Three-Body Problem 2: The Dark Forest

Chapter 2 Prologue
The brown ant has forgotten that this was its home.This period of time is negligibly short for the earth in the twilight and the stars that have just appeared, but it is long for it.

On that forgotten day, its world was turned upside down.The mud flew away, and a deep and wide canyon appeared, and then the mud flew back rumblingly, and the canyon disappeared, and a black lone peak appeared at the end of the original canyon.In fact, in this vast territory, this kind of thing often happens, the soil flies away and flies back, the canyon appears and disappears, and then the lone peak descends, as if to mark each catastrophe with a striking mark.The brown ant and hundreds of its kin took the surviving queen to the direction of the setting sun and set up a new empire.

This time the brown ants came to their old place, just passing by by chance on their way to find food.It came to the foot of the isolated peak, touched the towering existence with its tentacles, and found that the surface of the isolated peak was hard and smooth, but it could climb up, so it climbed up.No purpose, just a random perturbation in that little crude neural network.This disturbance can be seen everywhere, in every grass on the ground and in every dewdrop on the blade of grass, in every cloud in the sky and every star behind the cloud... the disturbance is purposeless, but The purpose emerges when a huge number of purposeless disturbances come together.

The brown ant felt the vibration of the ground, judging from the tendency of the vibration from weak to strong, it knew that another huge existence on the ground was moving here, it ignored it and continued to climb up the isolated peak.There is a spider web in the right-angle space formed by the bottom of the solitary peak and the ground. The brown ant knows what it is, and it carefully walks around the spider web stuck to the cliff, from which it draws all its legs and waits for the web to vibrate. The spiders passed by, each aware of the other's presence, but as in the past [-] million years, there was no communication between the two sides.

The vibration stopped after reaching the peak, and the huge existence had come to the front of the isolated peak. The brown ant saw that this existence was much higher than the isolated peak, covering a large part of the sky.It is no stranger to this kind of brown ant. It knows that they are alive and often appear in this territory. Relationship.

The brown ant continues to climb, knowing that such presences are generally not a threat to it-of course there are exceptions.This exception has occurred for the spider already below, the being who apparently found the web between the butte and the ground, brushed it off with the stalk of a bouquet of flowers held on one limb, and the spider followed the broken The opened spider silk fell into the grass.Then, he gently placed the flower in front of the lonely peak.

At this time, another vibration appeared, very weak, but also intensifying.The brown ant knew that another being of the same type was moving to the butte.At the same time, on the cliff ahead, it encountered a long groove. Compared with the surface of the cliff, the concave surface of the groove was rougher, and the color was different, off-white.It climbs along the trench, and the rough surface makes climbing a lot easier.There are short thin grooves at both ends of the groove, the thin grooves at the lower end are perpendicular to the main groove, and the thin grooves at the upper end intersect the main groove at an angle.When the brown ant set foot on the smooth black surface of the cliff again, it had an impression of the overall shape of the trough: "1".

At this time, the living being in front of the lonely peak suddenly became half shorter, which was equivalent to the height of the lonely peak. He obviously squatted down, and in the exposed dark blue sky, stars had begun to appear sparsely.His eyes were on the top of the butte, and the brown ant hesitated for a moment, deciding not to come directly into his line of sight, and then turned to crawl along a direction parallel to the ground.Soon, it came across another trough, and it was nostalgic for the rough concave surface of the trough. It felt good to crawl on it, and the color of the trough also reminded it of the ant eggs around the queen.It did not hesitate to go back down the road and climbed along the trough. The shape of this trough is more complicated and very curved. In the process of finally finding my way home.It built its shape in its own neural network: "9".

At this time, the existence squatting in front of the lonely peak made a sound, and the string of words far beyond the understanding of the brown ant is as follows:
"Living itself is wonderful. If you don't even understand this truth, how can you explore deeper things?"

He made a sound like a gust of air through the grass, a sigh, and stood up.

