Chapter 2004: The Unknowable Truth 11

5"Lin An, is it really disgusting?"

"Why bother making things difficult for yourself, resisting these things? Instead of refuting this possibility, why not accept it openly?"

"I know you're trying hard to convince yourself that what I say are fallacies, sophistry. But have you ever considered that seeing something and touching it with your hand are the same?"

"When touching the same thing, some people feel it hard, some feel it soft. This has nothing to do with the object itself, nor really with cognition. It's purely a matter of skin thickness."

"By the same token, the world we see is different. It's not that our eyes differ, nor that our brains differ—so there's only one conclusion, right?"

"What each person's 'eyes' emit is different, like electromagnetic waves of different frequencies."

"After all, light is the same."

His face grim, Lin An did not respond to Andre opposite him.

At this moment, he only felt the disgust in his heart intensify. Andre's every sentence seemed half true, half false; although he could still find logical rebuttals, the logic in his cognition likewise showed contradictions.

Thinking, verifying, overturning, reorganizing logic.

Not only was he overturning what Andre said, he was also overturning his own cognition.

Especially as Andre provided more and more information, Lin An realized these were indeed pointing to an answer he could not accept.

It was as if striking while the iron is hot.

A few seconds later, Andre suddenly stood up, a flash of sympathy crossing his eyes.

"Lin An, do you know why you feel this way? Because of contradictions... because some things we actually know, but are prevented from acknowledging."

"Like a bug trapped in a spider's web, struggling desperately, yet only able to exert futile effort."

"Before you, I also suffered greatly. The disgust of this task lies in the fact that, although you think it's merely a special task defying common sense, you firmly believe you can uncover its truth. Yet each step you take sinks you deeper, forcing you to doubt yourself, to doubt everything."

"Especially when you reach the final step and piece together all the information, only then do you collapse in discovering how cruel the truth really is."

Andre walked over with heavy steps, raised his right hand, and instantly conjured a spear made of light.

"Lin An, have you ever wondered what light is?"

The light spear swung, Andre suddenly let out a scoff and began to mutter:

"In theory, light has no mass, after all, if it did have mass, according to the mass‑energy equation, any mass at light speed would be infinite, enough to destroy the world."

"Just like a truck: the faster it goes, the greater its destructive force!"

"Yet in theory, light can carry energy and information."

"For example, a laser, in high‑energy physics, when laser light strikes an object it releases the carried energy, exciting the object's internal electronic field, thereby causing destruction."

"Light's mass is zero; light plus information plus energy still has zero mass. This means energy and information also have no mass!"

"How absurd..."

"Matter can be converted into energy, and energy can be converted into matter. Yet the amount lacks the mass that matter should have!"

"Lin An, can you imagine? If we simplify this concept, light is a kind of energy, so an energy mass the size of a galaxy would still have zero mass! Yet when it transforms into matter, boom—it instantly gains billions of billions of tons of mass!"

As his words fell, Andre clenched the light in his hand tightly; only a bang was heard, and the light spear in his hand, as if solid, suddenly exploded into specks of light.

Before Lin An could say anything, Andre gave a cold laugh and spoke again quickly.

"Lin An, did you get it? Good, assuming we set aside this contradiction, then by the same token, information also has no mass, right?"

"But Lin An, you witnessed an explosion occurring, you dodged it. You used the information carried by light to make a change, thereby affecting the material world. Think carefully—does this really make sense?"

"According to Newton's laws, a change in matter must involve force! Yet a piece of information with zero mass, a 'force' that could not possibly affect any matter, still affected you! How come!? Why!?"

"Even when we store memories, we need to grow new neural synapses, just as storing information requires a disk. Yet the mass of information is clearly zero! Where is it? Where does it exist!?"

"In summary."

"Lin An, do you now understand why I said that people see things not because of light?"

In the darkness, Lin An's heart jolted; he finally grasped Andre's final logic.

"You want to say.."

"Light doesn't exist, energy doesn't exist, information doesn't exist!? No... information and energy do have mass, because they can affect reality, only light doesn't exist!?"

"Without light, naturally there is no light that carries energy yet has zero mass...!?"

"No.. not right..."

"All three have mass, but it's extremely low, so we can't feel it..."

"Wait...!?"

Lin An was bewildered, even dumbfounded; the problem Andre threw out actually left him unable to find a reasonable explanation for a moment.

Assuming it had mass, but his cognition mostly remains stuck in Earth's physical system, so he can't explain it; yet circling back would amount to proving indirectly that "gaze" has mass!

"Not exactly right."

"Lin An, feeling contradictory, huh..."

"Actually this fallacy was discovered when I was first indoctrinated with modern knowledge; on Earth people also realized this problem early, but it remained unsolved, so they just ignored it like ostriches burying their heads."

"Fortunately or unfortunately, I found the answer here."

"Energy has mass, because it spills over; in our observation, energy exerts force on surrounding matter."

"But light truly does not exist—a thing clearly without mass yet having a speed limit. Its own mass is zero, yet 0+1 cannot equal 0; moreover, light's wave‑particle duality hints at this: a thing that shows two states when observed or not, essentially a concept deceiving us."

"As for the possibility that light might have mass..."

Andre paused a moment, and in an instant countless stars were reflected in his eyes.

"Lin An, if light had mass and also carried energy, then when humanity first lifted its gaze to the starry sky, we would already be dead."

"Do you remember the divination you discussed?"

"Every point contains the information of the whole universe. If we could truly see this world, we would have gone mad long ago..."

"So we are like a camera."

"It is they who are looking, not us..."

"You've laid all this out just to prove we lack free will?"

No.

I just want to help us break our shackles.

Lin An, from now on, I will tell you why we actually exist.