In the early forties of the 21st century, in a laboratory in Beiping, Xiang Shan sat on the console. Behind him are a number of experts, including Chen Feng. Most of these researchers are from the field of cognitive science.

Opposite them was a man sitting in a chair. The man was around fifty years of age and wore a goggle device on his head that resembled a game character cosplay. But the device is essentially an ornament to compensate for the uncanny valley effect of his oversized prosthetic eye, which the volunteer's wife and children have complained about many times before is "scary".

The early prosthetic eye was slightly larger than the eyeball of a natural person.

The man's prosthetic eye was turned off, and the prosthetic ear had also adjusted its mode to block out the sound, and could only "hear" the voice signal from the external input. Xiang Shan picked up the microphone and said to the volunteer: "Mr. Pan, this is the last time, I will repeat it for the last time, this experiment may cause you a certain amount of physical discomfort, and it will last for a relatively long time. If you can't stand it, you can quit at any time. ”

"Got it, it's written in the contract." The man said nonchalantly.

This Mr. Pan is from Zhili (place name), and usually works as a massage. He was born to his mother who had a difficult birth and suffered retinal damage, causing congenital amblyopia. For him, there was only a faint sense of light in the world. Under the sun, people or vehicles are "little black balls that pass by". And last year, when he was worshipping his ancestors in his hometown, because of his bad eyes, he did not leave the side of a large firecracker in time, causing serious hearing damage.

It was at this time that the company founded by Xiang Shan developed the first generation of prosthetic eyes and ears, and entered the trial stage. They recruited volunteers and conducted a series of research in cognitive science. When Mr. Pan heard the news, he immediately signed up.

The company will provide volunteers with sensory prosthetics that were still hard to find at the time. These volunteers are required to cooperate in a series of experiments.

These artificial senses have been reliably data on primates. However, scientists still want to explore the role of "perception" in human cognitive processes.

After Mr. Pan obtained a prosthetic eye, he regained his "vision". In the beginning, he could see things, but he couldn't distinguish colors and didn't know what he was seeing. He can't even tell the difference between "near and far", and he even feels that the ground under the fifth-floor window is "within reach". He couldn't describe his vision.

The process by which he acquires vision is similar to that of a baby, only faster – he only needs to make connections between the experience he has and the visual signals.

And Mr. Pan's process of "mastering vision" has also left behind quite important research materials.

And now, it has been a year since the former amblyopia mastered vision. Now he is participating in the experiment of "hearing and visual replacement".

Early psychologists believed that if the outer end of the optic nerve was connected to the ear and then the auditory nerve to the eye, humans would be able to hear lightning and see thunder. But in reality, the human senses are much more complex than that, and visual and auditory processing are not achieved by the same neural activity.

"Vision" is not presented in the form of "video" in the brain. Extraneous light evokes excitement on the retina for cones and rods. This excitement translates into a sustained nerve signal. The "vision" that the brain processes is actually the "signal" rather than the "image" itself. And how this signal constitutes the world as we know it is of interest to scholars.

In this experiment, the images received by Mr. Pan's prosthetic eye, after being converted into nerve signals, are not sent to the optic nerve, but are forwarded to the router, which is then connected to the prosthetic ear and enters the brain along the auditory nerve. The stimuli received by the prosthetic ear are converted into nerve signals and then pass through the router and enter the optic nerve from the prosthetic eye.

It's just that when this experiment was carried out on monkeys, nearly two-thirds of the monkeys showed abnormal mania, so Xiang Shan warned again and again.

After the routine procedure, Xiang Shan looked at Chen Feng.

Chen Feng nodded and said, "The experiment begins." ”

"It's 9:45 a.m., the first trial." Xiang Shan said as he hit enter.

Instructions that have been written long ago start running.

Mr. Pan's sense of sight and hearing has been reversed.

Mr. Pan's first sentence was "It's so noisy".

And the second sentence is "Is this my voice?" ”

The third sentence is "Why is this so green?" Ahh Ahh Oh! Belch! Woo! Wipe! The voice...... It's so cool! ”

Then, Mr. Pan raised his hand to signal that he wanted to stand up. Xiang Shan said, "Permission." ”

Mr. Pan didn't understand. He exclaimed, "What is this?" A ...... of flowers Did you say anything? Professor Xiang? You just spoke? ”

"Yes." Xiang Shan replied tentatively.