The brown ant continues to climb along the direction parallel to the ground, and enters the third groove, which is a nearly right-angled turn, like this: "7".It doesn't like this shape. Usually, this kind of uneven and sudden turn often means danger and battle.

The voice covered the shock, and only then did the brown ant feel that the second living being had arrived in front of the lonely peak, and the first being stood up to meet her.The second being is much shorter and thinner than the first one, and has white hair, which is very eye-catching against the dark blue background of the evening sky. The silver ball fluttering in the breeze seems to be related to more and more stars in the sky. some kind of connection.

"Ms. Ye, you... are you here?"

"You are...Xiao Luo, right?"

"I'm Luo Ji, Yang Dong's high school classmate, this is..."

"I found out about this place that day. It's very good. It's also convenient to take a car. I often come here for a walk recently."

"Miss Ye, please express your condolences."

"Oh, it's all over..."

The brown ant on the isolated peak originally wanted to turn to climb up, but found that there was still a groove in front of it, which was exactly the same as the shape "7" it had climbed before "9", so it went across again and climbed this one again. "9".It thinks this shape is better than "7" and "1", but of course it's hard to tell, this is the original single-cell state of aesthetics; the vague sense of pleasure when it climbed over "9" has been strengthened again, and this It is the original single-cell state of happiness.But the single cells of these two kinds of spirits have no chance of evolution, they are the same now as they were [-] million years ago, and they will be the same after [-] million years.

"Xiao Luo, Dongdong often mentioned you, she said that you are... engaged in astronomy?"

"It used to be, and now I teach sociology at the university, at your school, but you were retired when I went."

"Sociology? Such a large span?"

"Yes, Yang Dong always said that my heart is very scattered."

"Oh, no wonder she said you were smart."

"It's just smart, it's not on the same level as your daughter. It's just that astronomy is a monolith, and it's not easy to drill holes in it; while sociology and the like are wooden boards, and it's better to find some thin places to drill through. Mix it up."

With the hope of encountering another "9", the brown ant continued to run rampant, but what it encountered before was a straight horizontal trough parallel to the ground. "Long, without small grooves at both ends, in the shape of "—".

"Don't say that, this is the life of a normal person, how can you act like Dongdong?"

"I am really ambitious and impetuous."

"I do have a suggestion: why don't you study the sociology of the universe?"

"Cosmosociology?"

"A term I casually mentioned is assuming that there are a huge number of civilizations distributed in the universe. Their number is an order of magnitude with the number of stars that can be observed. There are many, many of these civilizations. These civilizations constitute an overall cosmic society. Cosmic sociology is Study the shape of this super society."

The brown ant on the isolated peak continued to climb a short distance horizontally, expecting to find a "9" it liked after climbing through the groove shaped like "—", but what it encountered was "2". Parts are comfortable, but tight turns in the rear are as scary as the "7" up front, and seem ominous.The brown ant continues to climb horizontally, and the next groove is a closed shape: "0", this kind of journey is part of "9", but it is a trap: life needs to be smooth, but it also needs a direction, and it cannot always turn back. To begin with, brown ants understand this.Although there were still two grooves ahead, it had lost interest and turned to climb upwards.

"But... at present, we only know about our civilization."

"Because of this, no one is going to do this, and this leaves you with a chance."

"Miss Ye, it's very interesting! Go on."

"I think so because combining your two majors, cosmology presents a clearer mathematical structure than human sociology."

"Why do you say that?"

Ye Wenjie pointed to the sky, the twilight in the west was still bright, and the stars in the sky were so few that they could be easily counted.It is easy to recall the sky when not a single star appeared, and the blue void reveals a vast emptiness, like the pupilless eyelids of marble statues.Now, though the stars are few, the great empty eye has pupils, and so the void has content, and the universe has sight.But compared with the space, the stars are so small, they are just small silver dots looming, which seems to imply some kind of uneasiness of the sculptor of the universe—he (it) cannot overcome the desire to put pupils on the universe, but the universe The eye endows vision with a certain kind of great fear. Finally, the vastness of the space and the tinyness of the stars are the result of this balance of desire and fear, indicating a kind of caution that transcends everything.

