Ke Xun shared his thoughts with Mu Yiran and Zhu Haowen. Even with their eyes closed, Ke Xun could sense the momentary silence that followed, as if a sudden realization had dawned on them.
"You know," Zhu Haowen finally spoke, his tone carrying a strange undertone, "to satirize the orthodox 'uncertainty theory,' Schrödinger proposed the 'Schrödinger's cat' theory. At the time, it certainly stumped the orthodox school, because they genuinely couldn't explain the superposition of the cat's life and death.
"This problem became a puzzle that countless physicists tried to solve. Until a physicist named Everett appeared, who proposed the many-worlds hypothesis, which is what we usually call parallel universes."
"Using the double-slit experiment as an example, how does a single electron pass through both slits simultaneously? The many-worlds theory posits that after the electron passes through the slits, two superimposed worlds appear. In one world, the electron passes through the left slit, while in the other, it passes through the right slit.
"In this way, the wave function doesn't need to collapse to randomly choose whether to pass through the left or right slit, because multiple universes exist. In universe A, the electron passes through the left slit, while in universe B, it's observed to pass through the right slit.
"This theory can then be used to explain Schrödinger's cat. According to Everett, the two cats in the box, one alive and one dead, both exist in the real world, but they reside in two parallel, different worlds, thus exhibiting a superposition state.
"This makes it very easy to understand the program's suicidal behavior." The program sees itself as Schrödinger's cat. While alive, it lost its son, so it puts itself in a superposition state, creating parallel universes. The dead version of itself exists in one universe, while the living version goes to another to find its son who lives in that other universe.
"Wait," Ke Xun said, "The program dies in the way Schrödinger's cat does, but its son didn't; he jumped directly from the building. How can that be superimposed?"
"The principle is the same," Zhu Haowen said. "If you replace Schrödinger's cat with a person, and the hammer with a gun, and the person commits suicide with a gun, since the bullet is made up of a bunch of particles with wave function properties, there will always be a very, very small possibility that all the particles collapse towards a certain possibility—that they all bypass the person's head, allowing the person to live safely and unharmed."
"—Although the possibility of this is extremely slim, due to the existence of the many universes theory, each universe exhibits one of the superposition states. Therefore, among billions of parallel universes, there will always be one universe exhibiting the state where 'all the particles constituting the bullet bypass the person's head.'
"And the same applies to other methods of suicide—whether it's jumping off a building, cutting wrists, taking poison, electrocution, or hanging—there will always be parallel universes where he is still alive; there will always be a universe where the suicide victim never dies.
"This situation is called 'quantum immortality.'
"What the program is looking for is his son living in the quantum immortality universe."
Ke Xun paused for a moment, then said, "So, if finding the program or his son is the only way to find the signature, does that mean… we also have to commit suicide?"
Zhu Haowen was stunned upon hearing this. He hadn't even started thinking about it in this direction, but Ke Xun's mind had already turned to this. "
No, we don't have to commit suicide," Mu Yiran, who had been quietly listening to the two of them, spoke up. "Even if parallel universes exist in the real world, the program has already died in our universe, and the living version is already in another universe. Even if we were to follow his example and split off a parallel universe through death, the living version of us would still go to another universe just like him. In the universe we are in right now, if we die, searching for the signature will be meaningless."
"That's right," Ke Xun slapped his forehead. "I've been terrified by everything I've learned today, and I've unconsciously started to treat the real world as the world in the painting—now that you mention it, don't you think the malice of the 'painting' is getting stronger and stronger? In the painting 'The Scarlet Beast,' it tempted us to treat the world in the painting as the real world. In this painting, it's even enticing us to treat the real world as the world in the painting, making us start to question and despair about the real world." "If the Crimson Beast only made us want to stay in the painting, this painting is trying to make us lose even the will to live!"
"What you said is giving me the chills." Wei Dong's voice came from the side.
"As you said," Shao Ling's voice followed, "the brilliance of this painting lies in the fact that everything it uses to 'guide' us is a scientific theory and hypothesis that actually exists in the real world. It's like someone deceiving you with completely true facts. So, is this deception a deception or the truth?"
"Brother Shao, please stop talking. The way you're asking it, the more I think about it, the more I feel like this is the truth." Luo Yi exclaimed in fright.
"I asked you to figure out the clues. Have you figured them out yet before you started getting involved?" Ke Xun asked.
