Cyber ​​Sword Immortal Iron Rain

Although they are of different ages and body shapes, they appear to be the same person walking forward, forming a coherent storyboard; each person is connected to the others by an umbilical cord.

The pose is like Rudolph F. Zallinger's March of Progress; only it does not depict the progression from apes to humans.

There is a resemblance in the faces, but they are different because of their age.

“All three of these are me.”

Fang Bailu did not look back: as he merged with the double helix tree, he could create all things with flesh and blood with his mind.

"Each of them has all my memories, emotions and personality from that time. I can trace back everything that happened in the past from my memories and recreate myself at any point in time."

"Even if they have prosthetics... no, even if they are made entirely of prosthetics, I can still restore them using biomass as the material."

"But it's just me. As for the others besides me... I can also reproduce them. But, they are just imitations based on my impressions - or in other words, they are actually just another completely different individual."

He turned around: staring at the reflections of yesterday that had just been created with skin, muscle bundles, skeletons and internal organs -

“This is me when I was thirteen.”

"This is me when I entered the white coffin. The real him has died in the hibernation chamber - even now, his cancer cells have metastasized to the lymphatic and skeletal systems; I did not cure his stage 3 liver cancer."

"Here, I am the one who transferred my soul into the Niwan and then placed it in the metal body."

……

“Before, I only saw myself as a collection of all my past selves.”

"But now I realize that as soon as time passes, I will be different from yesterday. Fang Bailu from the last moment to the next moment will have completely different wishes, sorrows and joys -"

“In the past—every time I look back, I lament the choices I made that were not right, the other paths I chose…But at that moment, I had different hopes and desires, and the desires of the moment cannot be changed.”

“So: I think that even the same person…is a different individual in every moment.”

He suddenly remembered everything he had seen in the tortoise's breath - the man who had lost his memory and called himself "Anonymous"; and the "Xihe Girl" he had imagined, a mixture of conjecture and part of his self.

Fang Bailu had no interest in explaining this to Patient Zero. But he understood in his heart - or thought - that they were also separate and complete individuals.

……

Patient Zero:

"If that's all you think—"

"I can tell you that Moscow Central Esports is working on a similar project. They call it "The Great Game"... It's about transforming the Earth so that it can be saved and loaded at any time; it's about undoing all the mistakes and pain that might happen in the future."

Fang Bailu:

"You made your point very clear; that is meaningless to what I want to accomplish... whether it's the 'rebirth' you mentioned before, or this so-called 'big game'."

"Besides, that's not real time travel - and I don't think even if I could go back in time, I could undo all the suffering that has happened."

……

……

Chapter 359: Wishes (Part )

……

……

"You remember? I just punched you."

Before Patient Zero could answer, Fang Bailu asked another question:

"That punch hurt, didn't it?"

A hint of annoyance gradually appeared on Patient Zero's face - like a tear in his mask:

"Yes, but you restored my wounds."

Fang Bailu:

"But the memory of this pain is still there."

"And even if this memory is erased, does it mean that you have never been hit by this punch, or that you never felt the pain when you were hit by the punch?"

"Step back a step: there is real, ideal conditions and concepts of time travel; you went back in time and stopped the cause and effect of my punch..."

"But it still happened. All the pain that happened at that point in time; it won't never have happened because of your so-called correction."

……

"Not to mention, there is no real time travel in this world - so you don't support the actions of the reconstructionists."

Patient Zero:

"What do you mean by parallel universes? Even if time travel changes the past and corrects the mistakes that have happened, there will still be an unmodified universe that will develop exactly the same as the original one?"

Fang Bailu:

"You can think in terms of parallel universes, if that helps."

"I think the universe is like human beings - a collection of individuals that are infinitely divided into smaller scales. Even if time travel can be realized, it cannot change these slices - these past moments are like being squeezed and pushed out of this world... Even if they are so-called changed, they will exist eternally and independently."

“It’s like an endless, cosmic slice.”

……

Patient Zero took off his glasses, clenched them in his hands, and then unclenched them:

"I don't understand. What you're saying isn't even a thought experiment."

He even threw away the honorific he had been using, and the frame of his glasses made a strange crackling sound when he was pinched:

"You... have confused me. What do you want? What do you want to explain?"

……

"Have you ever heard of 'Robb's Basilisk'?"

Patient Zero straightened the hem of his clothes and adjusted the position of his crossed legs so that he could sit in a more comfortable position. He stifled a muffled cough with his fist and raised his cloudy eyes: He was indeed a man old enough that people even had the illusion that he was on the edge between life and death.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Fang... I don't really understand the topics that old people are concerned about - even for me, your era is too early."

Fang Bailu stared at the other person's dim whites of the eyes: Patient Zero's joke is really boring.