"You see, the stars are points one by one. The complex structures of civilizations in the universe, and the chaotic and random factors in them, are all filtered out by such a huge distance. From our point of view, those civilizations have parameters one by one. point, which is easier to deal with mathematically."

"However, Mr. Ye, the cosmic sociology you mentioned does not have any actual data for research, and it is impossible to conduct investigations and experiments."

"So your final result is purely theoretical, just like Euclidean geometry, first set a few simple self-evident axioms, and then derive the entire theoretical system based on these axioms."

"Ms. Ye, this... is really interesting, but what are the axioms of cosmic sociology?"

"First, survival is the first need of civilization; second, civilization continues to grow and expand, but the total amount of matter in the universe remains the same."

The brown ant climbed up a short distance before realizing that there are also grooves above, and it is a combination of a bunch of grooves, with a complex structure like a maze.The brown ant is sensitive to shape, and it is confident that it can figure out this shape, but to do this, it has to forget all the shapes it has crawled before, because the memory capacity of its small neural network is limited.It didn't feel regretful when it forgot "9". Continuous forgetting is a part of its life. There are not many things that must be remembered for life, and they are all genetically engraved in the storage area called instinct.

After clearing its memory, it entered the labyrinth, and after a tortuous crawl, it built this shape in its crude consciousness: "tomb".Going up, there is another combination of grooves, but it is much simpler than the previous one, but in order to explore it, the brown ant still has to clear its memory and forget about the "tomb".It first climbed into a beautiful trough, and its shape reminded it of the belly of a dead katydid it found not long ago.It quickly figured out the structure: "of".Later, during the upward climbing journey, I encountered two groove combinations. The former one included two drop-shaped pits and a grasshopper belly - "Dong"; the top one was divided into two parts, and the combination was "Yang ".This is the last shape the brown ant remembers, and it is the only one it remembers during this climbing journey. Those interesting shapes that it climbed before are all forgotten.

"Ms. Ye, from a sociological point of view, these two axioms are solid enough... You said it so quickly, as if you have a plan in your mind." Luo Ji said with some surprise.

"I've been thinking about it for most of my life, but it's really the first time I've talked about this with anyone, and I really don't know why I'm talking about it... Oh, to deduce the basic picture of cosmic sociology from these two axioms, there are two more An important concept: the chain of suspicion and the explosion of technology.”

"Two interesting terms, can you explain them?"

Ye Wenjie looked at her watch: "There is no time. In fact, you are so smart that you can figure it out yourself. You can start with these two axioms to create this discipline, and then you may become the Euclid of cosmology. "

"Ms. Ye, I can't become Euclid, but I will remember your words and try to do it. I may ask you for advice in the future."

"I'm afraid there will be no chance... Or, you can just pretend that I am talking casually, no matter what the situation is, I have done my duty. Okay, Ronaldinho, I'm leaving."

"...Teacher Ye, take care."

Ye Wenjie left in the twilight, heading for her last party.

The brown ant continued to climb and entered a round pool on the cliff. There was an extremely complicated image on the smooth surface of the pool. It knew that its small neural network was absolutely incapable of storing such a thing, but it understood the general shape of the image. Finally, it has the feeling of "9" again, and the beauty of the original cell state has sprouted again.And it also seems to recognize a part of the image, which is a pair of eyes. It is more or less sensitive to eyes, because being watched by eyes means danger.But at this moment it has no worries, because it knows that these eyes are lifeless.It had already forgotten that the gigantic being named Luo Ji squatted down to stare at the top of the lonely peak before making his first sound, and it was these eyes that he was staring at at that time.Then, it climbed out of the round pool and climbed to the top of the peak.Here, it does not have the feeling of seeing all the small mountains, because it is not afraid of falling from a high place. It has been blown down by the wind from a much higher place than this many times, but it is unscathed. Without the fear of heights, it can Can't appreciate the beauty of heights.

