He changed Tiwat

“Mona, if we want to know this, we have to continue this experiment—for the next period of time, all your three meals a day will be observed in advance using water divination, and the results will be recorded. Um, remember, when you are divining, you have to say out loud what you want to eat.”

Chapter 265 Can Consciousness Determine Matter?

Mona's divination of her lunch proves that the "observer effect" also exists on the continent of Teyvat, and that observing the fate system of this Sky Isle can affect the results of the observation.

Next, they will conduct experiments to investigate how observation affects the results. Do different observation postures produce different results?

The laws of nature have fallen asleep, and Sky Island is now managed automatically by an AI system. If this is compared to modern internet management, it's like human reviewers are asleep, running only a rigid sensitive word database—so of course we should take this opportunity to crack down on some lewd things that the reviewers can't tolerate.

If this "false heaven" is indeed a computer program, and "fate" is the "pseudo-random number" generated by this program, then Mona's divination is very likely a string of code that can make the program run. Although Han Fulai dares not say that he really understands the principle of how this program works, at least the result of the program's operation is already in front of him.

The experiment Han Fulai asked Mona to do next sounded very simple: divine her three meals a day, and say out loud what she wanted to eat while divining, then record the results of the divination and verify the results.

The experiment was not complicated to conduct, but their purpose in doing it was an absolutely taboo act—they were trying to control the "fate system" of Sky Island.

Just like fighting game players don't know what kind of code is behind the game character they are controlling, or what kind of logic this code follows, but that doesn't prevent the player from controlling the character to perform actions.

It's okay if you don't know the move list. Whether it's down-forward-down-forward punch, or up-down-up-down-left-right-left-right-BABA, you won't know unless you try it out.

Scientists conducting experiments and gamers creating move lists are essentially no different; both are about accumulating data.

By accumulating data through such tests, Han Fulai and Mona may even be able to discover a method—a method to make the observation results conform to the observer's expectations.

Of course, this experiment was not the kind of blind, aimless experiment. Han Fulai had his reasons for proposing such an experimental plan to Mona.

If Han Fulai were to explain the design principle of this experiment, he would say that it is called the "Neumann interpretation experiment".

To understand the origin of this story, we must go back to the famous "Schrödinger's cat".

Schrödinger's cat brought the microscopic quantum mechanics into the macroscopic reality, forcing the Copenhagen interpretation led by Bohr to explain the scope of quantum mechanics' applicability—let's accept the cat's state of being both dead and alive for now, then why can't we ever see a "dead and alive cat"? Is it our observation that creates the observation result?

In response, the Copenhagen School, led by Bohr, declared that it was meaningless to discuss the cat's state before observation, and that the observation process and the observer must be special processes independent of the theory.

Therefore, they proposed a "quantum classical boundary": the observer is subject to classical mechanics, while microscopic particles are subject to quantum mechanics. If we, humans in the classical mechanics world, want to observe microscopic particles, we will inevitably cross a certain boundary.

On one side of the boundary lies the classical world, where everything must be described according to classical laws—there is no superposition, no interference, and no uncertainty. On the other side, the world is described according to the laws of quantum mechanics, filled with quantum phenomena such as superposition and interference. Once we cross this boundary, the quantum state "collapses" and becomes reality.

As far as Han Fulai knew, physicists on Earth had not been able to find this "boundary" until he crossed it.

But physicists will still ask – if such a “boundary” really exists, where is this so-called “boundary”? Beyond the size of an atom? Or beyond the size of a molecule? You have to draw this path, right?

Thus, John von Neumann, one of the most brilliant minds in human history, who could mentally calculate the summation of infinite series in seconds and was known as the "father of the computer" and a "human computer," charted a different course for quantum mechanics.

John von Neumann stated, "You claim that there is such a boundary in quantum mechanics, but you don't say where it is? Your perfunctory explanation is an insult to my intelligence!"

Since we humans and our observational instruments are all composed of microscopic particles, why must these so-called "macroscopic things" follow a special rule? Why can't quantum mechanics be applied to the macroscopic world?

Quantum mechanics should be universally applicable to the entire physical world. It is effective not only for microscopic particles, but also for macroscopic measuring instruments and even for observers.

In other words, there is no boundary between the classical world and the quantum world; they are both described by quantum mechanics.

For example, in the "Schrödinger's cat" experiment, all the observation instruments, including our senses, are made of quantum particles, so they all have to obey quantum laws.

The combination of the release and non-release of poison inevitably drags the cat into a state of being both dead and alive. Then, when we observe it, our eyes are dragged into seeing a superposition of death and life, which in turn drags our optic nerves into a superposition of two different states of activation. This interaction continues until it reaches our brain and is interpreted by the brain...

In this entire chain, something must have happened at some point that broke the rules of quantum mechanics, causing the superposition state to "collapse" into a definite state. So, where exactly did things go wrong?

