The Forgetting Path

Inspired by my trip to Shanghai with my Singaporean sis

Mar 02, 2025

Yan Zhenzhen stood at the edge of the university roof garden, gazing at the Shanghai skyline as twilight descended. The fading sunlight caught the glass facades of skyscrapers, turning them into pillars of gold and crimson. It was peaceful here, a small patch of green six stories above the chaotic streets, where she often came to think.

"I knew I'd find you here," said a familiar voice.

Zhenzhen turned to see Zhang Qinyao approaching, her slender figure silhouetted against the sunset. A fellow physics professor, Qinyao had been her academic rival, then research partner, and now something more complicated than either.

"The conference committee accepted our paper," she said, holding up her phone. "First slot on the second day."

"That's excellent," Zhenzhen replied, but her voice lacked enthusiasm.

Qinyao leaned against the railing beside her. "You should be celebrating. Your consciousness framework is going to change how we understand quantum observation. What's troubling you?"

Zhenzhen was silent for a moment, watching an airplane trace a white line across the darkening sky. "Do you ever feel like you're trying to remember something you never actually knew?"

Qinyao raised an eyebrow. "Is this another one of your philosophical tangents?"

"I'm serious," she insisted. "Last night I had that dream again. The one where I exist as pure consciousness, choosing to come to Earth, choosing to forget."

"The incarnation dream," Qinyao nodded. She'd heard about these recurring dreams for the three years they'd worked together. "Maybe it's your subconscious processing our research."

"It feels older than the research," Zhenzhen said. "As if the research came from the dream, not the other way around."

Below them, the city lights were coming alive, mirroring the emerging stars above. Zhenzhen had always felt caught between these two realms — the tangible world of matter and energy that her scientific training had taught her to measure and predict, and something else, something just beyond her grasp.

"Come on," Qinyao said, gently touching her arm. "Let's get dinner. You can tell me about the dream, and I promise not to psychoanalyze you too much."

Zhenzhen smiled despite herself. "You're incapable of not analyzing, Qinyao. It's why you're both a brilliant physicist and an insufferable dinner companion."

As they walked toward the elevator, Zhenzhen felt the dream images lurking at the edges of her consciousness—tantalizingly close, yet impossible to fully recall. Like trying to remember a life she had chosen to forget.

The small restaurant was tucked away on a side street, far from the university and the sleek modern district where Zhenzhen lived. Here, surrounded by the aroma of spicy Sichuan dishes and the soft murmur of conversation, she felt her tension begin to ease.

"Tell me about the dream," Qinyao said after they had ordered. "The new details this time."

Zhenzhen took a sip of tea. "I existed in a state of pure awareness, without a body. All around me were other consciousnesses, billions of them, each distinct yet somehow connected. We all knew everything: past, present, and future. Every possibility, every outcome."

"Omniscience," Qinyao nodded. "Go on."

"But knowing everything made nothing matter," she continued. "There was no surprise, no discovery, no authentic experience. So we, or some of us, chose to incarnate into physical forms, knowing we would forget everything upon arrival."

"And that's why we're here? To forget cosmic knowledge so we can experience life authentically?" Qinyao asked, her scientific skepticism evident in her tone.

"In the dream, yes," Zhenzhen replied. "There was a figure—a guide or teacher—who asked me, 'If you already know the ending of a story, why would you read it?' That's what stuck with me this time."

The dishes arrived, filling the table with familiar aromas: mapo tofu, twice-cooked pork, a steaming basket of soup dumplings, and a plate of stir-fried pea shoots glistening with garlic. Qinyao picked up a piece of pork and placed it in Zhenzhen’s bowl before reaching for the tofu. Their conversation paused naturally, replaced by the quiet clink of chopsticks against porcelain. Zhenzhen watched the graceful precision in Qinyao’s movements — the same hands that could write complex quantum equations on a blackboard or calibrate sensitive laboratory equipment with remarkable skill.

"Your theory has a certain poetic appeal," Qinyao finally said. "But it contradicts fundamental physics. If consciousness exists independently of physical systems and contains all knowledge, where is it stored? What medium contains it?"

"That's exactly what our research addresses," Zhenzhen countered. "The quantum field we've identified mathematically, which interacts with neural activity but isn't generated by it, could be the interface between non-physical consciousness and physical reality."

"But that doesn't explain the forgetting," Qinyao pointed out. "If this field contains all knowledge, why can't we access it?"

Zhenzhen leaned forward, her food momentarily forgotten. "What if the limitation is intentional? What if consciousness chooses to experience through physical systems precisely because they impose constraints — because they filter out the omniscience?"

"That's an extraordinary claim," Qinyao said, but her eyes showed interest rather than dismissal. This was what Zhenzhen appreciated about her — her willingness to entertain ideas that challenged her materialist perspective.

"Consider this," Zhenzhen continued. “In quantum mechanics, a system exists in superposition until observed. Observation collapses the wavefunction, forcing the system into a definite state. What if consciousness works the same way? In its natural state, it encompasses all possibilities simultaneously, but embodiment 'collapses' it into a single perspective: a single timeline of experience."

Qinyao considered this. "So the physical brain doesn't generate consciousness; it constrains it. Limits it to a specific perspective."

"Exactly," Zhenzhen nodded eagerly. "And that limitation, that forgetting, is what makes experience meaningful."

"It's an interesting thought experiment," Qinyao conceded. "But how would you test it?"

The question hung between them—the eternal challenge of their field. How do you empirically test a theory about the fundamental nature of consciousness? How do you measure what might exist beyond measurement?

Two days later, Zhenzhen sat in her office reviewing data from their latest experiment. The results were promising: subtle quantum effects in neural tissue that couldn't be explained by conventional models. But something was still missing.

A knock at her door broke her concentration. It wasn't Qinyao's usual light pattern.

"Come in," she called.

The door opened to reveal an elderly woman she didn't recognize — small in stature, with silver hair pulled into a neat bun and eyes that seemed to hold both warmth and ancient wisdom.

"Professor Yan?" the woman asked. "I'm Li Mei. I believe you've been looking for me."

Zhenzhen stared in confusion. "I'm sorry, have we met before?"

The woman smiled. "Not in this life. But I received your paper. The one about quantum consciousness and the nature of forgetting."

Zhenzhen gestured to a chair. "Please, sit down. Are you a physicist?"

Li Mei laughed softly. "No, my field is much older. I was a keeper at the Temple of Clear Knowing before it was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. Now I'm just an old woman who recognizes familiar ideas when she sees them."

"I don't understand," Zhenzhen said cautiously.

"Your paper describes what our tradition has known for centuries," Li Mei said simply. "That consciousness precedes form. That we choose to forget our greater nature to experience life authentically." She tilted her head slightly. "Tell me, Professor Yan, have you been having unusual dreams?"

Zhenzhen felt a chill run through her. "How could you know that?"

"Because the veil is thinning for you," Li Mei replied. "Sometimes, when a soul has incarnated many times, or when its current work aligns closely with its pre-life intentions, memories begin to seep through. Not as facts or images, but as dreams, intuitions, knowing without knowing how you know."

Under normal circumstances, Zhenzhen would have dismissed such talk as superstition. But something about Li Mei, perhaps the clarity in her eyes or the quiet certainty in her voice, made her hesitate.

"In my dream," Zhenzhen said slowly, "we choose to forget because knowing everything makes experience meaningless. Like reading a book when you already know every word, every plot twist."

Li Mei nodded. "In our tradition, we call it '忘却之路', the Forgetting Path. It is not a flaw in human design but its essential feature. The greatest gift is not knowing what comes next."

"But how is this connected to my research?" Zhenzhen asked.

"Your equations are describing the mechanics of incarnation," Li Mei said. "The process by which infinite consciousness localizes into individual perspective through quantum collapse."

Zhenzhen's scientific mind rebelled against such an interpretation, yet something deeper recognized a profound truth in the old woman's words.

"There's someone else you should meet," Li Mei continued. "Someone who has been working on the same questions from a different angle."

"Who?" Zhenzhen asked.

"A nun from a small temple near Wudang Mountain. Her name is Zhang Qinyao."

Zhenzhen's breath caught. "That's impossible. Zhang Qinyao is my colleague, a physicist here at the university."

Li Mei's eyes widened slightly, then crinkled with what looked like amusement. "Is that so? How interesting. Perhaps some souls find each other in life after life, working on the same questions from different perspectives."

"This is absurd," Zhenzhen said, but her voice lacked conviction.

"Is it?" Li Mei asked gently. "Or is it that you're beginning to remember what you chose to forget?"

That evening, Zhenzhen found herself walking through the old quarter of the city, following directions Li Mei had given her to a small Buddhist temple that somehow still existed, wedged between newer buildings. The conversation had left her unsettled, torn between rational skepticism and an inexplicable sense of recognition.

She found the temple, little more than a single room with an ancient bronze Buddha and the lingering scent of incense. An old nun sat in meditation near the altar.

"Excuse me," Zhenzhen said softly. "I'm looking for information about someone who might have studied here. A nun named Zhang Qinyao."

The old woman opened her eyes slowly. "Zhang Qinyao," she repeated, as if tasting the name. "Yes, there was such a person. Many years ago."

"Can you tell me about her?" Zhenzhen asked, her heart racing.

"She was a scholar-nun who studied both Buddhist texts and Western science," the old woman said. "She believed they were describing the same reality from different perspectives. Her particular interest was consciousness—its nature and origin."

"When was this?" Zhenzhen asked.

"Before I came here. Perhaps fifty years ago. She left extensive writings, but most were lost during the Cultural Revolution. A few fragments remain in our archives."

"May I see them?" Zhenzhen asked.

The nun studied her face. "You have her eyes," she said unexpectedly. "Are you a relative?"

"No," Zhenzhen replied, confused. "I've never heard of her before today."

After a moment's consideration, the nun rose slowly and gestured for her to follow. In a small back room, she unlocked an ancient cabinet and removed a worn notebook with yellowed pages.

"Her final writings," the nun explained. "They were hidden by the previous abbess during the worst years."

Zhenzhen accepted the notebook with trembling hands. Opening it carefully, she found pages filled with diagrams, equations, and Chinese characters written in a precise, flowing hand. Many passages were philosophical reflections on the nature of mind and reality, but interspersed among them were mathematical notations that looked strikingly modern.

One passage caught her eye:

"Consciousness exists as a field of all possibilities until it interfaces with physical systems. This interface creates the illusion of separation and limitation, the forgetting that makes experience authentic. The mathematics of quantum collapse may provide a bridge between eternal knowing and temporal experiencing."

Below this was an equation, one that Zhenzhen recognized with a shock of disbelief. It was nearly identical to the core equation in her current research, a relationship she had derived after years of work, yet here it was in a fifty-year-old notebook.

"This is impossible," she whispered.

"Is it?" the nun asked quietly. "Or is it that some questions are so fundamental that souls return again and again to answer them?"

Zhenzhen stared at the equation, her scientific worldview crumbling around her. "I need to show this to someone," she said finally.

Qinyao sat across from her in her apartment, the old notebook open between them on the coffee table. Her usual confident demeanor had given way to stunned silence as she examined the pages.

"The mathematical notation is outdated," she said finally, "but the concepts... they're essentially what we've been working on. How is this possible?"

"Li Mei suggested that some souls work on the same questions across multiple lifetimes," Zhenzhen said, still unable to believe she was entertaining such an idea. "That you and I might have known each other before."

Qinyao looked up sharply. "That's mystical nonsense. There must be a rational explanation. Perhaps these ideas were circulating in academic circles, and we were influenced by them without realizing it."

"The nun said most of Zhang Qinyao's writings were destroyed. This notebook was hidden away for decades," Zhenzhen countered. "And look at this."

She turned to a page she had discovered while waiting for Qinyao to arrive, a hand-drawn diagram showing two intertwined energy patterns labeled "阴" and "阳" with smaller Chinese characters beneath them that translated roughly as "souls that cycle together."

"This could mean anything," Qinyao said, but her voice held uncertainty.

"There's one way to find out if Li Mei is right," Zhenzhen said suddenly. "She talked about memories seeping through the veil as dreams. You've never told me about your dreams, Qinyao. Do you dream of a pre-life state? Of choosing to forget?"

Qinyao's expression changed subtly — a flash of recognition quickly suppressed. "That's private," she said stiffly.

"You do, don't you?" Zhenzhen pressed. "You dream the same things I do."

Qinyao stood abruptly and walked to the window, her back to Zhenzhen. For a long moment, she was silent.

"I've had... similar dreams," she finally admitted. "Since childhood. I dismissed them as imagination. As a scientist should."

"What if they're not imagination?" Zhenzhen asked softly. "What if they're memories?"

Qinyao turned to face her, her expression torn between fear and fascination. "If that were true, if consciousness predates physical existence and chooses to forget, it would change everything. Not just physics, but how we understand human experience itself."

"It would mean that forgetting is a feature, not a flaw," Zhenzhen said, echoing the words from her dream. "That not knowing what comes next is what makes life authentic."

"Like a novel you can't put down because you don't know the ending," Qinyao nodded slowly.

"Or a game worth playing because the outcome isn't predetermined," Zhenzhen added.

They stared at each other across the room, two scientists on the verge of embracing what their training had taught them to reject, that some truths might lie beyond the reach of conventional measurement, in the realm of direct experience.

"What do we do with this?" Qinyao asked finally.

Zhenzhen looked down at the notebook, at the equation so similar to her own. "We keep working," she said. "We refine the mathematics, run the experiments, follow where the evidence leads, as good scientists should."

"And if it leads to conclusions that science traditionally rejects?" Qinyao asked.

"Then perhaps we need to expand our definition of science," Zhenzhen replied. "After all, science is just a method for discovering truth. And truth is truth, regardless of where it's found."

Six months later, Zhenzhen and Qinyao presented their research at the International Conference on Quantum Consciousness in Copenhagen. Their paper, "Quantum Constraint Theory: A Mathematical Model for the Localization of Consciousness," proposed that consciousness existed as a non-local field that became localized through interaction with physical systems, specifically, through quantum collapse in neural tissue.

The response was predictably divided. Traditional materialists dismissed it as speculative philosophy masquerading as physics. A smaller group recognized its potential to bridge seemingly irreconcilable perspectives on consciousness.

What Zhenzhen and Qinyao didn't include in their paper was the ancient notebook, the strange dreams, or Li Mei's insights about the purpose of forgetting. Those remained their private exploration: a parallel investigation conducted alongside their formal research.

After the conference, they walked along the Copenhagen waterfront, watching boats drift across the harbor.

"Do you think we'll ever remember completely?" Qinyao asked. "Or is the forgetting permanent as long as we're in physical form?"

"I don't know," Zhenzhen replied honestly. "But I'm beginning to think that's the point. Not knowing is what makes the journey meaningful."

Qinyao nodded thoughtfully. "In quantum mechanics, observing a system collapses its wavefunction, forcing it from potential to actual. Maybe being born does the same thing to consciousness, collapses it from all-knowing to specific experience."

"And maybe that's exactly why consciousness chooses to incarnate," Zhenzhen added. "Because watching a game from above, knowing all possible moves and outcomes, isn't the same as playing it move by move, choice by choice."

They stopped walking, turning to face each other. Something had shifted between them since the discovery of the notebook — a deepening of their connection beyond mere intellectual partnership or romantic attraction. As if they were recognizing each other across lifetimes.

"If we're right," Qinyao said softly, "then every moment of not knowing, every uncertainty, every surprise, every genuine discovery, is a gift. The forgetting isn't a limitation but the very thing that makes experience authentic."

Zhenzhen smiled. "Like reading a novel for the first time, not knowing how it ends."

"Or falling in love," Qinyao added, "not knowing where it leads."

As the sun set over Copenhagen, turning the water to gold and the sky to flame, Zhenzhen felt a profound peace settle over her. Perhaps they would never fully remember what they had chosen to forget. Perhaps they weren't meant to, at least not while still embodied in this particular story, this particular game.

But somehow, that not-knowing no longer troubled her. Instead, it felt like the greatest gift — the chance to experience life moment by moment, choice by choice, discovery by authentic discovery.

For what was consciousness if not the universe's way of experiencing itself anew, again and again, through the miracle of forgetting?