Chapter 260: Hugo's Wonderland (Part 1)

"I think research on the theory of the Palace of Thought, which can neither be proven nor falsified, has no meaning..." Hugo put down the book in his hand, looked at Brand opposite, and continued, "Dr. Brand, you also think so, right?"

"If you are referring to the paper Shiler published before, then I can only say, sorry, my research direction is pathology. Regarding the psychological theory part, you had better go and discuss it with him personally."

But Hugo seemed not to hear Brand's refusal to discuss. He still talked to himself, "Memory Palace method, I will count it as a kind of memory method. It is a variant of the spatial memory method, referring to people building a building made of memory in their own minds, and then putting their memories in it in categories..."

"Human memory can of course be classified, organized, and summarized, but to say that building a concrete building in the brain and putting memories in it for use as needed, just like visiting a library, is still too exaggerated, or rather, this is just a kind of fantasy people have about extremely high intelligence."

"The human brain is not a storage device composed of machinery. 'Forgetting' is the most important part of the brain, and it is also the self-protection mechanism of the human brain."

"If people really build a library in their brains, it means he must have blocked the function of forgetting. If it is really like this, then the information capacity and real-time computing power in his brain absolutely exceeded the limit that his flesh could carry..."

"And, no one can prove the existence of this thing, because even if you open his skull and take out his brain, you can't see whether he really has such a building in his conscious space."

Brand wrote medical records while lowering his head and said, "But you also can't falsify it, because you also can't deny that some people who claim to have this ability indeed have better memories than others."

"I said, I admit it is a kind of memory method, it might indeed be able to organize scattered memories like file archiving and categorize them, but there is absolutely no such thing as blowing it up in some papers, building a huge building to store countless information, and being able to retrieve it at will when used..."

"What's even more absurd is that some people even said in the paper that living things can exist in the memory palace, or rather, it is the concrete expression of personality, and they can even communicate with each other. This is completely nonsense..."

Hugo's voice was very calm, and his speech was also very logical. He pushed his glasses, looked at the book in his hand, and said, "But it seems that our Professor Rodriguez is very keen on this."

"But it's also true, people are always very interested in concepts like fantasy novels. If you exaggerate them a bit more and describe them with interesting language, then your book will definitely sell very well."

"But forgive me for speaking bluntly, in academic terms, this theory cannot stand. Perhaps there really are extremely extreme geniuses who can do this, but the proportion of such people in the human group must be very small, almost negligible in probability theory, so it doesn't have any research value."

Hugo put down the collision with the desktop again, making a dull sound. He continued, "Perhaps, our Professor Shiler is this one-in-a-billion genius. I don't know if he can find his peers in his lifetime, and then practice his theory that is like a fantasy, produce evidence, and maintain his current academic status..."

"Reincarnation Paradise"

Brand heard the sarcasm in Hugo's tone, but he didn't refute at all, just lowered his head to write medical records silently.

The published viewpoints were not affirmed, not even responded to, and didn't dispel Hugo's interest in talking. After all, in the school where he worked before, his popularity was bad, not many people were willing to talk to him, and there were no professionals in this field who could communicate with him.

So he didn't mind at all that Brand was just silently playing the role of a listener. He continued, "Compared with this unrealistic theory, I still feel that 'emotion', which is more externalized and easy to be observed, has more research value."

"In fact, the topic I am doing now is the amplification theory of emotion. I have always believed that human emotions have strong pedigree characteristics. Once they are systematized and then amplified through some means, many things can be done..."

"There is also mind-reading, which is also based on this theory. People's intense emotions will produce a kind of brain wave. When these brain waves blend with each other, perhaps true mind-reading can be achieved."

"Perhaps it is not limited to this, and even entering other people's brains and manipulating other people's thoughts can be achieved..."

Hugo's tone became more and more excited. It could be seen that he was very confident in this theory.

This was not his empty fantasy. The difference between Hugo and other psychologists was that he not only possessed professional knowledge in psychology but was also a physicist and biologist proficient in machinery.

The way he provided support for this theory of his was not just writing papers or doing paper research. He had sufficient hands-on ability to conduct biological dissection and mechanical design.

Hugo, who was eager to prove his theory, had once caused many cruel illegal experiments regardless of the consequences, the details of which need not be mentioned, but there were indeed some results.

However, just at the critical moment of research, these illegal experiments of his were discovered, so he was fired by the original unit and came here.

Coming to Cat Getan, Hugo's research motivation was even stronger, because this was a lawless place, and more importantly, Shiler Rodriguez, who was more authoritative, had a higher status, and was more famous than him in academia, was also here.

