Technological practice: leading the human race to the stars

Chapter 115 We Are Bugs

At this moment, Yuanze was lying on the top floor of the Source Power Tower.

What surrounded him was not the gaseous source power in the body of a source warrior, but a liquid source power as vast as the ocean. It was gentle and mellow, as if every drop contained infinite energy.

Just by immersing himself in this ocean, he could feel his source core body greedily absorbing the abundant source power around him.

"It seems you know the Tower of Knowledge!"

A voice suddenly sounded in Yuanze's mind. However, he was not surprised at all.

Mingtu told him last time that each assessment tower has an AI with autonomous consciousness, and the voice was undoubtedly made by it.

"How did you know?"

"I feel that your spiritual world contains a large amount of civilization knowledge that has not yet been digested, and there is also an AI that cannot fully understand this knowledge."

In fact, this seemingly liquid ocean of source power is actually a special polymer composed of source power. It is a unique compound secreted by this mysterious tree with the help of technology.

The magic of this compound is that it can break the limitations of the brain, allowing intelligent creatures of the same species to directly understand each other's thoughts and even communicate with different species.

He explained that the newly generated source memory in Yuan Ze's body was the reason for awakening himself. The source force structure contained in this new organelle also has this function.

It's just that this organelle in his body has not been fully developed yet and can only communicate with various tissues in the body.

"So what you're saying is that if everyone has a similar substance in their body, the barriers to understanding will probably disappear?"

"That's right. Imagine that when one person discovers an important law or a correct mathematical theorem, within the scope of this special substance, everyone can immediately understand its essence without having to spend time learning it step by step."

Yuanze widened his eyes and showed an incredible expression. Isn't this equivalent to the concept of "transparent thinking"?
He had read a similar setting in a popular science fiction novel.

The race called Three-Body that humans have to face has this kind of thinking, which leads humans to have to propose the "Wallface Project".

This plan was proposed to target "transparent thinking" and to drag this alien race into a huge maze of illusions in human thought through "deception and concealment."

"I understand you. It will eliminate outdated concepts such as interests and classes that you humans have. You should know that among all the races that have escaped from the stars, these are already legends in their history."

"What you're saying is that the purpose of your five assessment towers coming to Blue Planet is simply to promote human evolution?"

He recalled the Tower of Flesh and Blood, the Tower of Knowledge, the Tower of Simulation, the Tower of Transformation and the Tower of Source Power where he was. These mysterious entities seemed to be working towards this grand goal.

However, such a grand vision made Yuanze, as a human being, feel a little skeptical.

"I understand your concerns. It is not easy to get you to fully accept such a concept. To be honest, I don't have any answers that can directly answer your questions."

The Tower of Power's attitude was very frank, as if it had anticipated Yuan Ze's suspicion.

So he quoted an article written by the Blue Star people themselves - "The Beekeeper" to Yuanze, and explained it to Yuanze as much as possible.

The article roughly expresses the following point of view:
"

In the process of natural evolution, the human brain is undoubtedly the most outstanding achievement on the blue planet. It is composed of 140 billion neurons, each of which has a simple structure and a single function, and can only respond to external stimuli.

So which neuron represents 'me'?
The answer is, neither!
However, when these neurons are combined together in a specific time and space sequence, a magical phenomenon occurs - the emergence of "self-consciousness".

The so-called "my consciousness" is to realize that there is an "I" that is independent of nature, and to generate consciousness, which is another kind of transitional mutation...

"

Yuan Ze also understood what the Tower of Power was trying to explain to him:

If we compare humans to neurons, then when our consciousness is connected and information is shared, it is equivalent to tens of billions of neurons connected together to form a common brain. Only then can all humans be called the human race.

However, before that, any race that could gain a foothold in the interstellar space would, like the Trisolarans in the novel, despise humans and regard them as tiny insects.

But Yuanze still doesn't understand. An alien race is kind enough to let humans evolve. What benefits will this bring to them?
"Maybe my answer is a bit mechanical. You should go find the guy at the Tower of Knowledge."

The Tower of Power sensed that Yuan Ze's confusion had not completely dissipated, so it decided to teleport him to the Tower of Knowledge.

A ray of light flashed by, and Yuanze shuttled through a gentle force, and the next moment he was standing in front of the door of the Tower of Knowledge.

What comes into view is Mingtu's figure.

"Hey, why are you here?" Mingtu AI hurriedly supported Yuanze who fell from the portal, and looked at him curiously.

"Oh, you should be able to sense it."

"Indeed, I felt that he had fully awakened."

"What on earth is that source power tower?"

"He is the most special one among us..."

His true form, as Astra judged when he first saw him, is an alien plant-type source beast with the unique ability to convert other energies into various forms of source power.

The AI ​​chip he built into his body was not an AI in the traditional sense. It was a very special biological AI formed after he recorded his own consciousness into it.

So his answers will be relatively dull, and he likes to cite some examples that match the answers.

However, even though Yuanze talked with Mingtu AI for a long time, he still felt that he had not received a sufficiently satisfactory answer.

Mingtu attributed this all to the reason he and Yuanze mentioned in their last chat, which was the accidental erasure of the historical records data about the origin civilizations of their several assessment towers.

Because of the original program records, these records must be made public to the intelligent creatures on the blue planet, and now only a small amount of alien civilization information remains in Mingtu's database.

"Is it possible that someone on Blue Star deliberately intercepted this information?"

Ming Tu fell into deep thought. He really couldn't rule out this possibility. After all, that part of the information was not highly confidential.

I have been sleeping for such a long time, and I have no idea what happened to him during that time.

Even if we count from the "catastrophe" incident to the awakening period more than ten years ago, there is still a blank period of several decades.

Yuanze looked at him lost in thought and another terrifying thought popped into his mind.

If someone really intercepted this information, then the identity of these people must be extraordinary. They cannot be unaware of the insignificant status of humans in the interstellar space, as insignificant as insects.

In other words, they will not be without a sense of crisis.

So, what exactly are they planning?
A horrifying idea came into his mind. This idea was extremely cruel and even inhumane.

Today I would like to pay tribute to two science fiction masters, Liu Cixin and Wang Jinkang.

Wang Jinkang and Liu Cixin are both famous contemporary science fiction writers.

Wang Jinkang has won the Galaxy Award, China's highest science fiction award, 12 times.

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(End of this chapter)