"I was thinking about it, but I got distracted by what you guys were saying." Wei Dong said, "Since the boss means we can't die, but the Cheng father and son aren't in the same universe as us, how are we going to find the signature?" "
Actually, I have some thoughts on what Ke Xun just said about consciousness." Mu Yiran looked at Ke Xun, whose eyes were closed and he couldn't see, which for some reason made her feel a little sorry for him. So she couldn't help but reach out and hold his hand, immediately receiving his usual warm response, her hand being held tightly by his fingers interlaced.
"Since the program firmly believes that consciousness determines matter," Mu Yiran continued, "then his physical body, as matter, has died, but what about his consciousness? Does it still exist in this world, just that we can't see it? Since consciousness determines matter, can we get the signature by finding his consciousness?"
"I feel that's harder than finding his physical body," Luo Yiran said. "At least the physical body has form and substance, but consciousness is something intangible, colorless, and without mass. How can we find it? Is it just drifting randomly in the air? Drifting wherever it wants, blown away two miles away by the wind?" "
Speaking of the relationship between consciousness and matter," Shao Ling said, "materialists believe that matter determines or derives from consciousness, while idealists believe that consciousness determines or derives from matter. Both of these views are called 'monism' in philosophy. However, there is also 'dualism,' which states that matter and consciousness do not have a determining or deriving relationship; they exist in parallel."
"This view has some supporters even in the physics community," Zhu Haowen continued Shao Ling's words, "Some people believe that the human body and consciousness belong to different dimensions. The body is a three-dimensional being existing in four-dimensional space, while consciousness exists in multi-dimensional space. In a sense, it makes sense that they exist in parallel."
"What is four-dimensional space?" Wu You's voice came through.
She sounded quite calm now.
"In physics, the four dimensions, simply put, refer to length, quantity, temperature, and time," Zhu Haowen said. "The body exists in four-dimensional space and is limited by time. It can only advance and develop according to the timeline and cannot jump freely between the past, present, and future."
"However, consciousness is not limited by time. It can instantly travel to a certain point in the past and switch back and forth between cause and effect.
"To give a simple example, if we want to go from point A to point B, the physical body can only move from A to B over time, but our consciousness can instantly imagine that we have arrived at point B, and can even instantly imagine everything about point B. The physical body cannot prevent consciousness from 'flying' to point B."
"So, the coexistence of the two isn't entirely without basis." "
In other words, since all the plausible assumptions in this painting can be true, we can use this law to make it real, and then leave the program's consciousness in this universe," Ke Xun said. "As long as we find its consciousness, we can find the signature!"
"Isn't that the problem?" Wei Dong shrugged. "The key is that this consciousness is invisible and intangible, how do we find it?"
Ke Xun held up a finger: "Honey, don't we have the Book of Laws and the toolbox? What if consciousness can also be used as a tool?"
As soon as he finished speaking, Ke Xun heard several people's bodies tremble.
"This idea is very imaginative," Qin Ci said. "I think we can give it a try."
"I'll do it." It was Zhu Haowen who spoke, quickly opening the Book of Laws on his interface.
"The dualism of matter and consciousness."
[Resources are being used, please try again later.]
"What does that mean?" Wei Dong asked hurriedly.
Mu Yiran pondered for a moment: "Perhaps it's because Ke Xun's dice kept rolling, which is like a document on a computer being opened and used. If you click to open the document again, it will be locked, write-protected, or only allowed to read-only. An open document cannot be edited on the first page while simultaneously being modified on the fourth page."
"But can't we use these functions simultaneously in different levels?" Luo Yiran asked.
"Back then, 'documents' became shared online documents, and we could modify them simultaneously on different networks," Mu Yiran said. "The most obvious example is the document function of our chat software, QQ. Now we're practically in the same room, sharing a computer and its document resources."
"So does that mean I have to stop rolling the dice, release the resources it's using, and then others can use it?" Ke Xun said. "No wonder the dice-rolling process has to be done in turns, not all at once."
"But if Ke Xun stops rolling the dice, it means he's rolled a number and started another round of the process. The next person only has a 60-second interval. We have to use the rules and items to find the program's consciousness within those 60 seconds. If we can't, the next person has to roll the dice again," Zhu Haowen said. "And if we've all rolled the dice and still haven't found the program's consciousness, we have to enter the level again and go through it once more before we can come back here and continue using the rules and items to find the program's consciousness."
"No need!" Deng Lin suddenly said, "Didn't that guy surnamed Mu just say that once we enter the level, we can all use the laws and items simultaneously? Then we can try to find the program's consciousness together in the level, right?"
"But what if one group finds the program's consciousness and gets a signature because of it? What about the others?" Wei Dong asked him.
Deng Lin opened his mouth, but ultimately remained silent.