"'Rocco's Basilisk' is something I heard about a long time ago. It's basically... with the birth of this concept, in the distant future, an artificial intelligence with sufficient resources will be born; and this artificial intelligence will punish every human who has heard of this concept but does not support the development of artificial intelligence."

"It will be so powerful that even humans in history will be resurrected by it and punished endlessly."

"My understanding is that it's not evil, it just does it because it can."

……

Patient Zero listened in silence, then spoke:

"I have not heard of this thought experiment - perhaps after your death, in the era of my birth, any information about this boring 'Rocco's Basilisk' has been thrown into the waste paper pile."

"But I guess what you meant was not to create an absolute artificial intelligence that controls everything and let it handle everything human... If it was such a boring idea, you wouldn't have told me so seriously."

……

Fang Bailu:

"Of course not—I've seen I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream."

"'Rocco's Basilisk' may just be a random joke or a thought experiment designed by a forum user..."

"But I also have my own version: a version that I like better than the one I saw before - this is the inspiration I got from Turtle Breath."

“The AI ​​in the story doesn’t have to be artificial intelligence, and what it does doesn’t have to be just punishment and torture.”

……

"According to your description, human technological breakthroughs have stagnated - and before technology develops to a higher level, humans are showing signs of destroying themselves first."

"But how long is the observation window you leave for humans? Decades? Hundreds of years?"

"After that - if humans had a mind to match the technology; could they reach greater heights?"

"I remember that our universe has already gone from expansion to collapse. This is the root of all visualization machines."

……

"When the universe we live in collapses to a certain 'size'... for example, the size of a fist - I use this word for the convenience of expression and understanding - then... all the history and information of the entire universe are hidden in this 'fist'."

"I don't know if humans will ever be able to truly know everything - but I'm sure it will be possible.

"Resurrection of the dead in the true sense - no longer just creating an identical replica, but not the original 'one' individual... but returning the scattered matter intact."

……

"And when that happens, humans may really be able to accomplish many things...more than what these methods of immortality can accomplish now."

"Then I could also give it a name like 'Fang Bailu's Wonderful Tree'."

"Because of the hope we have now for humanity's own morality and the level of technology we can achieve, then in the future, in all possibilities."

"Humanity will eventually make up for all suffering... I believe that humans are not born to suffer, and life is not just about finding relief."

“It is not about being lost forever in an electronic illusion where you cannot distinguish and perceive the truth from the false, but about truly grasping the boundless possibilities in your hands.”

"Once the concept is born, it will be realized - because when humans finally become omniscient and omnipotent, they will try everything they can."

……

"It sounds like a religion: even corny. Are you trying to tell me that there is a final salvation at the end of the universe, at the end of time? Is that what you want to convince me of?"

"Unverifiable rewards and punishments, gods that will be born in the distant future, the resurrected people, and endless happiness - cough, cough!"

"Everything you said cannot be accomplished in the real world! You want to use conceptual omnipotence to solve some conceptual pain!"

"How old-fashioned and cliché! Are you going to create a stone that you can't even lift?"

Patient Zero's cheeks, which were covered with spots and pigmentation, turned red, and his loose skin swayed with the splashing saliva. Without paying attention to the specific content of his words, one could see his anger and dissatisfaction:

"So? You want to establish a kingdom of God on earth, and use this theory and the zombies you created with your way of immortality to establish eternal rule? Huh?!"

……

……

Chapter 360 Wishes (End)

……

Fang Bailu:

"I don't see the point of ruling: power similar to the 'castle in my dream' has no appeal to me -"

"I am just a person who has had regrets, sufferings and troubles; I hope that these past days can be made up for and my wishes can be realized - I believe that there are many people like me... and I hope they have the hope that one day it will come true."

……

The cane that Patient Zero was leaning on broke. No one could have guessed that such strength was hidden in this decaying body.

"Think carefully: Even as the host of the Way of Immortality, you are just a user of a tool. People like us should never dominate the direction of the world."

Fang Bailu:

"Of course, I am just an ape with an assault rifle now... and so are you. But humans themselves have more and better possibilities. Although the golden age you mentioned encountered a technological bottleneck in the explosive progress and eventually entered a bohemian age of pure boredom -"

"But this does not mean that such a thing is inevitable; nor does it mean that 'separation' is the only solution to this disaster."

"All we should do is give mankind new opportunities: As you said, we shouldn't dictate the direction of the world..."

……

Fang Bailu:

"No... Since you are a 'man from the future', you should be able to understand better than others--"

"The difference between tomorrow being 'dark' and tomorrow being 'bright'."

“Humanity deserves and needs more possibilities: the end of humanity is not limited to self-destruction.”

"If they understood, if they knew, that yesterday's mistakes and pain could be corrected, then perhaps humanity could be better."

Patient Zero: