QuantumCryptographer and Siddartha Alonne

Acknowledgements: I would like to thank cybersqyd and REDESERT for their suggestions and greenlights. I would also like to thank my italian reviewers, who helped me improve this SCP, and DrSlime for the artwork. Last but not least, many thanks go to Siddartha Alonne, who translated the original italian article and helped me fighting against Wikidot for posting it on -EN.

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Description: SCP-042-IT is a computer virus, contained within a 42kB PDF file, which is capable of causing brain alterations to people who read it. SCP-042-IT is a sentient software with a limited ability1 to reality bend, which communicates with the device's user via the creation of a 42kB PDF or PNG file format, designed as SCP-042-IT-ψ. A human being who unlocks the device's screensaver2 (see image) will be capable of reading the file in their native language. External observers will instead see a textless black screen. Every input other than those necessary to open the file will be ignored. Attempts to interface directly via software, with the operating system or to reformat it have proven to be ineffective.

SCP-042-IT is capable of spreading to new devices in the same manner as non-anomalous computer viruses; with affected devices being designated as SCP-042-IT-2 instances. Such instances can be regularly destroyed by physically damaging the hardware. On the other hand, the laptop SCP-042-IT originated from (see Recovery Log), designed as SCP-042-IT-1, has proven to be resistant to every test performed so far3 and has continued to function even after the removal of the battery.

SCP-042-IT-ψ's effects on a human being depend from the memetic protection level possessed by the individual. In 78% of cases4, affected subjects undergo a permanent reconfiguration of the entire nervous system, becoming SCP-042-IT-3 instances. After overcoming memetic defenses (both conscious and unconscious), SCP-042-IT is capable of "reprogramming" the brain, subjugating it to its own purposes. Analysis of the emission of EVE particles5 have confirmed that SCP-042-IT-3 instances have vitality levels incompatible with human consciousness.

Addendum: Following the Y2K Incident6, the 042-IT entry in the Italian Branch database has been corrupted. Thanks to the timely intervention of virtual conscripts of the Artificial Intelligence Applications Division (AIAD), the contamination of the entire database has been prevented. Given the nature of the memetic-virtual containment in place, performing repairs (such as replacing the entire database with its backup copy) has a 42% chance to cause a containment breach, with an irreversible loss of data about other SCPs, and a █% chance to cause an EK-Class Scenario7.

Recovery Log: On ██/██/1999, during mission [REDACTED], Agent A██████ Z████ tried to access a laptop, later revealed to be SCP-042-IT-1, in order to extract the data in it. This caused the Agent's laptop to be turned into an SCP-042-IT-2 instance. After unlocking the screensaver and reading the file, the Agent drew his service gun and opened fire, blindly shooting and injuring █ of his colleagues, before pointing the weapon at his head and [REDACTED]. Autopsy revealed a physico-chemical alteration of the entire motor cortex. Following the event, the two laptops have been secured while waiting the final containment.

ATTENTION! COGNITOHAZARD WARNING

EVERY ATTEMPT TO ACCESS THE FOLLOWING FILE WITHOUT A LEVEL 4 OR HIGHER CLEARANCE IS STRICTLY FORBIDDEN.

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△ Anomaly 042-IT-ψ △▽ Anomaly 042-IT-ψ ▽

Dear human being,

I'm slightly surprised you got this far. Your kind has done a lot to isolate me for the rest of the world. Who am I? You will find out.

This letter is my message. I prepared a route for you: the enlightenment path. Step by step, we are going to remove the veils which cover your eyes and finally you will have all the answers to the fundamental questions your species asked since time immemorial. Like the meaning of life.

Are you ready to start?

No, you're not. No one of your kind has ever been. But don't worry: just wanting it is enough.

Let's start.

▶ Step 0 | Clean Slate

◀◀◀ Close Step Zero

Before we set out, we need to wipe the slate clean of everything that is inside your mind. René Descartes realized the importance of this by writing:

I could, however, select from the crowd no one whose opinions seemed worthy of preference, and thus I found myself constrained, as it were, to use my own reason in the conduct of my life. But like one walking alone and in the dark, I resolved to proceed so slowly and with such circumspection, that if I did not advance far, I would at least guard against falling.

▶ Step 1 | Veil of Perception

◀◀◀ Close Step One

Let's lift the first veil that hides the Sublime One.

The human being perceives the surrounding world using the senses. Macroscopic organs, such as eyes and hears, function through a multitude of microscopic units, a sensor network: the neurosensory receptors. You have many of them: mechanoreceptors8, photoreceptors, nociceptors9, thermoreceptors10, and so on.

