Once We Lived in Nanjing

[Interview Excerpt · Three Laws in Exploration and Summary:

The writer met Zhao Bowen at the end of 2020, a physics professor at Nanjing University with a packed schedule and a busy workload. The date agreed upon on WeChat had to be postponed twice before he managed to make time for the writer's exclusive interview.

We found a cafe near Zhongshan Road, with the meeting set for two in the afternoon. The writer arrived at one forty, opened the laptop and phone on a small table, ordered a cup of tea, and waited until two when Zhao Bowen arrived on time. Nanjing's winter was still cold, with fine drizzle falling outside the full-length glass windows, and a tall, thin man walked in through the cafe door, wearing a grey overcoat, black trousers, and tortoise-shell glasses, holding a folded umbrella. He lifted his head, glanced around, and his eyes fell on me.

I waved my hand lightly, and he waved back.

"Are 'purpose' and 'carrying information' two physical concepts?"

I asked.

"No."

The man sitting across shook his hand and smiled.

"These are two bullshit concepts.

"Bullshit?" I was somewhat surprised.

"Strictly speaking, yes, it's bullshit."

Zhao Bowen nodded.

"We didn't have the chance to carry out any further experimental verification—although it indeed showed some guiding effects in practice and was quite useful, there's a difference between useful and correct. Teacher Tianrui, you know our situation back then; we were like prescribing remedies for a dead horse, everyone was in complete darkness, only knowing that the sky was going to fall soon, and nothing else, which was the most terrifying thing."

Zhao Bowen scratched the corner of his forehead.

"If we were to delve into it, this might be a significant breakthrough that could overturn the modern physical framework, but at that time, everything was focused on reversing the future and eradicating disasters as the top priority, and all other matters were put aside. After all, if humanity was extinct, what would be the use of studying physics, right? After the event was over, we did have enough time and manpower to study this issue... but then we never got the chance again."

The professor continued, lifting the hot cup of coffee on the table and taking a small sip.

"Hmm, this coffee tastes alright."

He looked up and nodded at me.

"That girl is a good kid."

He suddenly said.

I was taken aback, then nodded, yes, she is a good kid.

Zhao Bowen, knowing he misspoke, smiled a bit awkwardly and bowed his head to continue drinking his coffee.

"Professor, you just mentioned that the concepts of 'purpose' and 'carrying information' have indeed played a guiding role in practice. May I ask, what is 'purpose'? And what does 'carrying information' mean?"

I said.

"Yes, they did play a role, giving us a general direction, knowing where to explore. 'Purpose', in fact, is a negative BUFF; it will make the world obstruct you. For example, I believe Teacher Tianrui, you must also have this experience in daily life, where you can't find something, and the more you try to find it, the less likely you are to find it. But if you don't actively look for it, at some point it just pops up."

The writer: Isn't that just because you're shortsighted?

Zhao Bowen: Are you being polite?

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Zhao Bowen continued:

"This negative BUFF in 'Time Slow Delivery' results in the stronger your purpose, the greater the obstruction you will face, and the higher the probability of delivery failure."

"But purpose is a subjective aspect of human thought; it's merely an intention in our brain, like wanting to go somewhere or wanting to give a cup of coffee to someone. Can such thoughts influence the objective physical world?"

I was puzzled.

"It's a bit mystical, right? Just like the Copenhagen interpretation in quantum mechanics, Schrodinger's cat, where the observer decides whether the cat is alive or dead. If you don't look at it, it's in a superposition of wave functions, but once you look, it collapses into a definite state, as if the observer's own thoughts are influencing the objective world."

Zhao Bowen smiled.

"However, here, purpose is not an idealistic concept; it has real effects. I'll still use the old example, Teacher Tianrui, if I randomly throw a stone outside the door or hide it in the flower bed by the road for someone to fetch, what's the difference between these two actions?"

"The first action is purposeless, and the second action has a clear purpose."

I answered.

Zhao Bowen nodded:

"What's the fundamental difference?"

I stopped short.

Zhao Bowen took another sip of coffee, revealing the answer:

"It's simple, the difference is whether it carries information. Teacher Tianrui... have you heard of Shannon?"

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The writer never expected to discuss Shannon's information theory with a physics professor in a cafe. The white-haired, long-faced old man is undoubtedly one of the most important scientists in human history, a theoretical pioneer of the information age, an extraordinary individual who completed an entire theoretical framework. Today's developed internet and information industry—no matter what 2G, 3G, 456G—all must kneel and call him the 'ancestor'.

According to Zhao Bowen, the fundamental characteristic of purpose is carrying information. If you throw a stone randomly, it doesn't carry any information. But if you bury the stone in the flower bed waiting for someone to retrieve it, it carries substantial information.

