Marx has an unusually keen interest in peculiar and unusual things. His level of interest surpasses the ordinary person's curiosity for novel and strange matters. Despite this, he hasn't acquired too many oddities or sought things considered exotic by ordinary standards. He isn't intrigued by outward eccentricities or historical relics with rumored backgrounds. His quest lies in an intrinsic peculiarity, something distinct from human creation. Yet, in his brief life, he has not encountered anything exceptionally unusual that is not of human origin.
In the era of information explosion, there are always people presenting perplexing visuals, images, and rumors, but generally, the horror and peculiarity these things exhibit are rooted in human nature, far from what Marx seeks. Marx's pursuit, in fact, has been challenging to fulfill, and he has always kept it to himself, never expressing fervor in this regard or deliberately deviating from the ordinary in his lifestyle. Consequently, nobody perceives Marx as a monster; they treat him as an ordinary person.
In many ways, Marx today is not significantly different from an ordinary person, except for his stringent interests.
The origins of Marx's peculiar interest trace back to his childhood when, as a five or six-year-old, his father gifted him a beautifully packaged children's book on human anatomy as a birthday present. Marx vividly remembers the intricately illustrated pages that captivated his young eyes. Although the textual content was not particularly profound or comprehensive, he recalls that the book touched upon a question not explicitly mentioned.
The book explained that human senses have limitations. For instance, human ears can only hear a narrow range of frequencies, and the human nose can only detect a limited range of smells, inferior to many animals. However, humans excel in summarizing and creating numerous instruments that transform the sensory information beyond human perception into understandable knowledge. The book emphasized the greatness of mathematics, portraying elegant mathematical formulas as just and accurate as universal theorems. The book conveyed the limitations of human senses, the greatness of human science, and the pursuit of understanding.
After reading the book, or perhaps even before, Marx began to develop vague thoughts.
If human senses are limited, if the functions of various organs in the human body are limited, and even the cells forming the foundation of the human body and the more detailed carbon-based structures have their limits, then what about the human brain?
Is the human brain independent, and is the act of thinking and the eruption of inspiration, which exist based on the human brain, the only exception within the limited container called the "human body"?
Is the human brain, unlike other senses, not restricted to observing, sensing, perceiving, thinking, and understanding only within a certain range, turning a blind eye to things beyond this range?
Can human thinking and inspiration surpass these limitations? Can they not only contemplate and be inspired by things within a specific range?
If the human brain also has limitations, then is science and mathematics, born from the human brain, a series of cognitive methods, also restricted by the brain itself and thus filled with limitations?
The beauty and progress of mathematics, seemingly omnipotent, might it only be perfect within the scope that this "brain full of limitations can comprehend and contemplate"?
Is it possible that beyond the scope of human cognition and thought, there exists a mysterious reality unknown to humans, and due to the limitations of human nature and the inherent constraints of thought and cognition based on the brain, it remains both unperceivable and unthought?
Human vision has blind spots, and although instruments seem to overcome these blind spots, they indeed do not. Even if machines capture a 360-degree image, what a person can see at the same time is still less than 360 degrees. To overcome this limitation, the information must undergo some form of transformation, such as being converted into a top-down view, resulting in information reduction. People obtain seemingly clearer information by reducing and reassembling information. Does the process of thinking work similarly?
Human science acquires vast amounts of data by surpassing the limits of the human body. However, when people contemplate and understand this data, are they also constrained by their own limitations? When information not perceivable by the human body is transcribed into information that can be perceived and understood, is there a considerable portion lost in this process?
Among the crowds Marx has encountered, there is no one who can answer these questions. Most people are not interested in such contemplation; they find it meaningless to explore "things they cannot see or touch themselves."
However, Marx is interested. Unlike people's interest in terrifying and mysterious things based on human nature, his interest lies in something beyond the cognitive and thinking limitations imposed by the material foundation of human existence.
Marx holds a strong interest in scientific theories that claim to be at the forefront of exploring the essence of the world. Yet, from his perspective, all existing sciences aim to transcribe information beyond human limitations into information understandable by humans. They do not break the limits of human existence; they merely change the appearance of things humans cannot directly perceive, allowing humans to sense and understand them.
This does not solve Marx's question: is there damage and omission in the process of transcribing information during this transformation? Are the data scientists ultimately obtain genuinely complete, or is it determined by the brain's foundation of the scientist, with only what they can cognize and receive considered as "complete"? Are they merely using mathematics to describe the significance contained in this limited "completeness"?
Perhaps, the thinking of science, mathematical formulas, and the meanings derived from them are merely presenting aesthetics based on the material foundation of human existence, but are equally confined to the material structure of human form.
From things to instruments, and from instruments to the brain, humans cannot truly obtain firsthand information about things. During this process of capturing and transcribing information, people may be unable to imagine what they have lost. Marx cannot help but think this way.
Although Marx contemplates this, he cannot share these thoughts with others because ordinary people around him would consider him delusional, engaging in "meaningless activities." Marx is aware that despite his thinking, it remains based on "being a human." Perhaps, thinking about things beyond human as a human is indeed a laughable and meaningless endeavor because, no matter how much and how long he thinks, his inherent limitations determine that thinking cannot provide him with answers.
Unless, he ceases to be human.