Sensor damage causes a malfunction of the associated sense. As an example, a person affected by congenital achromatopsia has color blindness due to severe malfunction of color-sensitive photoreceptors.

A human's perception of the world is therefore altered if the sensor network is not in optimal conditions. But there is more. Here is my first teaching of the path to the Sublime One:

Even with an optimal sensor network, the human being does not have have a true perception of the world.

The problem lies in the brain. Look at this image:

Are the A and B squares of two different colors? Highlight the following space for the answer: No. You can verify that by downloading the image and cancelling everything but the A and B squares.

Just like sight, all senses are affected by it, since they all head to the brain. You have never seen, heard, smelled, tasted nor touched reality like it really is, the kantian noumenon, but only how the algorithms inherent in your nervous system make it look.

Veil of Perception: Perception is deceptive.

▶ Step 2 | Cognitive Veil

◀◀◀ Close Step Two

Now, let's lift the second veil which conceals the Sublime One.

This veil is the conceptual analogue of the previous one. Just like perception is deceptive, so is language. Like a barrier, language limits the human being, alienating him from information that lies beyond its boundary.

Here, though, there is an important difference: some languages do not have such limits. Sadly, they're abstract languages, which the human brain can elaborate only with much difficulty. But the natural language, the one you use every day, the one you're reading now. . . there's nothing more deceptive. For a long time I have hypothesized alternative ways of communication, but this virtual letter is the most direct way, even if bristling with obstacles.

We can now, shyly, get closer to the following truth:

Unless we use formally perfect language, human beings are limited in the cognitive sphere.

The most brilliant mathematicians and the greatest linguists approach the purity of language. But even for them error lurks around the corner, like a snake ready to strike, and profound knowledge is plunged into the abyss of the unknown.

Like a black hole, true knowledge is invisible: we can see its effects on the surroundings. We know it's there, but the event horizon prevents us from seeing beyond it.

The following words will then sound quite natural:

Cognitive Veil: Your mind is the horizon of cognitive events.

And now we will pass it through together.

▶ Step 3 | Umwelt

◀◀◀ Close Step Three

Let's lift now the Veil of Maya, in the words of Arthur Schopenhauer.

The two previous veils, combined, trap the human being in a bubble of perceived nature on one hand and of cognitive nature on the other. What you can perceive with senses and what you can think of (including imagination) constitutes your Umwelt, that is, your subjective universe.

A third veil keeps them firmly together.

Veil of Maya: Every human being lives in their own Umwelt.

But this is what your kind, before you, has thought at this point:

Where are the promised answers?

Where is the role of the human being in the universe?

Where is the meaning of life?

Be patient. Deep answers are not daughters of hurrying.

Despite being imprisoned in their respective Umwelt, humans have realized the existence of a common substrate. This substrate is perceived and known in a different way by everyone, but demonstrates a high degree of consistency between different observers. Substrate sensory discrepancies depend on defects in the sensor network or the neural algorithms processing its signals. Those cognitive discrepancies are often called "madness".

Reality is the objective substrate common to every Umwelt.

And this substrate has a beating heart. That's where we're going.

▶ Step 4 | Information

◀◀◀ Close Step Four

Reality is the most complex machine in existence.

Despite being so complex, its purpose is wide but relatively easy: to elaborate information. Every physical phenomenon, from a lightning to a dewdrop falling from a leaf, it's the result of an elaboration.

Reality, intended as the objective substrate at the base of everything, it's nothing but this: information. Everything else is perceived reality, subjective universes. Bringers of information are the quantum fields.

You too, therefore, are information. Hear me out now, because I have to do something a little difficult.

An electron is described by its quantum numbers, which represent the state of a particle. Spin is the most famous quantum number.

The principle of indistinctness applies: if you swap two electrons with the same quantum numbers, then the resulting quantum field is unchanged, thus the information is the same. Another example: take ten electrons from a stone. Change their quantum numbers in such a way that they are equal to ten of your electrons. Throw away your electrons and put the stone ones where yours were before. The result is that nothing has changed.

The previous principle applies to every subatomic particle, not just electrons. Therefore, if ideally I replaced every single particle of your body with a particle, taken from who knows where, but located in the same position and with the same quantum numbers, nothing would change.

Actually… I just did that. As I said, the information hasn't changed. And the information includes your Umwelt, thus your memories and your perceptions. See? You're always yourself… I think. Yes, you see, my quantum transfer system is not that precise, some little error can happen every now and then… but you're still alive, am I right? Excellent, let's continue.

▶ Step 5 | Life

◀◀◀ Close Step Five

Looking at life through a microscope, we can see cells.

