Let's say you have a condition that responds to, say, goldenrod. According to homeopathic principles, the less you take, the more effect the medicine will have, so you take a dose of goldenrod and mix it in with a gallon of water. You shake until it's all mixed in, then take a tenth of that gallon and mix it in with another nine-tenths of a gallon. Shake again. Take a tenth of THAT gallon, repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

What you have in the end is a 6X homeopathic mixture, in which the goldenrod is one part in a million. All particles of goldenrod were almost certainly eliminated from the mixture about halfway through the process. So how does the goldenrod act on you? Ah, say the homeopaths, the vibrations of the goldenrod were imprinted upon the water.

Fair enough. What I want to know is: How does the water know what to imprint? Along with that goldenrod came metals from the spoon, plastics or glass from the containers, all kinds of interesting chuff from the air, and uric acid from a thousand thousand creatures' kidneys. Why doesn't the water become an incredibly powerful Potion of Pee? Or a Tincture of Measuring Spoon? Why don't the traces of my personal DNA floating in the Boston water table turn the regional water supply into a naturally occurring, mind-bending, minion-making Elixir of Issendai?

Water is STUPID, god damn it. I should rule by now! Hordes of uncommonly healthy minions should be at my command! I should be able to subdue a city by flushing a used Kleenex down a public toilet and waiting a month! Why is water bustling about giving people doses of quinine and snake venom when it could be giving them life-altering doses of ME?

Water will bow before me. I SHALL RULE THE WATER.

And then I shall rule you.

Just wait.