The Fourth Quadrant of Online Games

In the afternoon, Pu Yiyang found an excuse and went to the mental health center to find someone.

The Mental Health Center is right next to the east gate of the school. It is a three-story red brick building with creepers on the outer wall. It is red and green, and it is covered up. A lady from the old society who traveled from a hundred years ago.Even the building exudes a chilly air. As Pu Yiyang walked, he remembered the rumors about this small red building, such as the fact that someone died here many years ago. some.

The guard told him that Professor Li's office is on the third floor, and he will not be seen in the afternoon, so he should be here.It is reasonable to say that he is also a famous professor all over the world, but this one seems to have no airs at all, and he doesn't need to make an appointment to meet him.Pu Yiyang climbed upstairs slowly, passed through a large office, and found a door with Li Dongxing's name written on it.

The door itself was ajar, and he knocked tentatively.

"Come in." The person inside said immediately, with a gentle voice and a brisk tone.

Pu Yiyang just entered the house.

The inside and outside of the door seemed to be two heavens, the windows facing the sun were all wide open, and the sunlight pouring in filled the whole room.A man in a gray crew-neck sweater was facing away from him, holding an old-fashioned watering can in his hand, watering several pots of gold-rimmed spider plants on the windowsill.His movements were slow and his hands were so steady that before turning around, Pu Yiyang thought he was at most 30 years old.

"I'm sorry," the man slowly finished watering the flowers, then turned around and smiled at Pu Yiyang, "Student, what do you want from me?"

Pu Yiyang knew that he had made a wrong judgment.This Professor Li is at least forty in terms of age, and should not be a few years younger than Lu Yuxing.But his body and expression are too youthful.The man in front of him has a pair of good-looking eyes, black and white, cleaner than many young people, and he looks like a very gentle person in dealing with others.

He expressed his intention to Professor Li.

"You want to ask about the possible mental risks of brain-computer access?" Professor Li listened quietly and asked curiously, "But you said you are a student in the Department of Mathematics, so your interest is far away."

Pu Yiyang got stuck in his shell, thinking whether he should directly tell about the little girl.

"It's okay, don't be nervous, I'm just surprised, it's rare that someone still cares about this issue." Professor Li seemed to see the hesitation in his heart at once, and smiled understandingly, "Did you read my few photos from ten years ago?" It’s only after this article? At that time, there were more people discussing this.”

Pu Yiyang knew what Professor Li meant.At that time, brain-computer access technology was just emerging, and DELTA was just emerging, and the academic circles discussed this new technology was still relatively popular.

He asked: "I remember that you seemed to bring up a mental disorder called 'wandering spirit'?"

"This disease is only a hypothesis at present. It describes an extreme situation where the brain cannot distinguish between virtual and reality after being over-stimulated by virtual reality. Because the symptoms are very similar to the soul going out of the body, it has such a slightly supernatural common name." Probably mistakenly thought that Pu Yiyang was worried about his own safety. Professor Li glanced at him and added thoughtfully, "Sounds scary, doesn't it? Don't worry, all connected devices have gone through numerous tests to ensure that they are safe for the human body. So far, there is no real case to confirm my hypothesis.”

Are there any real cases?

The matter of Cao Yicong and the little girl went round and round in his mind, Pu Yiyang asked tangledly: "Well, Professor Li, do you yourself believe that this disease really exists?"

Professor Li's eyes widened slightly, he seemed to think for a moment, and replied: "It's really hard for me to answer your question. You are also doing research, so you should know that as a scholar, you can't answer any new technologies and new arguments. Everyone will maintain a skeptical attitude. Especially me... I have experienced some things in the past, and I have seen the consequences of misusing technology. But here is the fact that brain-computer docking technology has been developed for ten years, and even I myself I often think, maybe I was thinking too much back then. This is a good thing, and I am quite happy that I was wrong."

For the sake of being an academic, and casually admitting that he might have made a mistake, without the slightest arrogance, Pu Yiyang further confirmed that the other party is really a really good person.

"Then can you tell me more about the symptoms of this 'wandering soul syndrome'?" he asked as he recalled the behavior of the little girl in the subway that day.

"You are really interested," Professor Li was a little surprised, and then said patiently, "According to my guess at the time, the main manifestations may include visual hallucinations, auditory hallucinations, and emotional incoordination. Some physical incoordination and even epilepsy-like symptoms appear, if not correctly diagnosed, it will be difficult to distinguish from brain diseases such as schizophrenia and epilepsy."

Visual and auditory hallucinations?Pu Yiyang thought to himself, that would just explain the little girl's abnormal behavior in the subway that day.If she sees something that isn't there, or feels like she's in another place, doing another thing, does that cause her to jump unconsciously?

And a clump of grass.

"Then if a person doesn't actually receive the pain signal, but he has 'wandering spirit' and mistakenly thinks that he is in pain, will he...will he really feel the unbearable pain?" He asked again.

Maybe he thought wrong from the beginning, and no one closed the protection agreement of the Gomang people.The protection agreement has always been good, but the grass has forgotten its existence.

Professor Li nodded: "There is a possibility."

Pu Yiyang felt that he had found the right direction, and his tone was a little more urgent: "Then what caused the 'wandering soul syndrome'?"

"Do you know what persistence of perception is?" This question came from another person.

Pu Yiyang hurriedly turned his head, and saw that the door of the office was pushed open at some point, and a man was standing with his back leaning against the door frame, looking at the two people in the room with his eyes behind the lens.

