Chapter 12:
The Future and the Anthropic Principle
IF IT’S NOT DETERMINED whether the cat is dead or alive until you open the box and observe it, then how does the cat feel? Is it aware that it’s alive and dead at the same time?
No, how could it know?
There’s no way the cat would think it was alive or dead or both, and the same goes for us. To us, our bodies feel like unshakable, immutable fact. Why? Because our brains are incapable of perceiving any other state.
Told that we’re made of clouds of probability called quanta—particles and waves at the same time—there’s no way we can just swallow it and say, “Oh, I see.” If someone tells us, “No, your body is not determinate; you just think it is,” it’s difficult to form a counterargument. If they say it’s just that our brains perceive it that way, we’re left with no way to disprove it. After all, when it comes down to it, it is our brains that receive and process everything for us.
What if someone tells us we’re sleeping and having an extremely realistic dream? They say, “You’re just a brain in a tank mistaking a virtual world generated by electrical impulses inside you for reality.” How do you disprove that? So what we have to rely on in the end is “I think, therefore I am.”
Have you heard of the cosmological theory called the Anthropic principle? In simple terms, it’s the idea that the universe exists for the sake of humans. From a common-sense standpoint, it sounds ludicrous, but there are plenty of scientists contemplating it seriously. That just goes to show how convenient the parameters of the universe are for humans. They say if the balance of these parameters had been even a little different, humans would never have existed.
The birth of humanity was necessary for the universe? The universe exists in the form it does for the sake of it? These kinds of ideas are called the anthropic principle. I understand what’s amazing about this field is that the more it’s researched, the more results turn up that seem to make such conclusions obvious.
What I say only goes so far, but apparently, there are scientists who make some pretty bold claims along these lines in quantum mechanics. They say that the laws of the universe are what they are because of human observation. They say that the universe was determined in a form favorable to humanity because humans observed it. In other words, it’s not that the universe was always such that one and one make two—it’s just that way because humans observed it that way, because it’s convenient for human observers. The universe became that way because of the observation. The results of future observation affect the past, and the result of that is the present.
Again, what I say only goes so far, but I think the principle is pretty wild.
This might be arrogant of me—like, I might be taking it in a distorted way—but it’s a convenient line of thought. So, let me set aside personal thoughts and embrace this line of thinking with enthusiasm. Let me affirm it and join the club. Three cheers for the anthropic principle!
“I think, therefore I am.”
When all is said and done, convenience is what we’re all about.
✦ ✦ ✦
I was born as Hatou Manabu again, and I let the world run its course. I entered junior high and met Yukari with a kiss in the hall. I got to know Nanami, was kidnapped by a serial killer, and gained a cell phone in my hand. On the first day of the second term of my second year, Alice joined as an exchange student. Yukari went to America and died.
✦ ✦ ✦
After I graduated junior high (and by the way, in the meantime I got with Kasoku Tomonori before Nanami did—yeah, sorry, I guess that was pretty mean of me, but come on, let me have a little fun as a treat), I joined Jaunt.
I investigated the truth behind Yukari’s death. On the way, I made up with Alice and established an even deeper relationship. Yes, I got her both to cooperate with me and to depend on me. I brainwashed her to love me and see me as her everything. It was easy for me, already knowing everything about Alice, and even if I’d failed, I still had infinite possibilities to try again. After tricking Alice, I pretended to follow Jaunt and polished my skills.
I waited for the right time. Then, along with Alice, I exposed the corruption behind Jaunt, drained the swamp, purified the organization, and ultimately made it mine.
I stood at its peak.
I turned Jaunt into an upright organization and worked proactively to protect and nurture geniuses. Meanwhile, I went on expanding my influence. Naturally, this required vast sums of capital. No matter how much cash I had, it was never enough. I started a corporation and made it a success. Among the infinite parallel worlds, there were plenty in which I got filthy rich. I started a foundation, searched even wider for talent, gathered scientists, and supported promising businesses. Putting growth before profit, I invested all of my personal assets.
Jaunt was a symbol of the dynamism that would propel the future. It was an icon of innovation. And by now, I, Hatou Manabu, was Jaunt.
I was never afraid to put down my money for scientific development. It was worth it for the achievement of a paradigm shift.
I went around the world scouting people with talent. I didn’t use any underhanded methods, nor did I need to. Opportunity routinely knocked at my door, and fortune followed it with blessings. They called me the goddess of victory, the sponsor of the twenty-first century. I made it into the “Working Women’s Top 100” and onto the front of Times. Organizers all over the world invited me to give talks.
And through it all, Alice and the other young genius scientists gathered at Jaunt continued their research. I sent my support to geniuses in physics, in biology, in every field. Sociology, art, music, literature. I never stopped working to develop whatever might further my ends.
But despite all that, the key was still Alice, and that was why I’d do anything for her.
Anything but free her.
Social interaction was a difficult game, but I always won.
“Hey, Alice. Is there anything I can do for you?” By this time, I could speak four languages, but I still spoke to Alice in Japanese.
Alice had returned to her natural hair color as an adult. She replied to me blankly, “Leave me alone. Ignore anything I say. Don’t respond to me.”
I laughed and shook my head. My words cut to the point. “I can’t do that. What I can do is love you from the bottom of my heart, or I can hate you from the bottom of my heart, but I can’t be in the middle. I’m like light. Of all the possible routes, I can only take the most extreme and the most direct. I can only pick the maximum or the minimum. That’s how I go.”
Alice pointed a gun at me, so I smiled, averted my gaze so as to be easier for her to shoot me, and pointed to my forehead. It wasn’t the first time this had happened. Trial and error—rinse and repeat.
“Try and do it in one shot if you can. You can come closer.”
“You think I can’t do it?”
“No. You probably don’t know what I’m talking about, but I already know you can do it. I know for a fact. You wouldn’t have any way of knowing this, but this isn’t the first time you’ve killed me, nor would it be the first time the other way around.”
“I really don’t know what you’re talking about, Manabu.”
“That’s fine. Just understand this: in this world, I love you. So if it’s what you want, I don’t mind. I’ll give this world to you, gladly.”
“That’s not what I want!”
“Yes. I know that too.”
It took a while. Then I heard her sobbing. I looked up and saw Alice weeping.
That was how it always was. Alice always hesitated. She was such a sweet girl.
Softly, I sighed. “Come on, Alice. There’s nothing more I can give you. So please—just shoot me. I don’t think this world will work anyway. If it’s going to be like this, I want you to be the one.”
“I…I…I…”
“If you love me, Alice, show it. Prove it with your actions. Make me yours. If you don’t, you’ll never be free from me.”
Love and hatred—always the extremes. I branded them on myself like tattoos.
That’s how I go.
“Let me end this world by dying for you, Alice.”
I went back through my memories, searching for where I went wrong, summing things up, breaking them down. It was a shame, but if this was the end of the line, then so be it. I’d do better in the next world.
Bang!