Enter the Immortal Cultivation

When the words "The road is still long" fell from the input method into the Word document, I felt like I was going to collapse.

After pushing myself for more than 100 days, I finally gave this book, which I had been writing for four years, a satisfactory answer, although not perfect.

There is no sense of reality at all. I clearly said that I wanted to rest and relax, but I always felt that there was something else to do. If I didn't write something, I would feel something was wrong.

This book started in early 2015 and lasted until the end of 2018, nearly four years.

In these four years, I also went from college to internship and then to full-time work.

I have changed a lot in these years. It is precisely because of this that the biggest problem faced by the immortals in my book is "themselves".

I have changed so much in four years, what about those intelligent creatures that have lived for thousands of years?

It's hard to imagine.

Of course, for me, the changes in these four years are mostly good.

At least, the first part of "Entering the Immortal Cultivation" is something I can't bear to read myself - it's so badly written, how did I write such a thing? Was I (beep——) when I wrote this?

Maybe I have improved, which is a good thing.

"Entering the Immortal Cultivation" is my first work, and it is destined to be the most immature work.

Thinking about it this way, it is really a pity.

Its setting is indeed very interesting. With the help of professionals, it has a high degree of completion.

It's a pity that the immature me four years ago, three years ago, or even two years ago was the most dragging part of this novel.

In my opinion, the first third of this novel is basically unbearable. The middle third is still barely passable, but there is still something like "underground chapter" that is long, boring, and painful to read.

The only part that is truly complete is the last third - according to the progress bar of the APP, it probably starts from "Wish Come True".

A mortal seeker, and the duel with the oracle machine controller.

From here, the story is considered "complete".

I can only express my gratitude to the readers who read to the end.

Thank you for being willing to hold on to the previous part for this part of the plot.

In addition to my own improvement, this effect was caused by the change in my thinking.

Four years ago, I was a simple technology worshipper. In my understanding at that time, all problems could be attributed to "technical problems" and all dissatisfaction could be attributed to "lack of technological progress".

Liu Cixin publicly stated that he was a technologist. This sentence influenced me at that time - what I saw four years ago was naturally more superficial.

I just wanted to write a novel that eulogized technology and scientific progress.

- Of course, this was also an idea that I had from the Shenjing chapter. Before the Shenjing chapter, I just thought about "writing casually and practicing my writing speed". It was this casual attitude at the beginning that led to the quality of this work in the early stage... It was a disaster.

And this idea reached its peak in the Linghuang Island chapter.

"Fools, whether you are willing or not, whether you accept it or not, whether you think the process is in line with expectations or not, I have brought you more abundant material, a future with the possibility of longevity, a complete life, and free thoughts. It doesn't matter if you don't want it, just enjoy the wonderful life I have given you with your anger towards me - anyway, what happens next is none of my business." - This is the answer given by Wang Qi.

Because I am a generation that grew up after the reform and opening up. I remember that when my family was the poorest, I bought discounted chicken racks during the bird flu period to supplement nutrition. Although most of the poultry meat that can be sold in supermarkets is safe, and although I was very happy to eat meat when I was a child. But thinking about this now, it is also particularly sad.

And my generation has also watched parents' mobile phones evolve from small-sized mobile phones to flip phones, and then to early smart phones.

The first mobile phone I got in college was Xiaomi 2S, which was already quite mature.

And things that did not exist before, such as Alipay, also appeared in the process of my growth and had the power to change the world.

All this is the power of "technology".

In some science fictions, "the natives are powerless to fight against a certain disaster, and the protagonist with higher technology solves it without any danger", which is another microcosm of technology worship, or a variant.

"Technology" is power.

What caused me to waver was the year of my internship in my senior year.

I really experienced modern life and knew the pressure and exploitation in modern life. So I began to reflect on whether technology really means happiness?

Of course, I did not deny my pursuit of "technology". I still sneer at the spiritual happiness of "physical suffering with religious experience". There is nothing wrong with pursuing technology itself.

But if the power of technology is not tamed, technology will also cause harm to humans.

Maybe technology can really solve all the problems that humans will encounter-but what about the people before this technology comes? In the process of this technology coming, are there people who cannot benefit? Can all technologies benefit everyone?

This happens to be the process of creating the underground chapter.

Maybe Mei Gemu thought of this, so he would use technology to do evil and put the harmed and neglected people in front of Wang Qi.

Is this a torture?

Maybe for me, this is a process of thinking.

But for the story, this paragraph is not necessary.