John von Neumann made the same reasoning as Sherlock Holmes—when you eliminate all the impossible, what remains, however unbelievable, is the truth.

The problem he identified lay in the spirit, or rather, "consciousness."

He believed that physical laws should be universal, but this universality should be limited to the material world.

Yes, all macroscopic matter is made up of quantum particles. We can assume that even macroscopic objects follow the laws of quantum mechanics, and we have reason to believe that quantum mechanics is universal—but we have no reason to believe that it is universal for phenomena other than matter.

—"Soul," "spirit," "consciousness"—whatever you call it, it is not matter.

There is absolutely no evidence that consciousness obeys the laws of physics. To this day, physics dares not claim to have even the slightest understanding of consciousness.

Therefore, von Neumann asserted that consciousness must be at play. Consciousness is the only factor in the entire causal chain of the "Schrödinger's cat" experiment that might not obey the laws of physics.

Consciousness is the mysterious "observer" that exists outside of matter, and therefore it is the only possible culprit for wave function collapse.

This is what von Neumann originally proposed: the role that consciousness might play in the measurement process.

Simply put, von Neumann drew the boundary between classical mechanics and quantum mechanics to the boundary between "matter" and "consciousness".

The reason Han Fulai made Mona shout out the dishes she wanted to eat was precisely this.

Since the ley lines collect all the data in this world, they will naturally collect Mona's will as well—he wanted to see if Mona's consciousness could determine her "fate"? In this world called Teyvat, can consciousness truly determine matter?

Chapter 266 Schrödinger's Teyvat [5k] (Bonus Chapter 2/19)

Normally, physicists would never consider "consciousness" in their experiments.

In fact, let alone physicists, even Wang Shouren, the famous philosopher known for his "philosophy of mind," attempted to "investigate things to understand principles" in his youth but failed miserably. This great scholar stared at the bamboo in his courtyard for seven days, trying to influence the bamboo with his own consciousness or to glean some profound wisdom from it, and eventually fell ill...

Practice has proven that in the macroscopic world, human consciousness has no effect on matter at all.

Prior to today, Han Fulai had never questioned this conclusion. He understood the theory of quantum mechanics, but he had never encountered any application of it in his life—even if he prayed to his phone and computer for a lucky draw, the game server would not respond to his prayers.

Even if quantum mechanics is truly a magical science where consciousness determines matter, it seems to have nothing to do with him, since no physicist on Earth can achieve whatever they want.

But in Teyvat, a magical world where all sorts of extraordinary powers exist, the idea that "consciousness determines matter" could indeed become a reality.

In the "paradise" era of Teyvat that Zhongli described to him, if there was famine, food and rain would fall from the sky; if there was barrenness, minerals would be produced on the earth.

This description is actually a bit strange. Zhongli is not saying that Heaven gave these things to His people, but rather that people prayed to Heaven and the supplies appeared out of thin air.

Previously, Zhongli's descriptions had not attracted much attention from Han Fulai. After all, Tianli was the supreme god, so it seemed normal for him to be a little powerful.

But after obtaining the power of the Salt God, Han Fulai had a deeper understanding of the powers of the gods than before. At least he knew that even the former "Salt Demon God" Heuria could not produce salt infinitely, and the Salt Ruler and Salt Cup made by the Salt God were not perpetual motion machines and could not really kill Oser with salt—otherwise, the "Salt of the Earth" would have covered the whole world and become the "Salt of Teyvat" long ago.

The reason why the descendants of the salt god in Ginhara-cho were treated favorably was largely due to their mastery of the salt-making techniques passed down from the salt god.

Similarly, the Mora created by Zhongli is not infinite. Even the most powerful god cannot create things out of thin air; even hand-made Mora requires raw materials.

Even the hearth god Maxis couldn't simply wave his hand and feed the people of Liyue. After all, food had to be grown from the ground, and the hearth god merely taught people how to cook and protected their hearth fires from going out. In the end, to avert disaster, Maxis even had to relinquish some of his divine power, transforming into the "rice crust" we know today.

He himself now uses the power of the Salt God to create things, but those things must have raw materials nearby. For example, the marble creations he often makes are essentially because calcium carbonate is something that is readily available.

The Demon God is a powerful individual who possesses advanced technologies unavailable to humans on the continent of Teyvat, but ultimately, he cannot achieve things like "perpetual motion machines" or "void creation." Even if he doesn't know the specific principles behind "power," he at least knows that it must adhere to the law of conservation of matter; it's not something you can simply create as much as you want.

Tenri's performance in that "paradise" era forced him to consider whether Tenri was able to create a "paradise" because—Tenri responded to the prayers of His people in a way that "consciousness determines matter"?

