"Before we talk about that, we need to define the truth, and for scientists, there are three different truths. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 ｉｎfo“

Professor Xu floated in the space, explaining to Ulyanov and General Li.

"First of all, the reality that we can perceive, which we can see with our own eyes and touch with our hands, it is the reality that we can perceive with our sensibility. But this reality can only accommodate our sensibility, and it relies on illusion and simulation to construct a coherent and self-consistent world for us. ”

"For example, our visual field is formed by the brain integrating the different perspectives of two eyes. The brain does a lot of processing in the process, ignoring the nose, adjusting the depth of field and focus, blurring out unimportant information, and so on. ”

"The reality of perception is an extremely abbreviated model, it is only a narrow dimension of the world, and if life is only pursuing survival and reproduction, this dimension is sufficient."

As he spoke, he waved his hand, and in the spherical space, the walls that were originally glowing with soft white light suddenly darkened, and the three of them suddenly found themselves in the vast sea of stars. In the middle of the three of them, a blue planet slowly turned, and looking at the outline of the continent, it was the earth.

A few years ago, such a scene could only be seen with VR glasses, and the resolution was extremely low, although it would be surprising and admirable, but individuals could tell that it was a simulated illusion.

Now, with the ultra-silicon display and air projection, coupled with the detailed simulation of the alfalfa engine down to the molecular level, if there is still air, to the naked eye, the display effect is no different from the real one.

"On top of the perceived reality, there is also a descriptive rational truth, which is the field of rational thinking, and people use scientific methods, mathematical models, and abstract descriptions to construct the rational truth above the perceived reality."

Professor Xu said that at this time, the model of the earth was rapidly expanding, giving people the feeling of falling straight from space to the ground, which was so clear that Ulyanov and General Li had to adjust the balance of their bodies so as not to really "hit the ground with their faces first".

They felt like they had literally broken through the clouds and landed on the grass. If you look closely, it is indeed brown and black soil, green grass, surrounded by trees, birds singing and flowers, and the fragrance of flowers is blowing in your face.

"But rational truth is not absolute truth, and once we have mastered rational truth, we can not only create reality, but also distort reality, and even simulate a reality that defies reason and logic."

The two thoughtful and experienced generals didn't bother to understand Professor Xu's words, and they were sweating on their foreheads, unable to believe what they were seeing.

The senses of sight, smell, and touch are so real, and there is even gravity, didn't they really return to Earth and then have their memories deleted in between?

Ulyanov squatted down, touched the grass with his hand, and scooped up the empty hand, feeling a slight sense of pressure on the back of his hand, and then suddenly, fake, this is an air projection.

But what's going on with gravity?

"By the time the Earth model rotated and zoomed in, the chamber had already begun to rotate around its axis, creating artificial gravity."

Professor Xu explained that when he saw Ulyanov's face calm again, he seemed to only regard this scene as a small trick, and he smiled: "This is the perception training simulation space of the Star Alliance, where students practice how to distinguish the truth from the false of perception, and rely on their own consciousness activity to break free from the reality of perception and touch the truth of reason." ”

He suddenly asked General Li: "You have had an organ transplant, you should have installed a neural interface, right?" ”

General Li nodded: "It's just a medical interface, what's wrong?" ”

Neural interfaces are already standard in Starlink, and Starlink soldiers have all undergone nerve autologous value-added surgery and installed neural interfaces. In order to meet the needs of the battle, this interface is both internal and external. Starlink's scientists are also basically equipped with neural interfaces, which are connected to PEI and GEI, and one person is a laboratory.

But on Earth, there are still many controversies about neural interface technology, especially concerns about the cyborgization of humans, which have been preventing the technology from entering the civilian realm. However, in medicine, neural interfaces have become widely used to cooperate with organ transplants and limb repair surgeries. Even in areas such as chronic diseases, neural interfaces are being used to enable more precise monitoring and adjustment of the body.

General Li's trachea and lungs have been replaced with bionic organs made of metamaterials, and naturally a medical neural interface has to be installed.

