock market already. I don't know what factors are behind it, ie. quantum mechanics or hypnosis, but it is errily close to 100%! The only problem is that it is not the way I want it to be, but almost the exact opposite! For example, if I buy a stock, guaranteed, it will go down like a rock! And whenever I sell, it will go up like a skyrocket! Can you think of a metaphysical explanation for that? Now ironically, you included making all my favorite sports teams win. When I am on the phone with someone who is in a customer service department and we are in the process of ending the phone call, they will typically ask, "is there anything else that I can do for you?" I will respond facetiously with, "1) can you make my investments go up? 2) can you make my favorite sports teams win? and 3) can you improve the weather?" That usually gets a laugh. But how about changing the weather? ....using hypnosis????? And what happened to the Brainstorm Vault?

The Brainstorm Vault is on IsabellaValentine.com in the "forum" section :)

To use Isabella's analogy, there is a huge difference between supernaturally altering the outcome of a game and being better able to predict the outcome of a game. There are many things you can do to be able to better predict the outcome, and that change is within yourself, so there is no reason it couldn't be accomplished through hypnosis. Likewise, you cannot change the weather, but you can change your perception of and reaction to the weather. There is no such thing as bad weather in my world. The weather is the weather and my love for it is unconditional. Regarding quantum physics and causality, there is a school of thought that it is our observation of the Big Bang that retroactively caused it to happen. Personally I find that idea difficult to take without a grain of salt, but there are smarter people than I out there who believe it.

I’ve been intrigued by the relationship of quantum physics to Nick Bostrom’s simulation hypothesis. (explained here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_hypothesis)

If we are living in a simulation, it stands to reason that there is some limit to the granularity of the simulation. At our current, primitive stage, the limits of technology limit the detail of simulation swe create – as you zoom in the image becomes fuzzy. But in advanced simulations, the zoomed image can sharpen once the focus is locked a particular portion. In this way, the precise detail need only be defined when needed. In the Quantum portion of the simulation we are living in the “image” is a fuzzy range of possibilities – that become sharpened to just one possibility when we observe closely. So the Quantum world supports Bostrom’s hypothesis.

Hah - actually I have always taken QM as making a simulation unlikely. Here's the counter-argument.

A simulation, by definition, involves an algorithmic system in which a frame is constructed step by step from a previous frame.

The problem is that, in order to construct a frame step by step from a previous frame you have to actually *have* a previous frame - a starting point. But the 'steps' to construct a timeline in a QM universe have no hidden variables - there is no 'definite' previous frame to construct the next frame from. Moreover Bell's Theorem proves that it is not possible to construct any hidden variable system which produces the results of quantum mechanics via acting on hidden variables algorithmically.

Since, in order to produce a simulation in a computer you have to be able to have a computer that can save the state of the simulation at any given moment (A consequence of Turing Machines that applies (as nearly as I can tell) even to quantum computers) you must have hidden variable with which to save states.

But, there is no algorithmic system with which you can reproduce a quantum mechanical system with hidden variables.

So, as nearly as I can tell, it's impossible to 'simulate' a quantum mechanical universe. You're either in one, or you are in a bad simulation of one, but whichever you are in is verifiable from the inside.

Or so it seems to me - Pug