For example, through the earth's vein system, the people's "wishes" are transformed into matter?

For example, those substances might appear in certain situations, or rather, in certain "destinies," and the principles of Heaven, through the "observation" of the people, cause this "destiny" to collapse into reality.

Let's not worry about what will happen if their experiment is discovered by the Heavenly Principles and Sky Island system. Anyway, as a rebel, he's already used to being indifferent to troubles... Let's just treat this "consciousness determines matter" system as a trump card that can only be used once.

If he could master this technology and use it at a crucial moment, it would be an absolutely revolutionary trump card—imagine, a chance to "make your wishes come true"! Even if this ability to "determine matter" could only be applied within the seven kingdoms of Teyvat, it would still be a weapon of mass destruction comparable to nuclear weapons.

Such an experiment could not produce results quickly, and Han Fulai obviously could not stay with Mona to conduct experiments indefinitely.

From a rigorous perspective, the more experiments conducted, the more reliable the results. Mona, after all, was a science student who had spent many years in her mentor's laboratory. Conducting experiments, recording data, and adjusting the experimental direction based on data feedback were all second nature to her.

Moreover, Mona went a step further and thought that perhaps it wasn't just about things like "three meals a day," but also about things like what books to read and where to go for fun, which could all be included in this "observation experiment."

This experiment is likely to be a long-term battle. To achieve any significant results, it will require at least a dozen or twenty trials, if not hundreds or thousands.

Of course, to prevent "cause and effect and future troubles", Han Fulai also reminded Mona to try not to "defy the heavens" so as not to cause any unexpected changes.

Miss Mona, who has a rebellious spirit but a cowardly body, doesn't actually need Han Fu to remind her. After all, she has developed a professional escape technique called "Flash of Reality" that even old women admire.

Moreover, Mona has always wanted to take over that old woman's title.

—The witch codenamed "B," Mona's mentor, is named Astromancer Barbeloth Trismegistus, which literally translates to "Three Times Great Astrologer," sounding even greater than Mona, the "Great Astrologer."

Actually, the old woman's original name was "Tris". After taking Mona as her apprentice, she added "Tris" to her name to indicate that she was three times more capable than her apprentice...

Initially, Mona was prepared to compete with the old woman in lifespan. In Mona's view, becoming the greatest astrologer was quite simple: as long as no other astrologer lived longer than you, you would naturally be the greatest astrologer…

But if she could really "control fate" through astrology, wouldn't she have already accomplished something even greater than that old woman? Mona had already decided that she would change her name to "Four Times Greater Astrology Master," surpassing the old woman.

So after agreeing to meet Han Fulai again in a week, Mona didn't want to wait a second longer and rushed back to her laboratory to start preparing for the experiment.

Watching Mona's excited figure disappear into the distance, Han Fulai fell into deep thought once again.

In fact, the deeper meaning behind his experiment far exceeded Mona's knowledge. It was not merely a test of the Sky Island fate system, nor simply a verification of "consciousness determines matter."

He saw something even more chilling behind this system.

But he couldn't say these things.

This was certainly a bit unfair to Mona, but he didn't even dare let her have any thoughts about those things in her mind—after all, he couldn't guarantee that Mona wouldn't reveal these thoughts while conducting experiments.

As a man who has fully entered the "realm of thinking about the seven ruling powers of the mortal world," Han Fulai's thinking about the "false heaven" has transcended the system itself. He is pondering the significance of the establishment of this system by the principles of heaven.

His knowledge of quantum mechanics, brought from Earth, allowed him to see deeper secrets.

While there are related theories on Earth, they are ultimately limited to the level of "thought experiments." Neither experimental conditions nor ethical considerations allow them to actually conduct experiments—after all, even Schrödinger, known as a "cat abuser," never actually put a cat in a box containing poison, and Schrödinger himself was a cat lover...

However, in the magical world of Teyvat, "Schrödinger's cat" may transcend the realm of thought experiments and enter reality.

John von Neumann's greatest contribution to this problem was establishing a concrete theory of measurement, proposing the boundary between consciousness and matter, and analyzing the observation process that Bohr and others had vaguely addressed using physical means. His analytical approach became the foundation for subsequent research on the interpretation of quantum mechanics, and he himself became a giant upon whom later generations could stand.

Han Fulai then thought of a physicist who stood on the shoulders of von Neumann and proposed the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Eugene Wegener, who was later known as "Wegener's friend."

In his paper exploring consciousness and matter, *On the Mind-Body Problem*, Mr. Wegener proposed a "Schrödinger's cat plus version" thought experiment, also known as "Wegener's friend"—

Since observation can cause the quantum state to collapse, does the cat's observation have the same function in the Schrödinger's cat experiment? We can't ask the cat to verify this because the cat can't tell us how it feels, but what about a human?