"Let me see the access level of your interface, well, the standard level, yes. I'll help you access the perception scene of the training center, just click confirm. ”

"Don't worry, this is a temporary adjustment, there is a safety certification, and the neural interface has a safety valve, and your pei also has safety monitoring, don't worry that I will hack your central nervous system."

Professor Xu instructed General Li to make some adjustments to the neural interface and connect it to the setting scene of the training center.

"Okay, it's set to experience mode, you can touch it too."

Professor Xu said, General Li also reached out to touch the grass on the ground, and then he opened his mouth wide, and Ulyanov asked in surprise: "What's wrong?" ”

General Li gasped and said, "It's true! I really touched it! You see! ”

His fingers and palms were always rubbing against the periphery of the grass projection, and the projection seemed to be real, making it difficult for him to go even a millimeter deeper.

"How can it be true?"

Ulyanov stretched out his hand again and tried to grab a handful of dirt, but the result was like fishing for the moon in water.

"I understand this! You must have programmed the training scene, plus the sensors around it, so that whenever his hand touches any kind of projection, it will send some kind of tactile signal to their brain through the neural interface, and at the same time prevent further action. ”

Ulyanov shrugged: "If you call this changing the truth, it is a trick like magic, it does not change the reality, it only changes yourself." ”

Professor Xu smiled, and then said to General Li: "I have seen several mods in the experience mode, you can choose one to try." ”

General Li laughed and shouted funny and funny, and Ulyanov continued to shrug his shoulders, what is the difference between this and playing VR games?

As soon as he thought about it, he saw General Li wave his hand, and a fireball, a hot fireball, really appeared in his hand!

"Fireball or projection, this temperature...... It should also be burned by the laser on the projector. ”

Ulyanov felt that he could still understand, and when he saw General Li again, it was like throwing a shot put, twisting his waist and throwing, and the fireball pitcher came out, with a hot and touching tail flame, landed on a tree, and exploded with a bang.

"The special effects are well done...... "Ulyanov began to tease.

The trees fell with a bang, revealing dark dents, and then the surrounding woods, the grass beneath their feet disappeared, and the space returned to its original appearance, three people standing at the bottom, and two people staring blankly at the large hole in the wall that had been smashed by fireballs.

Ulyanov felt that it would be too rude to make fun of it at this time, and asked worriedly: "Is there something wrong with the program?" How do you blow the wall out of the hole? ”

"No problem, no problem! I told you that this is true! ”

General Li came back to his senses, stretched out his hand and grabbed the void, and the metal wall suddenly creaked and twisted, and was torn out by an invisible huge force, which was in stark contrast to the pit next to him.

Then, under Ulyanov's dumbfounded gaze, General Li was like a hero in a Chinese martial arts movie, waving his palm and slashing in the air, and the wall was fluffy and loud, and he forcibly split palm prints one by one.

"W-What is this?"

Ulyanov finally felt that he couldn't explain it, so he had to open his brain: "Is it that you buried explosives in the wall, just like making a movie?" ”

General Li raised his middle finger and drew it out of thin air, and the wall was splashed with sparks, and a big letter "Z" was carved out, and the old gentleman was still a Zorro fan.

"General Li, be careful not to indulge, if you believe this is true, it will damage your brain", Professor Xu blinked, disconnecting General Li.

He clicked it out of thin air, and the wall fluctuated, and the previous dents, bulges, palm prints, and nicks disappeared after a while, and returned to its original appearance as smooth as a mirror.

"This is a programmable memory alloy made of metamaterials, and every inch of the whole wall is a freely divided intelligent photoelectric neuron chip.

Professor Xu's explanation made Ulyanov feel that his brain couldn't keep up, and a wall was a light brain?

"The principle is actually very simple, after General Li's brain is connected to the training scene through a neural interface, this wall can be controlled by his mind. Explosions, pulls, nicks, these effects are all at the mercy of General Lee. It also has the functions of local hardening, softening, heating expansion, deformation, and even conversion into intelligent electromagnetic wave emission arrays, or portholes and displays. Such technology is being tested on our warships and is the future hull protection and damage management system. As long as you connect with the Maguling or human beings through the spiritual framework, you can change as you like. ”

Professor Xu calmly explained, looking really like a robot: "Even with the addition of technologies such as air projection and laser oppression, we still don't simulate the perceptual world enough, but I believe that if we continue to develop, there will come a time when ordinary people will not be able to tell whether they are in the real world or the world we simulated by perception, because for him, both are perceptual reality." ”

Ulyanov's expression became serious, General Li had proved it with his own experience, and he naturally could no longer think of this as a joke or a magic space.

"Professor, this is what you said, using rational truth to simulate perceptual reality, and before you said that the universe we live in is not only not what we see, but also what we observe scientifically, that means ......"

Don't look at Ulyanov as an old-fashioned soldier, but there is no shortage of scientific literacy, and Professor Xu's demonstration has realized the problem he wants to explain.

"Yes, Commander, you should understand that rational truth is not the same as truth, it is just another model that we have modeled with existing science and methods. It's more comprehensive and detailed than perceptual reality, it can accommodate us to do more, but it's still just a model. ”

"Above the rational truth is the absolute truth, which unfortunately can only be approached, like infinity, and can never be reached. However, we now know that one dimension that is absolutely true is the existence of the thinking strings. ”

"By grasping rational truth, we can simulate the perceived reality that humans cannot discern. Before we grasp the absolute truth, the world we observe, the world we analyze, this rational reality is only an imitation of the absolute reality. ”

Professor Xu finally got to the point: "For example, what is the universe we live in? ”

"For a long time, it was believed to be an expanding spherical space, an observable universe with a radius of 50 billion light-years, filled with planets, stars, galaxies, nebulae, dark matter, dark energy, and black holes. It puts everything in front of us, like an infinite resolution photograph, and as long as we continue to advance in technology, we can sit at home and discover new details. ”

Professor Xu waved his hand, and the space was transformed into vast stars, and among the three of them, there was a slowly rotating galaxy, which looked a little familiar, until a sign lit up on a certain spiral arm, and Ulyanov and General Li woke up, this is the Milky Way.

"Actually, Stargate has proven the existence of bubble universes and high-dimensional universes, but their forms are different from what scientists have conceived, because the universe is not a spherical ......."

With Professor Xu's explanation, one celestial body after another appeared, constantly scaling, distorting and even flattening, making the space strange and incomprehensible. If there is anything else that can be used as a basis for observation, the only thing that can be described by it is the geometric plane composed of lines that runs through the entire space.

This is the true face of the universe we live in from an absolutely real perspective. As you have noticed, the only thing that can be clearly grasped is the planes of these lines, which we call the equilibrium universe. It is the horizontal plane of the multidimensional universe, and what we call the observable universe is nothing more than what is seen beneath the surface of the water. ”

"The equilibrium universe is composed of dark matter and dark energy, which are essentially a force, a membrane, that allows the strings of thought to interact with time and space, and appear as observable matter and energy, and this process is like blowing soap bubbles."

"To be correct, our observable universe is a projection of countless other soap bubbles projected on the equilibrium universe wrapped in soap bubbles. The equilibrium universe is like the human brain, giving us a logical model of the universe. In other words, the science and logic mastered by human beings can only be explained in this way. ”

Professor Xu sighed: "In fact, the perceptible universe of our human beings is only the Oort Nebula, a space-time with a radius of less than one light year. ”

Even with a figurative model to illustrate it, it took a while for Ulyanov and Li to grasp the concepts of "equilibrium universe," "soap bubble," and "membrane" that Professor Xu described.

This does not mean that they approve of such a concept, General Li shook his head and said: "According to your meaning, things outside the perceptible universe are projections, and the space-time that humans can accurately perceive and grasp is only as large as the Oort Nebula, which is not logical." ”

"You see, Pioneer 10 flew out of the solar system before it lost contact. If it hadn't been destroyed, then inertia would have pushed it on, reaching Aldebaran 68 light-years away in 2 million years, and would it be blocked by a membrane at the edge of the Oort Cloud? ”

"Not to mention the pioneers, Professor Hawking's Alpha Centauri exploration program is already underway, relying on the advanced engine of your Star Alliance, it will fly to Alpha Star 4.2 light years away in 1500 years, I can't imagine that it will be blocked by some magical membrane in the void, and it will not be able to take a step forward."