Hugo and Shiler's research directions couldn't be said to be going in opposite directions, it could also be said that they were completely unrelated, and some directions even had conflicts.

In recent years, the most outstanding paper published by Shiler was still the study of the Palace of Thought. In this paper, he elaborated on this concept in detail and extended many different branches, almost turning this into a special discipline belonging to him alone.

Never before had anyone perfected this theory so completely and logically. In recent years, many people in the industry have been circulating that this will be the future development direction of psychology, but Hugo was disdainful of this.

Shiler's research direction was how humans explore deeper into their own consciousness and thinking, and how to control their brains well, while Hugo was exactly the opposite. His research direction was the connection between brain and brain, and how a person should explore and manipulate other people's brains.

Hugo of course insisted that this theory of his was the direction of future human development. More importantly, if he really mastered this technology and could manipulate other people's brains at will, then what else in this world couldn't be done?

Based on the ambition brought by various reasons, Hugo's research enthusiasm was very high. However, the first problem he faced was that he needed experimental subjects.

Since he is now a doctor at Arkham Mental Hospital, what is a better candidate for experimental subjects than patients?

Shiler didn't hand over work to Hugo when he left. There was indeed nothing to hand over here, because there were basically no mental patients here.

Understanding that there were either gang bosses or gang bosses' family members and lovers in the hospital, Hugo didn't act rashly. He knew that taking this group of people as experimental subjects would likely lead to his previous predicament, that is, being discovered and then hunted down.

Hugo believed that before he perfected this technology of his, it was better to be cautious.

But he also inherited medical records, diagnostic reports, and schedule arrangements from Shiler. In these materials, Hugo discovered that although there were very few real mental patients in this mental hospital, there were still a few patients with special conditions in Shiler's diagnostic records.

The first medical record Hugo saw was about Cobblepot, and he was also most interested in this one.

Adolescent minds are not mature enough, and psychological defenses are also relatively fragile, making him a good target to start with. And judging from the medical records, Cobblepot suffers from catatonic schizophrenia, which means he himself has mental disorders, so even if some experiments Hugo did on him produced bad consequences, he could also push it to his own mental illness.

Just like this, Hugo made an appointment for a follow-up visit with Cobblepot by phone. Cobblepot didn't know about Shiler's resignation yet, thinking that he just let his colleague call.

When he discovered that the person who wanted to treat him was Hugo, he didn't think much either, thinking that it was just Shiler being too busy and finding his friend to substitute.

Recently, his condition had improved a lot, and there was no need to take this kind of routine follow-up too seriously. Cobblepot thought so, until he saw Hugo pushing out a strange machine from the preparation room.

That was an egg-shaped instrument with a row of circular indicator lights on the surface.

"What is this?" Cobblepot asked him.

"This is a new type of treatment instrument." Hugo said to Cobblepot, "It's normal that you haven't seen it, because this is currently the most advanced mental treatment equipment in the world. Not to mention Cat Getan, even the entire East Coast doesn't have a second one."

Cobblepot narrowed his eyes, but Hugo didn't care about his deep feelings, but said to Cobblepot, "Don't mind it, you don't need to use your limbs to touch it, and I won't use it to do anything to you, just put it beside you, so you don't need to feel nervous at all..."

"Alright, next, let's do a simple hypnosis test..."

Cobblepot's brows frowned tighter, and he said, "Dr. Shiler never did any hypnosis test on me..."

"I looked at your medical records." Hugo took a medical record book from the side and said, "I absolutely have no intention of slandering Professor Rodriguez, it's just that I can see that he doesn't have rich enough experience in adolescent psychology research, and I happen to have some research on this."

"Don't worry, I will stay far away from you, and this machine will absolutely not get close to you. You only need to sit in the chair and imagine according to my words. I swear this will be very fast, it only takes less than 10 minutes."

After finishing, Hugo pressed a button on that strange-looking machine. After the indicator lights on it started to flicker, Cobblepot slowly closed his eyes, while Hugo walked to the side of that machine, pulled out several conduits connected to patches from behind, and then pasted them on his head one by one.

As the buzzing of the machine became louder and louder, Cobblepot's brows frowned tighter and tighter. An invisible force appeared above the room, and the brain waves of Cobblepot and Hugo were both amplified, and then gradually blended together.

Consciousness fell downward from the pitch black, and then in the flickering of white light, Hugo arrived in Cobblepot's mind.

He didn't feel very surprised, because this was something he could do before, and now, his research had gone a step further.

Before Hugo had any other actions, he let out a full of doubt: "... Hmm???" ===== CHAPTER 261 =====