But Mr. Pan still didn't understand: "Damn, you know what this color means......"

As he spoke, he stood up impatiently.

Immediately afterwards, Mr. Pan's face changed drastically. He tried to walk forward, but he didn't grasp the posture of his body at all, and immediately fell to the ground, vomiting wildly.

Xiang Shan immediately stopped the program. The on-call first aid squad on the side quickly followed up [this is mainly to prevent photosensitive epilepsy, hysteria, and shock caused by violent mood swings]

But in subsequent reports, the researchers learned a conclusion that was somewhat expected.

Mr. Pan's vomiting came from the confusion of his original sense of direction. He "heard" the light in front of himself, and "saw" the voices of the power to his left and right. After starting exercise, this triggered severe motion sickness.

In a follow-up experiment, the researchers chose to have Mr. Pan wear a covered helmet. The helmet has two prosthetic ears on the front and two prosthetic eyes on the sides.

In the following series of experiments, Mr. Pan maintained this state. He had about three days and was completely immersed in the "excitement". He would constantly experiment with his various voices to see what they "looked like". Like a baby, he will constantly grab small objects and throw them on the ground to "see" and "hear" - he will interact with the world in various ways.

But after three days, boredom gradually set in. He began to get agitated. Because in this state, he can't understand other people's languages. The words of others in his "eyes" were a halo of brilliance.

Mr. Pan was not the only one involved in the experiment. There are dozens of volunteers in the same batch. The vast majority of volunteers dropped out of the experiment at this stage because they couldn't stand the feeling of agitation. But a few persevered.

Scientists played music to these people, made them try to draw, and asked them to hum whatever song they wanted.

According to the report, the volunteers used the word "music" to describe their surroundings. To them, incandescent lamps are like sizzling white noise. Sunlight, on the other hand, resembles gurgling water. The natural scenery seems to them to be a complex musical movement at a glance. When they describe food, they often use sounds such as "cooing" or "saliva" that can easily trigger "hunger" associations.

In addition, some people even learned to "listen to others".

They are perfectly adapted to this strange pattern.

The human brain can be modified through experience to re-establish its own perceptual processing model.

The recent "non-hearing training" is based on these early experiments.

The construction of Saussure's Divine Domain allows some of the brain's functions to be more advanced and complex. The master of internal strength can occupy the neural resources of the brain for "visual processing" and use them to "process hearing". This mechanism is similar to the "compensation" of "blinder hearing", but it is more controllable.

"I actually have similar seeds, but I've never done them...... Matsushima and Jadel also only went deeper. Be attentive...... I can do that too. Xiang Shan said to himself, "See the thunder and hear the flashes ......."

In his consciousness, the sound of the "storm" turned into a steady stream of black. In the midst of this ink......

- "See" it......

He saw more "feet", more "outlines of prosthetics", "vibrations of the engine......

Conspicuous as a few flashes of light in the darkness.

Warriors who are proficient in this way in this era do not need to be so "deliberate". They don't need to process the information visually anymore. All this can be done "outside of consciousness".

But for Xiangshan, this is still an improvement.

"Countdown...... Three, two, one......"

With a "boom", another bomb exploded. The sound waves ran over like a chariot.

Almost at the same time, synchronously, rushing towards the mountain.

Under the cover of the sound wave, he instantly passed between the two rangers who were less than two meters apart.

- Can you see it......

Rapid movement of troops on the blockade line. Countless squads moved wildly behind him. Bullets whistle and suppress all directions.

But Xiangshan continued to go deeper.

He could hear another retrograde movement from the sound of complex footsteps. That's Jadel.

In this way, the two of them silently advanced for about 200 meters in the sand and dust before they came together.

"Pretty." Jadel said, "But brother, don't you know very well? Didn't understand that 'no hearing' was a temptation for me? ”

"No, I just want to learn about relatively new theories." Xiang Shan shook his head.

Due to the fact that there was still a lot of iron in the dust, they still couldn't use the radio. Talking can only be so close.

"The nearby rangers have heard the explosion, and they will all gather soon." "It's not easy to get information from them," Jadel said. ”

Xiang Shan said, "Let's walk another two hundred meters." After 200 meters, let's go find the rangers! ”