Chapter 2003: Unknowable Truth 10

"Reason."

Lin An asked in a deep voice.

Faced with Andre constantly throwing out information, he could not easily believe it like a three-year-old child.

Especially, he always maintained great vigilance toward Andre; even if Andre's logic was perfectly self-consistent, he would not fully accept it.

That's right, the theory Andre previously mentioned could indeed be true, but it's merely possible!

Deep down, Lin An simply does not believe Andre knows the ultimate answer!

The ultimate surpasses everything; if Andre had attained the highest cognition, how could he be trapped here!?

But regardless of whatever game Andre is playing, he has only one reason to continue listening!

That is to complete his cognition!

Even if it's wrong, merely approximate, that is still precious enough!

At the same time, Andre had already noticed Lin An calming his emotions, and even began subtly looking for loopholes in his logic.

Faced with Lin An's such performance, Andre merely gave a light chuckle and didn't care.

"Lin An, you should have felt hostility before, right? Like when you're walking down the road, even though you don't see an enemy behind you, your heart still flutters."

"That feeling is like having a thorn in your back."

"Well, don't rush to refute me; are you saying that's a kind of mental power perception?"

"Then may I ask, before you became an Awakened One, did you never feel this sort of thing? Where would ordinary people get mental power?"

"Alright, let's tentatively assume it's a sixth sense; then how do you explain such an important perception ability never having fully evolved?"

"We are already Fourth Stage; our bodies and mental power are already strong enough to rival myth. If this perception ability were truly hidden within us, it ought to have surfaced by now."

"Lin An, you've killed many Fifth Stage beings, maybe even seen a Sixth Stage? Tell me, if it truly exists, where is it?"

After his words fell, listening to Andre's counter-question, Lin An also had no way to refute.

After a brief silence, Lin An then slowly spoke:

"So you mean that because eyes can emit so-called vision particles, those particles strike us and cause a reaction? There are many other theories that could explain it. If eyes emitted particles, then in darkness our eyes would be emitting 'light'. In fact, our eyes do not emit light; instead, the pupils dilate to absorb as much light as possible."

"This is really far-fetched..."

"Far-fetched? No, following Occam's Razor, rather than searching for other possibilities, we should adopt the simplest logic: something striking something else produces a reaction—that's the most intuitive, isn't it?"

"As for why we can't see the vision particles emitted from our eyes, that's easily explained."

"Vision particles are invisible; they don't emit light, just like electromagnetic waves."

Andre shrugged, not waiting for Lin An to frown and refute, he suddenly shifted his tone:

"Lin An, if this argument fails to convince you, what about adding another?"

"In the Ghost Skull Scene, there is an art museum. Your companion has been there; you should have heard Gao Tian talk about what he thought of there, right?"

Lin An nodded; he of course knew this matter.

Although he hadn't had the chance to go himself, he knew what the art museum contained.

Without further ado, Andre directly spoke:

"Lin An."

"Just as the information in the art museum states, everyone's world is different. The value of art comes from the perspective of observation. Actually, this cognition has further tasks in the subsequent mission."

"In the subsequent mission, you will find a note left by a painter. He anguished over how the world he saw was completely different from that of ordinary people, to the extent that his works found no appreciation. He tried to imitate others' works, and also tried to examine whether his brain or eyes had any problems. Yet no matter how hard he tried, what he painted could not be accepted by the public."

"He spent the rest of his life in poverty, enduring scorn and ridicule."

"It was as if the beauty he felt was seen by people as an utterly ugly existence."

"In the end, he had no choice but to cut off his own head, embed it in the picture frame, and express his work in the most desperate way."

"He hoped people could, through his eyes, see the paintings in his mind. Like an artwork in a display window, his head is the frame, and the paintings in his mind are stored behind his eyes. Whenever someone shows interest in his 'painting,' he would eagerly invite you in to take a look."

"Of course, people were frightened mad, and simply turned his head away."

As he said this, Andre suddenly couldn't help laughing, as if recalling that scene when he solved the task.

Heaven knows how many heads he turned; he really is a stubborn, pitiful fellow.

"Now the question comes, Lin An."

"If all things have their own inherent color, and our eye structures are the same, our brains the same, then why, why do we see the world differently?"

"Suppose a person is born seeing colors differently from others; how would he become aware of this?"

"There's no way to be sure, right? Because everything we see depends on cognition."

As he said this, Andre suddenly stared at Lin An's eyes, pointing at his own head:

"Lin An, according to your stubborn idea, you think people see things because of light refraction."

"But how can light carry cognition?"

"Cognition exists in our brains..."

As his words fell, Lin An stared in shock, but quickly instinctively rebutted.

"It's simple."

"Even so, light could carry information, then the brain receives it and cognition interprets it."

Andre was secretly swapping concepts?

However, contrary to Lin An's expectation, Andre seemed prepared and nodded.

"You're right, Lin An."

"Back then I thought the same, but do you still remember the camera ghost you yourself reasoned out?"

"Ghosts can't see people because they don't know eyes can see things; their cognition lacks people."

"Then the question arises: according to your view, because light refraction carries images into the eyes, even without cognition there should still be an image, after all light refraction is inevitable, not subject to human will."

"A newborn baby, with zero cognition of the world, could he possibly glimpse the world's true reality?"

「Light refracted into a ghost—so why can't you see it? Where's the image? Don't you think that's contradictory? 」

「But you.. 」

「Obviously it's relying on this logic to stay alive... 」

After saying that, Andre calmly looked at Lin An, patiently waiting.

He believed that Lin An would surely think of another "matter".

As expected, sitting opposite, Lin An's pupils suddenly contracted; a memory, like a bolt from the blue, flashed in his mind instantly!

(People with congenital blindness often, even after regaining vision, still cannot see anything..)

(Their visual nerves have developmental problems; even if the eyeballs are normal, keeping their eyes open is useless..)

(Just like a broken machine, they lack this function from the factory; even if they know what a person is..)