I'm trapped in a cube

"What are we?"

When Mo Ling asked this question in the language of touch, the companion who was playing with him stiffened for a moment, as if it could not quite understand the question. It circled Mo Ling a few times and rubbed against Mo Ling.

"I don't know." The companion answered blankly.

"Follow me." It tapped the side of Mo Ling's head and asked Mo Ling to follow it to another place.

Soon, it brought Mo Ling to a hard cave.

Here, Mo Ling touched the companion who felt like jelly again.

"Ask it." The companion who led the way said to Mo Ling.

Ask it? Does it know?

So, Mo Ling wrapped around the companion who was as soft as jelly and told it his question.

"What are we?"

After understanding what Mo Ling meant, the jelly companion also stroked Mo Ling and began to answer his question.

"We are insects."

This answer broke through Mo Ling's thoughts and made his mind recover for a moment.

"Fingerworm? A finger-like worm?"

But the next moment, the red covered him again, drowning his will.

"What is a finger?" Mo Ling was stunned again. He knew the word, but he couldn't remember the meaning of the word. After thinking fruitlessly, he had to give up.

"You are very smart." The jelly companion suddenly praised Mo Ling.

"Why?" Mo Ling touched it and expressed doubt.

"Because other companions would not ask me this question, they only play, you are the first fingerworm to ask me this question."

This sentence is more complicated than Mo Ling has ever felt before. In order to complete this sentence, this companion touched Mo Ling for a long time, and Mo Ling also took a long time to understand the meaning of this sentence.

However, the jelly companion has been waiting patiently.

"Why?" After understanding its meaning, Mo Ling expressed doubts again.

"Limitations." The jelly companion replied with an extremely complex word, and then began to touch Mo Ling slowly again.

Mo Ling didn't understand at first, but gradually, he connected the various actions of his jelly companions, and finally understood what his jelly companions wanted to express.

"The development of finger worms is limited..."

Touch language is a language with very low communication efficiency.

This language not only transmits very little information, but also easily produces ambiguity. The meaning of an action in different contexts is completely different, which makes it more difficult for finger worms to communicate using this language.

In the early stages of the development of finger worms, they often walk out of the cave to explore. For finger worms, the more things they touch, the richer their understanding of the world.

Flowers, grass, trees, the earth... After touching these things, they can understand what these things are. The more they touch, the more knowledge they have. These understandings of specific things can make the consciousness of finger worms clearer. When their understanding of the world becomes richer, they will become smarter and smarter.

However, exploration means danger. The more you touch, the more likely you are to encounter dangerous things, such as poisonous grass, sharp stones, thorns, etc. These can cause great harm to finger worms, because they can only know the world through touch, so they will definitely be hurt by these things.

After touching these dangerous things, some finger worms told their companions about these things before they died. They only left a "word" to tell their companions that it was dangerous, but their companions did not know the specific appearance of these things, and could only feel an unknown fear.

Not only that, there are even some things that the finger worms fell into death before they had time to touch them. They had no idea what those things were. They just felt a vibration, and their companions disappeared. They collectively called these things that had never been recorded "disasters".

As the world explored by finger worms became larger and larger, these unknown fears became more and more numerous, and they encountered more disasters. More dangerous "words" gradually spread among finger worms.

The finger worms were scared, and they hid back in the cave, unwilling to explore the outside world again.

Some finger worms were very opposed to such a decision, thinking that the finger worm race should not be trapped in the cave like this. If they don't touch the world, they can't know the world.

"But touching the world will touch danger."

These finger worms who advocated exploration encountered even stronger opposition.

For the finger worms, only by touching can they know the world. The various knowledge relayed by their companions is ultimately just a "vocabulary", an illusory "action". They can't really understand what that thing is.

Knowing the word "grass" does not mean that you really know the grass. You have to touch the grass to fully understand what the grass represents and to connect the illusory action with real things.

But what about poisonous grass? What about thorns?

If you want to really understand them, you have to touch them, but touching will bring death...

Knowing the world will definitely lead to death?

The finger worms realized this, and despair spread throughout the race.

This is the limitation of the finger worms, and it is also the reality they have to face.

Of course, they would not encounter any danger while hiding in the cave and playing, but since they refused to explore the outside world, as the old finger worms that had been to the outside world died, the thinking of the finger worm community became more and more backward.

These newborns know fewer and fewer words. Even if they know words, they don’t know specific things. Some of them don’t even know “tree”. Even if the old finger worms tell them, they will quickly forget while playing.

The finger worms are actually quite intelligent. They can easily remember things they have touched, and their minds will quickly outline the outlines of the things they have touched. Their abstract thinking is extremely powerful. If they have explored a place, they can even build a three-dimensional model map in their minds.

Their understanding of the world comes from touch. Hiding in the cave, they will never be able to touch the world, and their thinking will no longer turn.

Newborns are becoming more and more simple and stupid. They no longer think about the true appearance of the world, but play all day long, trapping themselves in the cave until they die.

The old finger worms are also powerless. They can teach newborns all kinds of words and describe the beauty of the world to newborns, but they cannot teach them what the real world is like.

Newborns cannot imagine things they have not touched. The world in their minds is this cave, which is the most familiar place for them and the hardest cage.

The jelly companion wrapped around Mo Ling and slowly finished telling the stories about the finger worm race.

Mo Ling then realized that the jelly companion's bones had become a little soft, and strange wrinkles had appeared at the base of the body.

"Are you old?" Mo Ling touched the jelly companion's body blankly and asked his own questions.

"Me? I'm dying." The jelly companion answered indifferently. It gently touched Mo Ling and gave him a heartfelt advice: "You have to touch this world yourself. Our world is not just about caves..."

"There are also flowers, soil, trees, mountains, seas, storms, sunshine..."

"Hard, soft, rough, smooth, tangible, intangible..."

"So beautiful... so beautiful."