353: Chapter 353: The Next One

"I'm falling apart. So the universe is just something we made up?"

"It's not made up. It's that the boundaries of cognition are in our brains; we can never leave."

"This guy's words are scarier than any horror movie. I'm shaking all over."

"He's not denying science; he's stripping science's underlying logic bare and feeding it to us."

"He didn't come here to lecture today; he came to tear the house down."

"I've given up on thinking. Anyway, my thinking is just my brain making me think."

"Upstairs, you've attained enlightenment. This is the ultimate philosophy of 'lying flat'."

"No, this is ultimate clarity. You can never know the truth, but knowing the fact that [you can never know] is the truth itself."

"Damn, that's even more convoluted, but I actually understood it."

"You're the man, bro!"

"..."

Then, a deluge of donations surged within the livestream room.

In just a few rounds, Wang Shulin watched the donation amount on the backend computer jump from a steady 200,000 per minute to over 2 million per minute.

It was practically raking in wealth!

While the bullet chat was lively, the bodies of the people in the living room suddenly went limp.

They didn't speak; there wasn't a sound, as if they had all fallen into silence and reflection.

All of this was the cognitive shattering brought to them by the man before them!

After about a minute of silence, Professor Hans, sitting in the back row, finally couldn't take it anymore.

He stood up, walked to the whiteboard, looked at the small circle representing concepts, and frowned deeply. "Mr. Jiang, I understand your logic, but I have a question."

"If, according to your words, the universe is a concept in our brains, then what about the probes we launched—Voyager 1 and 2? Are the data they sent back from the edge of the Solar System also concepts in our brains?"

"That data is real; it's not something we imagined at all!"

Jiang Zhe glanced at him and didn't answer directly, but instead asked a question in return: "Professor Hans, what is the data sent back by Voyager 1?"

"It's radio signals."

"And after the radio signals are received?"

"They are converted into numbers, processed into images, spectra, and temperature readings."

"And then?"

"Then scientists analyze this data to draw conclusions about the edge of the Solar System."

Jiang Zhe nodded. "Then have you ever thought about how many times it's been translated between Voyager 1's sensors and that image on your computer screen?"

Professor Hans was stunned. Just as he was about to speak, Jiang Zhe spoke first:

"Sensors convert physical quantities into voltage, voltage into numbers, numerical encoding into radio waves. Radio waves travel twenty billion kilometers to Earth, are received by our antennas, decoded, reconstructed into numbers, and finally converted into images."

"Professor Hans, you aren't seeing the edge of the Solar System; you're seeing the product of seven translations."

Jiang Zhe held up a finger. "You think you've seen reality, but in truth, you've only seen the final translated version."

Professor Hans opened his mouth, swallowed hard, and almost couldn't hold onto the pen in his hand.

Jiang Zhe didn't care about his expression but continued, "Voyager 1 itself was built by humans; its sensors were designed by humans, its encoding format was set by humans, and its launch trajectory was calculated by humans."

"From start to finish, not a single thing has left the human cognitive framework."

"You use it to explore the universe, but what you explore will always be things within that framework!"

Seeing Professor Hans's stunned expression, Jiang Zhe's tone softened slightly.

"Professor Hans, I'm not saying the universe doesn't exist; I'm saying—you can never know the way the universe exists. What you know is only the universe in your brain."

"Between the two lies an unbridgeable chasm."

Professor Hans stood before the whiteboard, staring at that circular arrow, lost in thought.

Thirty seconds later, he slowly walked back to his seat, his eyes vacant. "So even Voyager 1 is just another pair of red glasses we made for ourselves."

In the back corner, leaning against the living room door, Xiao Yu stared at the little person on the whiteboard, her cherry lips constantly gasping.

"Oh my god, he's really pulling out the big guns today!"

"Denying the existence of the universe right in front of these world-class talents."

"But thinking about it carefully, it really is terrifying; everything exists based on our human cognition."

"It's as if once we humans cease to exist, the universe will cease to exist too. The more I think about it, the more the world feels like a super massive game!"

Although a few professors in the back row heard Xiao Yu's exclamation, no one responded to her.

At this moment, the silence in the living room seemed to deepen by another level.

In the livestream, the bullet chat surged even more violently!

"Holy crap, my brain can't keep up anymore."

"So does the universe not exist, or does it exist but humans will never know?"

"That line was too brutal: 'What you know is only the universe in your brain.'"

"Thinking about it makes my skin crawl. I'm not even sure if the phone in my hand is real anymore."

"It's not that you're unsure; it's that you can never be sure."

"So the red I see and the red you see might be different. This old question has finally been elevated to a cosmic level."

"Damn, my scalp is tingling."

"He just dug up Kant and hammered him again."

"Kant said we can never know the 'thing-in-itself'. He's saying the 'thing-in-itself' doesn't exist; no, wait, he's saying whether the 'thing-in-itself' exists or not isn't important—what's important is that you can never reach it."

"Then what's the point of humans exploring the universe?"

"Upstairs, you didn't understand. The meaning isn't exploring the universe; it's exploring ourselves."

"I get it now; all human science is, in essence, cognitive science."

...

Meanwhile, in the outskirts of Kyoto, on an open plain.

An observatory with dozens of radio telescopes was situated there.

Inside, in a conference room.

The livestream was playing on a large screen.

Twelve astronomers and PhD students sat around a long table, silent.

At the head of the table, Director Chen Song watched Jiang Zhe's calm demeanor, his mind trembling.

A young researcher whispered, "Director Chen, Elder Sun!"

Chen Song, who was over fifty, raised his hand to stop him. "Let him finish listening."

After a while, Elder Sun finally finished listening to what Jiang Zhe said and then fell into a state of self-isolation.

Another middle-aged female researcher couldn't help but speak up: "Director, isn't Jiang Zhe's theory a bit too extreme? We do observations; the data is solid!"

"He's directly denying all of it, telling us—[You will never be able to fully research the universe in your entire lives!]"

Chen Song glanced at her. "Solid data is indeed solid, but Jiang Zhe is talking about the underlying logic of the universe."

"We indeed measured it solidly from within the human cognitive framework."

"He's not saying the data is wrong; he's saying we will never know what lies beyond the data."

The researcher hesitated.

Soon, a male PhD student with glasses sitting in the corner suddenly asked, "Then what are we still researching?"

The conference room instantly fell into silence.

Chen Song's lips moved slightly, not knowing how to respond.

His gaze returned to the large screen, looking at Jiang Zhe sitting on the sofa drinking tea by himself, and finally said slowly, "Researching ourselves."

After a long time, a post-doc in the conference room inexplicably said: "Could the red glasses be our bodies? We perceive the world through our bodies. When the body dies, perception is gone—then, is the real universe only something we see after we die..."

Speaking to this point, the post-doc with black-rimmed glasses got goosebumps all over, and his words came to an abrupt halt.

As soon as these words were spoken, the other eleven people in the previously silent conference room suddenly had their eyes light up, as if they had realized some truth.

The truth of the universe would definitely not be found while one is alive.

But rather...

After death!!!

*Hiss~~~*

The sound of sharp intakes of breath immediately filled the conference room.

A single word suddenly surfaced in the minds of the eleven people: Heaven!!!

At that moment, on the large screen.

Jiang Zhe's voice came through again: "Next one."