At the foot of the solitary peak, the spider that Luo Ji had brushed off with a flower handle began to rebuild its web. It pulled a glistening silk from the cliff, and threw itself to the ground like a pendulum. It did this three times, and the web The skeleton is complete.Ten thousand times the net has been destroyed and it has rebuilt it ten thousand times, and it has had no boredom, despair, or pleasure in the process, and has done so for a hundred million years.

Luo Ji stood still for a while, and then left.When the vibration of the ground disappeared, the brown ant crawled down from the other side of the butte, and it wanted to rush back to the ant nest to report the location of the dead beetle.The stars in the sky became denser, and at the foot of the lonely peak, brown ants and spiders crossed each other again. They felt each other's existence again, but they still did not communicate.

Brown ants and spiders don't know that when the axiom of cosmic civilization was born, apart from the distant world that listened with bated breath, they were the only witnesses as far as life on earth was concerned.

Earlier, in the middle of the night, Mike Evans stood on the bow of the "Judgment Day", and the Pacific Ocean under the starry sky was like a giant black satin slipping underneath.Evans likes to talk to that distant world at this time, because against the background of the starry sky and the night sea, Sophon's words on the retina are very eye-catching.

Subtitle: This is our No.20 second real-time conversation, and we have encountered some difficulties in communication.

Evans: "Yes, Lord, I found out that you didn't actually understand quite a few of the human literature we sent you."

Subtitle: Yes, you explain all the elements well, but overall it's always incomprehensible, as if your world has something more than ours, and sometimes it seems something is missing.

Evans: "Is this more and less the same thing?"

Caption: Yes, we don't know if it's more or less.

Evans: "What would that be?"

Subtitle: We have carefully studied your literature and found that the key to the difficulty lies in a pair of synonyms.

Evans: "Synonyms?"

Subtitle: There are many synonyms and close synonyms in your language. In the Chinese we first received, there are such things as "cold" and "cold", "heavy" and "heavy", "long" and "far" , they have the same meaning.

Evans: "So which pair of synonyms did you just say that caused the incomprehension?"

Caption: "Think" and "Say," we've just discovered to our amazement, aren't synonymous.

Evans: "They're not meant to be synonymous."

Subtitle: According to our understanding, they should be synonymous: to think, is to use the thinking organs to carry out thinking activities; to say, is to convey the content of thinking to the same kind.The latter is achieved on your world by the modulation of vibrational waves in the air by organs called the vocal cords.Do you think these two definitions are correct?

Evans: "Correct, but doesn't that just show that 'think' and 'say' are not synonymous?"

Subtitles: As we understand it, this is showing that they are synonyms.

Evans: "Can you let me think for a moment?"

Caption: Okay, we all need to think about it.

Evans thought for 2 minutes looking at the surging ocean under the starlight.

Evans: "My lord, what is your organ of communication?"

Subtitle: We don't have communication organs, our brains can display our thinking to the outside world, thus achieving communication.

Evans: "Show thinking? How to achieve it?"

Subtitle: Brain thinking emits electromagnetic waves, of various wavelengths including our visible light, which can be displayed at considerable distances.

Evans: "That is to say, to you, to think is to say."

Subtitles: So they are synonyms.

Evans: "Oh...but even that shouldn't pose a barrier to understanding the literature."

Subtitle: Yes, there is not much difference between us in terms of thinking and communication. We all have brains, and the brains are all interconnected with a huge number of neurons to generate intelligence. The only difference is that our brain waves are stronger. Can be directly received by the same kind, thus eliminating the need for communication organs.Just that little difference.

Evans: "No, there may be a greater discrepancy lurking in the middle, my lord, please let me think again."

Caption: OK.

Evans left the bow and wandered the deck, overboard, the Pacific still heaving silently in the night, imagining it as a thinking brain.

Evans: "Lord, I want to tell you a little story. In preparation, do you understand the following elements: wolf, child, grandmother, cabin in the woods?"