The man looks handsome, about the same age as Professor Li, wearing a shirt and vest, and an elite attire, except for a white coat under his arm. It seems that he either works in the school hospital or comes from the biology department next door.

"Brother!" Professor Li's face burst into a burst of joy that could be seen by anyone. He even stood up from his chair and quickly walked towards the man. "Have you finished the experiment? We finished half a day earlier today." When I was young, did it go well? The new Xiao Xu didn’t do things very carefully, so I specially sent him an email, telling him that you like to go to the scanning room in person..."

Pu Yiyang scratched his eyebrows, and felt that Professor Li, who was dignified and elderlike just now, suddenly grew a fluffy tail behind him, and it was still wagging happily.

"It's okay," the corner of the man's mouth showed a slight arc, as if he felt a little helpless at the junior brother's excessive concern, he muttered in a low voice, "You, if you worry about it, you will soon turn yourself into Zheng Heping." After he finished speaking, he turned to Pu Yi Yang, "There are still children waiting to ask questions."

Pu Yiyang, who was hanging aside, also stood up early, and greeted him embarrassedly.

"That," he still remembered the man's question just now, "what does persistence of perception mean?"

The man raised his finger and pointed to the window on one side: "Look over there."

Pu Yiyang turned his head in response.

Man: "Lift it up a little, and there will be a blind. Keep a close eye on it."

Pu Yiyang found that the man's style was completely different from Professor Li's. He didn't talk much, but he was quite uncompromising.He leaned his neck back and did so, the afternoon sun slammed into his eyes unscrupulously, the stimulation was so strong that he almost closed his eyes immediately, but thinking of the man's words, he still tried his best to keep them open without even blinking.

When he was about to be dazzled, the man finally shouted to stop.

"Now, turn around and look here." He tapped his knuckles on the white wall beside him, "Tell me, what do you see?"

Pu Yiyang resisted the urge to shed tears, and looked over according to the instructions with his dizzy head on his head.

On the wall in front of him, there are also narrow and narrow stripes of light and dark, just like the reflection of the blinds on the opposite side.

But the position is not right. If it is really a reflection, it violates the principle of optics.

He moved his eyeballs in confusion, and was surprised to find that the reflection was also moving with it, as if wherever he looked, the shadow followed.

It turned out that the shadow was not on the wall, but in his eyes.

"Is this persistence of perception?" He vaguely understood.

"That's right," the man walked towards Pu Yiyang with his hands behind his back, and stared into his eyes, "You can still see things that are no longer there. This is called persistence of perception. It's different from hallucinations, because you think What you see is not completely false, at least the signal sent to the consciousness is more real than real."

The man's words touched the string in Pu Yiyang's mind.

"Separation. This is the separation of consciousness and the real world!" He called out softly.

"It's interesting." The man raised one eyebrow slightly, "Your thoughts run like wild dogs, really fast."

Pu Yiyang: "..."

What kind of metaphor is this?This man's personality is really not as decent as his face, and it's a world of difference compared with his junior.

Professor Li also seemed to be a little unable to listen, and stretched out his hand to tug on the man's sleeve: "Brother, stop bullying him."

The man stood up straight and paced around the room.

"The reason why there is persistence of perception is because the human brain," he tapped his temple, "is composed of one neuron after another. The transmission of information takes time in the human brain, which causes a certain degree of Delay. And what if this delay is artificially amplified? And what if, this delay is no longer just a delay on the time scale, but also applied to space? Separation! You are right, kid, this is separation. You are here The world you feel here and now is no longer the real here and now. Time and space are confused in your brain, your person is here, but your consciousness has drifted to another corner.”

Pu Yiyang's mind flashed and thundered, and he murmured, "Brain-computer connection..."

"I'll give you another ten points." The man turned his head and raised one corner of his mouth. "Now, answer me, what do you think is real and what is fake when the brain is connected to the computer?"

Pu Yiyang's eyelids trembled.

"The world is fake." The starry sky in DELTA flashed before his eyes.

"And consciousness is real." The man said, with a stern look on his handsome face, "human consciousness is always real. It is consciousness that defines this world, or in other words, defines everything in the collection of 'you'. The part of the world that is reflected. Your hands and feet, your body, everything in front of your eyes, when you think it's real, it's real. When you think it's fake, oh, you must have found it elsewhere real."

Pu Yiyang seems to have realized something: "So, the core of 'wandering soul disease' is that someone fabricated a 'fake' world, and the sick person whose body is still in reality, their consciousness is trapped in that world. In the 'fake' world?"

When he uttered these words, he already realized that DELTA is obviously the best world to confuse the real with the fake.

According to this statement, could it be that someone regarded DELTA as a beautifully crafted cage, trapping the consciousness of the girl, the bushes, and who knows how many other victims?

If this sensational conjecture is really true, what is the purpose behind it?

He always believed that FREE would not harm his players for no reason.If there were no huge benefits, it would be absolutely impossible for them to take such a big risk and do such a rebellious thing.

"If someone really wanted to do this, but caused 'wandering spirit', then he must have not succeeded." The man said, "Showing the symptoms of 'wandering spirit' just shows that this separation is not complete. Yes. Human consciousness is always wandering between two 'truths', so how can there be no problems?"

Pu Yiyang asked without thinking: "Then how can we bring these people's consciousness back to the real world?"

The man looked at him and grinned suddenly.

"Before I answer this question," his gaze was like a scalpel, piercing Pu Yiyang's brain, "Little friend, you should also clarify your real reason for coming."