Professor Xu smiled: "This membrane is time and space, or time itself." ”

He asked a question that the two of them rarely considered: "The closest distance between different star systems is also measured in light years." And relying on mechanical motion, it is this way to fly directly over, and the speed of 10th of the speed of light is the theoretical limit. Have you ever calculated how many years have passed since humans entered space and when they were able to reach other star systems by this mechanical means of spaceflight? Don't say 2 million years, 1500 years from now, what will happen? ”

What kind of changes......

If human beings had not died in the past 1,500 years, the biggest change would have been that humans had already reached another star system through other means of spaceflight, and then received the original aircraft launched by their ancestors 1,500 years ago.

"Human exploration is an expansion of the perceptual universe, because of the existence of time scales, it cannot be used as a basis for negating the existing perceptible universe. The existence of human beings, that is, the higher intelligent lifeforms, has an impact on the bubble universe. ”

Professor Xu changed the subject: "Let's talk about what the absolutely real universe, at least the absolute reality that we can understand, is like. ”

He asked again: "You should know about the Fermi paradox, right?" ”

The two nodded at the same time, of course they knew that the Fermi paradox said that if there are advanced intelligent beings in the observable universe like humans, then their activities will inevitably have some kind of impact on the universe and then be observed by humans. In the 14 billion years of the universe that humans have observed so far, no traces of advanced intelligent life have been found.

This is inconceivable for an existence of such a large scale in the observable universe. It has only taken millions of years for humans to evolve into advanced intelligent life, and this scale is as small as a particle in the life cycle of the universe.

Imagine that human history will advance by a few thousand years, no, a few hundred years, and the technology will be enough to modify celestial bodies, and even implement some prototypes of space engineering such as Dyson spheres, and the signals emitted from this will be enough for the technology to advance to the point that extraterrestrial intelligence can observe the universe and observe the existence of human beings on Earth.

From the Fermi paradox, it can be inferred that the setting of the dark forest is only a setting after all, and the progress of human science and technology will inevitably affect the cosmic environment. To build a Dyson sphere around the sun, and then put an electromagnetic filter on the solar system for the sake of an uncertain alien threat, such a picture and logic are unimaginable.

From the Fermi paradox, it can be concluded that human beings are either the first advanced intelligent life in the observable universe to evolve to the point where they can look up at the starry sky, or they are the only advanced intelligent life.

In fact, after the practical application of controlled nuclear fusion in the last few years, mankind has generally believed that it is the only advanced intelligent life in the observable universe.

If there are advanced intelligent life forms in the universe that are more advanced than human beings, and they have mastered the technology of controlled nuclear fusion, it only takes a few hundred years for the radiation map of the galaxy where they are located to show a strong order, and continue to expand outward, which is like the suit and leather shoes of modern people, which is the external manifestation of scientific and technological civilization.

Unfortunately, human beings have not found such a signal so far, but an incomprehensible stargate has appeared. It's like when human beings are facing the vast ocean and are wondering how to build a ship to the sea, but a rope hangs down from the sky and climbs to the moon along the rope.

Even more paradoxical is the emergence of life on Amm and Matt Ball, and even the unknown existence that threatens the stargate, many people subconsciously accept the multiverse theory, believing that they come from another plane, which is not so much a scientific explanation as a metaphysical evasion. For the average person, "another plane" is no different from a fantasy world like "science fiction".

Professor Xu's words made the two even more confused: "In the universe that can be perceived by humans, it is indeed the only higher intelligent life, but in the absolutely real universe, there are countless higher intelligent beings in the countless universes connected by the equilibrium universe. Aldebaran may have it, and Alpha Centauri may have it, but we can't touch each other. ”

Seeing the expressions of the two, Professor Xu sighed slightly, feeling that the method of guiding them to think on their own from all sides was not suitable for them, so he had to directly throw out the conclusion.

"To put it simply, the Oort Nebula, where the solar system is located, is a low-dimensional universe embedded in the 'dimensional framework' of the Milky Way, bound by 127 dimensions imposed by the black hole and dark matter at the center of the Milky Way." (To be continued.) )