One of the bases of Shannon's information theory is to reveal that the fundamental characteristic of information is to eliminate uncertainty; the more uncertainty that is eliminated, the greater the amount of information.

"It will rain tomorrow."

This sentence contains information.

Tomorrow it will rain moderately.

This sentence contains even more information.

Next, Zhao Bowen's tone of speech made a turn, and he began to talk to the author about Maxwell's demon.

Teacher Tian Rui, have you heard of Maxwell's demon?

I have.

I nodded.

Maxwell's demon, the legendary beast of the history of physics, ranks alongside Schrodinger's cat.

Maxwell's demon, that little monster controlling the valve, can detect the internal energy of individual particles, their speeds of motion, right? It lets the fast-moving particles pass through and stops the slow ones. Zhao Bowen said, let's assume there's another demon, a bigger one, and we'll call it—

The professor glanced at me.

—let's call it the Tian Rui Sign Demon, the Tian Rui Demon. This demon is enormously huge, so big that it could envelop the whole world, and it too can control a valve. However, this valve doesn't distinguish based on speed of motion or contained internal energy but on the amount of information. Targets that carry a massive amount of information will be blocked by it, while objects that carry no information will be able to pass through freely.

I suddenly understood what Zhao Bowen meant.

Did Time Slow Delivery fail because of this? Because the intent was too strong, the information content too high?

Zhao Bowen nodded.

This is why burying a time capsule has to follow the double-blind principle, which actually weakens its intent. Strictly speaking, the more hands a time capsule passes through during the burying process and the more chaotic the steps, the weaker its intent becomes. To this world, its actions become closer to random changes, the uncertainty increases, and the less information it carries, the more it approaches like I casually throw a stone outside.

This is deceiving the world.

I said.

Yes.

Zhao Bowen nodded.

This is deceiving the world.

Then... what exactly does this Tian Rui Demon represent?

I asked.

It's a disaster.

Zhao Bowen answered.

It's the cataclysmic disasters when the black moon arrives, the upheavals. At that time, we called this mechanism the Filter Mechanism. The world is like a big filter that filters through everything we send through it. As a demon, it's mischievous and nasty, purposefully causing trouble. If you give it a solved Rubik's cube, it will certainly mess it up, but if you give it an already scrambled cube, it won't bother.

Does it do this proactively?

I asked.

Of course not. Both Tian Rui Sign Demon and the big filter are simply descriptions of this mechanism and phenomenon, analogies to aid understanding. The fundamental cause of these outcomes is the significant entropy increase and information dissipation and distortion in human civilization after the disaster strikes.

Zhao Bowen answered.

The more information a target carries, the worse the distortion becomes, and it eventually gets lost.

I said.

Zhao Bowen nodded: And targets that don't carry much information from the start are hardly affected.

At this moment, the author finally understood the delivery mechanism of Time Slow Delivery. By burying through double-blind and even multi-blind methods as much as possible, the intent of the time capsule is minimized, increasing its randomness and uncertainty. The greater the uncertainty, the less information it carries. At this instant, the information the time capsule carries is diffused throughout the universe, and thus it can pass through the big filter—this is the so-called need to deceive oneself before deceiving the world.

But deceiving oneself alone is not enough; a target whose information is diffused throughout the universe cannot be found by anyone, just like if you toss the capsule into Xuanwu Lake at random, no one can fish it out. The next step is the latter part of the plan, to have that girl find it.

Zhao Bowen said theoretically it's impossible to find the capsule because it carries too little information, but as it happens, they have a savior beyond theory.

Icom725.

To be reborn from the brink of death, we first put ourselves in extreme peril, and the straw that pulls us out is the Icom725 radio.

Zhao Bowen spoke leisurely.

This is marvelous, if it weren't for Icom725, such a plan would not be possible at all. It is the last key to completing the loop. The messages transmitted by the radio collapse the information diffused throughout the universe to a single point of certainty in an instant, like a wave function spread through the universe collapsing to a specific quantity. Only with the radio's existence is it possible for that girl to restore the originally chaotic Rubik's cube. In that moment, the vast entropy will plummet dramatically!

This is the third law of Time Slow Delivery.

Zhao Bowen whispered.

It also summarizes and encompasses the first two laws.

—One must try every means to weaken the intent and reduce the amount of information carried.

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Bai Yang was silent for a long time.

"Got it all figured out?" Zhao Bowen finished his cigarette, pressing the butt on the floor and rubbing it out.

"In that case, there are ways to deliver supplies other than time capsules," Bai Yang said.

"Of course, there are." Zhao Bowen nodded, "Theoretically, as long as it adheres to the three major laws, any method within the framework of these laws will be viable."

"Can we send her an air conditioner?"

Zhao Bowen was stunned, "What?"