Wang Qi is a person who can say "Fools, just enjoy the good life I give you with anger towards me." He is a rational creature who will trample on all the mantises that stand in his way without hesitation.

The only reason why Wang Qi is not a "bad guy" is that he is smart enough to ensure that he will not stand on the side of "evil" - what he does will most likely be in line with the overall interests of the vast majority of people in the long run. He will always stand on the side of "progress".

Mei Gemu's question to Wang Qi is destined to be ineffective.

This is also where I need to apologize to the readers who have read this story.

My thinking did not get an answer. If you really want to get a perfect result, you should look for it in the monographs of sociologists.

However, it was after this article that this novel matured.

After the chapter of Starry Sea, the rhythm of the plot and the writing style have matured.

Of course, in this process, I have also grasped my true thoughts - we should master the power of reason as human beings.

This sentence should be the biggest achievement of my four years.

In these four years, in order to write this novel well, I also forced myself to read a lot of books. I have read some of Karl Mannheim, Saussure, Marx, Russell, Husserl, and Heidegger. And for me, the process of writing is also the process of thinking.

Praising reason - this is the answer I finally got.

And my story exists for this.

Heavenly people - beings with supreme technology, may be able to achieve the realm of "no matter what I think, the universe will obey me", and some of their ways of thinking may be "emotional" to mortals.

But the way of reason is the power of mortals to break through the unknown barriers.

This is the core of the plot of this book.

In addition to this core, the main plot of "Entering the Immortal Cultivation" can be roughly divided into "three and a half" main immortal roads.

"Mathematics: Hilbert's 23 Questions - Gödel's first-order completeness - incompleteness/uncomputable - type theory/internal model/constructibility/computer science - Langlands program".

"Microphysics: particles - standard model/superstring/condensed matter/quantum computer"

"Biology: metamorphosis - gene expression - central dogma - prion".

These are three complete lines.

"Astrophysics: black holes/gravity - singularity"

This can be considered half of it.

The field of astrophysics is not the main part of this book. In addition, this part is also the most imaginative part of this book.

I even used some... unproven conjectures in the field of astrophysics, non-mainstream inferences, etc.

For example, the "holographic principle does not exist" that once made Wang Qi "feel uncomfortable". But in essence, the holographic principle is not absolutely valid in our universe - you must first accept certain conclusions of black hole thermodynamics, or in other words, "a priori assume that these conclusions are correct".

Another example is... the principle of the establishment of the universe of Lagus Xuan, the miracle of destroying the world. But now the mainstream of astronomy actually believes that the similarity between the Hubble radius and the Schwarzschild radius of the universe may just be a coincidence.

In fact, most of the inferences about black holes that everyone can understand now have such problems.

We have not yet directly observed black holes at close range.

In fact, everything we know can only be called "speculation".

I have chosen speculation here that is more suitable for the development of the story.

However, the opposite is the biological route. Especially in the prion chapter, every detail and every process in it, I can even pull out papers as arguments.

Here I must thank my old friend Chenfeng Lingyu, a neurobiologist, for even helping me correct some small details in some biological processes and correcting the use of many terms and concepts. I hope that he and the monkeys he raised that "opened my eyes" can continue to be active in the academic community. In addition, I also thank Cafene, who did experiments in the United States, for helping me correct some details about the biological laboratory.

"Microphysics" is a relatively detailed part, and its presence is not low. However, to a large extent, the microphysics of this book is competing with "Aura Theory". In this route, Wang Qi completed the final and greatest transformation by "falsifying superstring" in this world/proving that the spiritual universe and superstring theory have major errors.

In addition, this route ultimately points to the fact that "this universe has different spectrums of theories".

In addition, there is "mathematics" - the focus of this chapter, in addition to giving Wang Qi the qualifications, the most important thing is to propose the "level of computers" and the description of "how strong the Great Sage of Heaven and Man can be".

"How strong can black hole essence be? Second-order complete."

"How to describe the Great Sage of Heaven and Man? Unable to reach the cardinality, at least third-order complete."

However, this route is somewhat regrettable.

I did not arrange enough plots for the "Snow Country School/Soviet School".

The Soviet school is the successor and promoter of Henri Poincaré's ideas. They are one of the most brilliant mathematician groups in the second half of the 20th century. After the "natural aging" of the Bourbaki school, the mathematicians of the fighting nation became the best mathematicians in the world.

However, due to the Cold War, the Soviet school has a weak influence in the West. In books about the history of mathematics, their presence is thin.

