Cixin Liu’s novel, The Three Body Problem, reveals an alternate gaming universe beginning in chapter seven that a select few are able to experience, and one of those people being Wang. Wang is a neurologist who is attempting to solve the “three body problem’, which is what the game’s plot is. The issue with solving the three body problem is that people/game players have tried and failed countless times. In this other world, Wang gets to meet other people we know of today, such as Aristotle and Galileo. These aren’t exactly the same as our own philosophers, and are called Trisolarans. After his first session in the game, he comes back to his own world, and constantly thinks about the problems in the other world with ways to solve them. In the world of scientists that are already dead in his world, there are different eras about civilization that fail every time it reaches its peak. The other issue is that there is a large debate about whether there are two suns or not. While Wang believes there is, the other scientists in the alternate universe feel like this idea is unordinary or crazy even. The text that gives us a synopsis of what events transpired in Chapter 7 can be accessed here: http://stratford.vucis.org/kfluegem/boilerplate/contents/tbp.xml

Wang gets the honor of meeting an important character in the universe named King Wen. King Wen tells Wang that “the goal of this game is to use our intellect and understanding to analyze all phenomena until we can know the pattern of the sun’s movement. The survival of the civilization depends on it” (Liu 101). This means that the civilization will either rise or fall depending on the movement of the sun, and it is Wang’s responsibility to figure it out. He knows that he was placed into this world for a reason, and he does his best to put all the pieces together. It might even save his own world that he lives in because it’s going through its own chaotic period as well. King Wen also suggests that there is an existing yin and yang, and “the sun is yang, and the night is yin” (Liu 103). The two coexist in order to make up an entire day within the world, and it depends on the balance and harmony between the two. There is no controlling the sun or the earth, but Wang soon learns that the movement of the sun and earth can be predicted. 

This alternate universe also relies on different signs in order to predict what is going to happen to the people’s world next. For example, if there are three stars, it “indicates the arrival of a long period of extreme cold, cold enough to turn stone into dust” (Liu 107). This can’t mean anything good for the world, and it can also affect Wang’s world. When it comes to this point in the game, it isn’t even worth playing anymore because there isn’t much leftover to do. The interesting part about this game is that it introduces a real world problem that people have been wrestling with for decades. But everytime the game reaches a point of failure, it rises back up again. The problem is that it never stays that way. 

In this novel, Liu lets the audience know that there are issues we have not solved yet, and we might have to go back in time to resolve them. Although a time machine still doesn’t exist today, there are other virtual worlds or video games that do. It gives us a way to remember the earth’s past, and it allows us to see what life was like back then. It isn’t really that different from video games we have today because even some of those are based on the past world and its history. The following video shows what the book is about and how it relates to us today:

There are many elements in the world that warn us about past issues that might affect our future, and sometimes it comes from virtual reality video games. They give us a glimpse into another universe that somehow relates to our own. It pushes us to open up our minds to the possibility of what might come next because of what happened back then. Some scientists and famous philosophers’ theories are taken into account and taught in schools today, but no one believed them during their time of existence. The novel suggests that the world is changing rapidly, and so is technology. Because history repeats itself, other scientists and philosophers today can go unseen or unnoticed until years later when they are already dead. 

But if these people have the answers to questions that we’ve been asking about the universe for so long, then there really is no excuse for why they shouldn’t be heard. The novel does a good job at explaining the connection between the past world and the contemporary world today. However, we’ve ignored these issues for too long, and they deserve to be heard.