Subtitle: These are all elements that are easy to understand. It’s just about grandma. I know it’s a kind of blood relationship among human beings. Usually she’s older, and you need to explain her position in the blood relationship structure.

Evans: "Lord, it doesn't matter, you just need to know that her relationship with the children is very close, and she is one of the most trusted people for the children."

Caption: Understood.

Evans: "I simplified the story a bit: Grandma went out on business, left the children in the hut, and told them to close the door and not open the door to anyone except her. Grandma met a wolf on the road, and the wolf took grandma After eating, put on her clothes and dress up like her, came to the hut and called the door. The wolf said to the children in the house, I am your grandmother, I am back, please open the door. The children looked through the crack of the door When he saw that it was the grandmother, he opened the door, and the wolf entered the cottage and ate the children too. Lord, can you understand the story?"

Subtitles: totally incomprehensible.

Evans: "Then I might be right."

Caption: First of all, the wolf has been trying to get into the cabin and eat the children, hasn't it?

Evans: "Yes."

Caption: It communicates with the kids, doesn't it?

Evans: "Yes."

Subtitles: This is incomprehensible, and for its own sake, it shouldn't communicate with children.

Evans: "Why?"

Caption: Isn't that obvious?If they communicate with each other, the children will know the wolf's attempt to enter the house and eat them, and of course the door will not be opened to the wolf.

Evans (long silence): "I get it, Lord, I get it."

Caption: What do you understand?Isn't all this very clear?
Evans: "Your thinking is completely exposed to the outside world, and it is impossible to hide."

Subtitle: How can the mind be hidden?Your ideas are incredible.

Evans: "That is to say, your thinking and memory are completely transparent to the outside world, like a book in a public place, or a movie shown in a square, or like a fish in a fully transparent fish tank, completely Exposed, can be seen from the outside. Oh, some of the elements I mentioned above you may..."

Subtitle: I understand, isn't it all natural?

Evans (long silence): "It turned out to be like this...My Lord, when you communicate face to face, everything you communicate is true. It is impossible to deceive or lie, so it is impossible for you to conduct complex strategic thinking. .”

Subtitles: Not just face to face, we can communicate over considerable distances.In addition, the words cheating and lying have always been difficult for us to understand.

Evans: "What kind of society is a society with transparent thinking? What kind of culture and politics will it produce? You have no tricks, and it is impossible to pretend."

Subtitle: What are tricks and pretense?
Evans: "..."

Subtitle: The communication organ of human beings is nothing more than a defect in evolution. It is a forced compensation for the inability of your brain to generate strong thinking waves. It is a biological disadvantage of yours. It is of course a direct display of thinking Higher-level communication methods that are more efficient.

Evans: "Flaw? Weakness? No, Lord, you're wrong, and this time, you're totally wrong."

Caption: Really?Let me think too, it's a pity you can't see my thoughts.

The interval between the conversations this time was very long, the subtitles did not appear for 10 minutes, and Evans had already walked from the bow to the stern of the boat.He saw a school of fish jumping out of the sea incessantly, drawing an arc above the surface that shone silver in the starlight.A few years ago, in order to study the impact of overfishing on coastal species, he once stayed on a fishing boat in the South China Sea for a while. The fishermen called this scene "Dragon Soldiers Passing". Subtitles on Ocean Pupil.At this time, the subtitles in his own eyes also appeared.

Subtitle: You are right, now that I think about those documents, I understand a little bit.

Evans: "My lord, you still have a long way to go before you can truly understand human beings. I even doubt that you will be able to understand it in the end."

Subtitle: Yes, it's really complicated, I just now know why I didn't understand before... You're right.

Evans: "My lord, you need us."

Caption: I'm afraid of you.

The conversation was interrupted, and this was the last time Evans received a message from Trisolaris.Now he stood at the stern, watching the white track of the Judgment Day stretch out into the misty night, like time passing by.

(End of this chapter)