However, Grothendieck's seclusion, the decline of the Bourbaki school, and the end of the Cold War happened one after another. After the collapse of the Iron Curtain, a large number of Russian mathematicians were hired as professors at American universities. The mathematical ideas of the Soviet school have finally dominated the current mathematical world.

I realized this about a year ago. But at this time, there is not much room for them to play a plot.

Only when we have to make a "closed time-like curve computer" will we drag them out - it's really too much.

It's probably still the era of Lian Zong, but Lian Zong's presence is not enough, tut tut tut...

Wang Qi chose to believe in mathematical realism because he did witness different universes with "different physical rules but consistent mathematical laws". He gradually realized this during the research process - unfortunately, I still failed to portray this in a gradual form.

The attitude of the Soviet school towards the Bourbaki school is definitely not as friendly as the Snow Country school towards the foundation-building school in the plot.

In general, Wang Qi chose to leave the sect, which allowed him to participate in the discussion of "the level of computers" and facilitate the description of the strength of the Heavenly Saint, and to link up with the linguistic lines of Saussure and Chomsky, and then to be associated with "artificial intelligence" and "genetics".

And computer science is the important concept of "consensus algorithm".

If I had included more astrophysics when I set the outline, maybe everyone would have seen the Lianzong version of Wang Qi [laughs].

But in the final analysis, the difference between Lianzong and Lizong is the difference in "genealogy" caused by the different "choose to accept axioms". People's logical thinking must have an "origin". This origin is "axioms". Whether to accept an axiom is more of an aesthetic choice.

Wang Qi's Li Zong eventually defeated Lian Zong, to a certain extent, because "mathematical realism" is more conducive to enhancing the cohesion of the human race and rebuilding intersubjectivity. Did the Soviet school choose to believe in the "constructibility" of mathematics because the mathematical concepts proposed by Henri Poincare, a mathematician who can almost be regarded as a physicist, are more in line with "materialism"?

But this is indeed an aesthetic choice to a certain extent. Mathematicians who choose to believe in mathematical realism cannot ignore the results of mathematicians who believe in constructive activities. Vice versa.

Perhaps human axiom choices have nothing to do with nature itself, or will these two views reach a unity at a higher level?

Unfortunately, I don't have more plots to deduce how the thoughts of the Snow Country School will evolve in this world.

And several clues are connected here.

The plot after the maze chapter is actually just the last game set by "Wang Qi, the smartest foreknower who has the most resources in the observable universe" through two different thinking abilities of "rationality" and "foreknowledge".

The shapeshifting method and virus on the "biological" line constitute an element of the world-destroying method.

"Astrophysics" provides another element.

Earlier, the aversion to collective intelligence and AI in the Tianren Dasheng culture was the foreshadowing of this moment.

The foreshadowing of "cheap quantum bits versus precious reverse-order logic gates" and the ability of the foresight to "emerge" are the power that Wang Qi uses to ensure that this game will not be cracked - starting from saving the Heavenly Demon King, Wang Qi's dialogue with several foresights is all preparing for this moment.

The feeling of all the clues being connected together in the last moment is really, so cool.

For me, this story actually started in "Shenjing".

Starting with the topic of black hole spirits and ending with the narration of a black hole spirit

A complete story.

For me, I have done it.

The most important task of "story" is to provide people with a "sense of surprise" - there is a kind of surprise that "there is such an operation of digging a groove", which is an important source of reading pleasure.

This point was summarized very thoroughly by O. Henry.

Unexpected, but reasonable.

I think my last story should be called unexpected and reasonable, right?

——Maybe there is an exception for my friend willalien who saw the direction of my finale a month in advance?

Friend, if you revealed the ending a month in advance, I would not be able to eat! The outline is torn up——Haha, just kidding. willalien should be my earliest reader and the first person to have a serious discussion with the "Aura Formula" I wrote casually.

When I wrote that nonsense formula, I never thought that I would actually write a whole book based on that formula and complete "fictional physics".

Thanks to my book friend willalien for his encouragement.

In addition, I would like to thank Kyubey, the new moderator of my book review area. Over the past few years, this professional has given me great theoretical support.

I would also like to thank those friends who helped me manage my game account during my explosive update period, and thank those friends who came to see me at offline events...

Thanks to all the book friends who are willing to read here.

Thank you for accompanying me through my immature period.

Thank you for reading this.

In "Entering the Immortal Realm", I have only achieved one-third of perfection at most. For me, this is definitely not my limit.

I hope we can meet in the next story.