To make it easier to monitor the cat, we put a friend and the cat in a box together. Of course, to save this poor friend from being poisoned, we could give him a gas mask.

Our friend assured us that he was by no means an animal rights activist, and that throughout the entire experiment, he simply stood there quietly observing, remaining indifferent whether the cats lived or died, without taking any action to interfere with the experiment.

Then, the experiment began. We knew that the cat in the box had a 50% chance of being poisoned and a 50% chance of surviving.

So we can ask this friend the same question as Schrödinger: Was the cat dead or alive before we opened the box?

In this experiment, an additional self-aware human observer was added.

Following the experimental principle of "Schrödinger's cat," the entire interior of the box can be considered as a superposition state.

For an observer outside the box, before the box is opened, the poison inside is in a superposition of both being released and not being released; the cat inside is in a superposition of both being dead and alive; and even the friend that Mr. Wegener sent in is in a superposition of a split personality, "seeing the cat dead" and "seeing the cat alive"...

According to the Copenhagen interpretation and von Neumann's theory, the friend inside the box, as a conscious human observer, must cause a "collapse" in his observation. In other words, the cat inside the box has already collapsed into a definite state of being either dead or alive. If Wegener were to ask his friend, the friend would certainly tell him that the cat is either already dead or alive—a definite answer.

What appears to be a superposition state to an external observer is already a definite reality to an internal observer—this is a paradox. Is the state inside the box a superposition or a definite state?

Based on our common sense, we can deduce that if a sealed iron cage were built, filled with poison, a cat, and a heartless friend, this friend would inevitably be able to determine whether the cat is dead or alive, or in other words, this friend would inevitably cause the reality inside the cage to "collapse".

There is no paradox; as long as a friend is put into the box, reality will be determined.

When is reality determined? Of course, it's at the very moment that friend makes the observation.

To explain this "Wigner's friend" experiment in the language of quantum mechanics, it goes like this:

When we open the box, we don't know whether the cat is alive or dead. It's a "superposition state," where two expectations of whether the cat is alive or dead exist simultaneously—existing in our consciousness.

Then we asked our friend, "Is the cat dead or alive?", and our friend replied, "Dead."

This answer immediately gave us a definite message, and our consciousness immediately ruled out another possibility. At this moment, the superposition state of the cat collapsed—it collapsed in our consciousness.

Observation is simply the process by which people form impressions in their consciousness.

For example, when we observe Schrödinger's cat, our so-called observation that "the cat is dead" or "the cat is alive" is nothing more than "the impression that the cat is dead (or alive) in our brain." Without our impression, the observation would not be an observation—it would be meaningless.

In other words, the results of observation are the information received by our consciousness.

When we acquire impressions about the outside world, our knowledge of it is updated. Simultaneously, when we receive definitive information (such as "the cat is dead"), all contradictory information (such as "the cat is alive") is automatically filtered out. This is the most natural explanation for wave function collapse: it's simply a replacement of information in our brains.

Through this thought experiment, Wegener essentially expressed von Neumann's measurement causal chain in a very vivid form. Von Neumann first proposed that consciousness might be related to collapse, and Wegener subsequently concretized and clarified this argument.

Since people on Earth have failed to find the boundary between matter and consciousness, no matter how magical the idea that "consciousness determines matter" may be, it cannot be applied to reality on Earth, at least for now.

However, Teyvat has clear records of its applications: Sky Isles, Ley Lines, "False Heavens," and the "Constellation" system—these things all truly exist on the Teyvat continent. If he could find a way, Han Fulai would even dare to try applying them.

Going a step further... let's consider why "consciousness determines matter" can occur in the macroscopic world of Teyvat? Why does something like "willpower" exist on the continent of Teyvat? Why does the boundary between matter and consciousness in quantum mechanics seem to not exist in Teyvat?

What if... the continent of Teyvat, shrouded in "false heavens," is actually the box containing "Schrödinger's cat"?

What if the principles of Heaven, the earth veins they created, and the "system of destiny" are essentially "observers" and "observation instruments"?

What if the people on Teyvat were all "Schrödinger's cats"?

The "story" that Zhongli told him in the Salt God Ruins shows that the "Prime Minister," also known as Tianli, was actually an outsider.

Zhongli then told him that he, as an outsider, possessed certain powers, and that his innate "power of words" could, to some extent, be seen as "consciousness determining matter"...

Could it be that, as a transmigrator, he also possesses a certain degree of... "observer" ability within the "box" of Teyvat?

—This may be the reason why the current "Seven Rulers of the Mortal World," Zhongli, Wendy, and other gods attach such importance to him?

Now, an opportunity has presented itself to Han Fulai. He happens to know a friend who is skilled in water divination and can "observe the fate of beings in a superposition state"...

Therefore, Han Fulai asked Mona to act as "Wegener's friend".