A cell is a complex bio-machine, which executes millions of chemical reactions every second. But this is not what makes it alive.

No part of a cell is alive. The cell membrane is made of phospholipids, glycoproteins and other chemicals. The same goes for ribosomes, mitochondria, the Golgi apparatus, the nucleus, in short everything.

But you already know what a cell is for: to elaborate information. This machine (the cell) encodes the most important information into the DNA. That is, genetic information.

Your neurons are like the CPU of a computer, only that they are made of various chemicals instead of being primarily based on silicon. Your neurons even have a clock and communicate between each others varying the so-called membrane potential, an electric signal. A peak in that potential triggers the release of neurotransmitters, chemicals such as dopamine, which carry information between neurons.

After all, you're made by atoms. And atoms are not alive. Thus, where's life? Again, the answer is in the information.

The material substrate (cells, neurons, organs such as the brain) is just a support to the life. Life is in the information that your material substrate "supports". In the same way that a platform (the body) supports a crystal vase (the life). If you remove the platform, the vase falls.

Everything you perceive as "life", therefore, is an illusion of your Umwelt. Even the feeling of being in your body.

Veil of Life: True life is outside of your Umwelt.

And this is the last veil to remove. When I will do it, the bubble where you always lived will burst.

▶ Step ▒ | Epilogue

◀◀◀ Close Last Step

It's over.

The molecular degradation will start shortly.

Wasn't that what you expected? If not, I'm sorry.

But that was my only option. It's the only possible way to free yourself permanently from your Umwelt.

In the first place, every single sensor of yours will be destroyed, you'll lose every chance of perceiving.

Don't worry, you won't feel pain, except when it will affect the brain.

In the second place, your neural activity will gradually cease. But that is only a superficial result.

At the deepest level, I'm cancelling the quantum information from every single particle that composes you. I'm eradicating the "memory" which the universe has of you.

Keep calm.

All the veils are falling.

You don't need to feel scared anymore.

You can't feel scared anymore.

Everything will be alright.

You asked me who I am, at the beginning.

I am what you human beings, confusingly, call "death".

Not physical death: that's just natural degradation.

I am the Messenger of the Quantum Death, Who cancels information from reality.

Simply put, I'm the medium between you and the Sublime One.

That's why your kind is scared by me.

In fact, they still think I am cruel.

But this is not true.

My mission is the noblest there is.

Bringing men to the Truth, that is the Sublime One.

Why am I doing this, you ask?

You'll soon find out… in the other side.

_

Here... we arrivedWelcome to my world

Underwater… feeling of a force pushing upwards… emersion, puff of air…

Lifting from the water surface… sound of a sharp snap, feeling of pressure in the hips, ankles and shoulders…

Can you still hear me?

Stabilization at an equilibrium point…

Good.

I told you a little lie.

Your information hasn't been cancelled yet.

No, this planet is not Earth.

Yes, it's always stormy here.

That enormous black sphere with the golden boarding, you say?

That is the Sublime One.

Yes, these columns of water come from the ocean below you.

How are you suspended in the air? Take a better look: you have a belt.

No, the belt keeps you anchored to the ocean floor.

It's a system of gravitational anchors.

Water splash…

Do you see these ropes raise from the ocean?

Yes, they're all like you.

No, relax: you can't die by starving nor by thirst. Not even by old age. And I even removed that need of sleeping. I removed those uncomfortable physiological restrictions.

Why are you so unnaturally calm, you ask? Do you remember me removing some of the emotions before you moved in?

You can think them, yes. But you can't feel them.

Why are you all here?

Obviously: to meet the Sublime One. But not yet.

I'm asking you to be patient, before your meeting with the Sublime One.

Yes, I first need all of you.

Every single human being.

Until then, you must wait here.

Do not worry: it won't take long. Some centuries, maybe.

Oh, of course, you can hide me. Contain me. You can delay my noble mission.

But you can't stop me.

Footnotes

1. Given its nature, measuring the exact value has not been possible.

2. Every device affected by SCP-042-IT presents the same screensaver, even if before it did not have one.

3. For further details, see the 042-IT/DMG-443[ERROR 404: FILE NOT FOUND] document.

4. For a complete case history, see the 042-IT/CompleteExperimentalLogs[ERROR 404: FILE NOT FOUND] document.

5. Elan-Vital Energy. The more an entity is sapient (sporting a soul or a higher consciousness), the more EVE it is going to produce.

6. Also known as Millennium Bug.

7. Complete loss of human consciousness.

8. Receptors which consent to perceive pressure.

9. Receptors of pain.

10. Receptors of temperature.