When all matter disappears, light seems to have lost its propagation path and can no longer be refracted back to any information.
Dark, like the border of nothingness, No. 77 looked at the slowly closing black arc with a solemn expression.
The city suspended in the deep sky is being wrapped in nothingness. Like rice paper soaked in ink, it is disappearing bit by bit.
Of course, No. 77 knew that this was not because the ghost skull scene had disappeared, he just couldn't see it, just like covering one eye with one hand, and the system was blocking the screen.
The scope of nothingness is getting wider and wider, like a laboratory isolating a virus.
After a quick estimate of the blockade time, No. 77 couldn't help but have a look of solemnity flashing through his huge eyeballs.
In twenty minutes at most, this place will completely disappear.
He didn't tell Lin An how difficult it was to mutate here, and even many supervisors didn't know. Just like when the meme first appeared, people didn't realize what kind of disaster it would bring.
"The integration of three departments into one, the faith department, may be a good path."
“But it’s still not enough and we can still take a stronger path!”
Waving his tentacles, if No. 77 could take a deep breath, he would definitely take a deep breath to calm down.
Danger is also opportunity.
Before the seventh level, the battle between beings relies on energy. But after the seventh level, it is a competition for cognition, rules, and understanding of the essence of the operation of the universe!
If the Ghost Skull is compared to strengthened resources, the power brought by the Stars Battlefield is 1, then here it is 1000! 10000!
As long as Lin An can come out alive, the road to the seventh level will be smooth! If the information here can be completely digested, the eighth level will be just around the corner, and he will be invincible! And only Lin An like this can reach that step.
!
Of course, maybe Lin An would die directly inside, like a rat that was stretched to death, exploded into pieces with a bang, and would sink forever.
To be honest, No. 77 didn't know why he did this. Maybe he was like a gambler who lost his money.
He has already lost enough, and it doesn't matter if he loses again before he invests much.
Maybe this is unfair to Lin An, maybe it's cruel.
"Everything has a price. The more precious the thing, the greater the price."
"especially"
"hope!"
"Come out alive, Lin An!"
In the dark space, a beam of light suddenly lit up.
It's like the lights are turned on in the room.
"The origin of mankind? The ultimate?"
Standing opposite Ander, Lin An couldn't help but repeat himself. He could see that Ander's expression just now didn't seem to be fake. In fact, at this point, if Ander lied again, he would undoubtedly insult the IQ of the two of them.
It's just that the word "ultimate" is too vague and too "magnificent", so Lin An rarely thinks about such illusory issues.
That is not a realm that humans can set foot on.
It was hard for Lin An to imagine what Ander had discovered here to make him say these words.
Does the ultimate information really exist? In other words, how could it appear here?
No need to read minds, Ander looked at Lin An with complicated eyes and spoke softly.
"You can't believe it, right?"
"Lin An, are you thinking that, regardless of whether the ultimate exists, even if it exists, it cannot appear here. Yes, the difficulty of the ghost skull is not low, but compared to what the ultimate represents, it is no more than a grain of salt
Dust vs. the Universe.”
"But who would have thought that the answer is really here."
Ender chuckled, his laughter full of complex emotions, as if he didn't know how he could encounter such a thing.
He was like a rat running around, and suddenly one day he ran into the temple where the truth was stored. He had an inexplicable glimpse of the truth, and then he was trapped here, unable to survive or die.
Putting away his smile, Ender spread out his hands at will and instantly transformed into two chairs.
"I can tell you if you want to hear it."
"But the story is very long. Maybe you can understand it after listening to it. Of course, did you see the light door behind me? You can just walk out
, act like nothing happened.”
"As I said, I don't dare to kill you. Rather than trap you here, it's better to let you leave."
"What? Block your ears, blindfold your eyes, and be blind. Or listen to the ultimate mystery of the universe?"
Just like chanting.
"Buzz"
The light door emerges.
Ander looked at Lin An calmly, as if he really let Lin An leave.
Looking at each other in silence.
Lin An opened his mouth, with rare hesitation in his heart.
Reason told him to leave here directly. His mission has been completed. He has also thought of the answer to the secret of the belief system. After leaving, he will be 90% sure to advance to the fifth level!
Can face the ultimate!
Just like the flower of the other side, like the most deadly and tempting poison! He actually felt that his soul was longing for it! If he walked out, he would regret it for the rest of his life!
If you hear the Tao in the morning, you will die in the evening!
If what Ender said is true, then the secret that he has been pursuing since the beginning of humankind, and that countless people have gone through fire and water to pursue until death, will emerge in front of him. As long as he sits on this chair, he will know the answer.
!
After a long time, Lin An took a deep breath and spoke hoarsely.
"you say"
"Let me first tell you why I entered here."
"Since the end of the competition, I have realized that the conventional strength system is too weak."
"Whether it's you, the fugitive, the alien, or even the bear next to you, I'm no match for you. It's even as ridiculous as a bug, forcing me to die."
"But I obviously completed every task perfectly and did everything to the extreme."
"That's when I suddenly realized that if I wanted to survive, I had to seek other strength."
Sitting across from each other, Ander regained He Xi's smile and calmly recounted his past humiliation.
Yes, for him, he is obviously the strongest man in North America and the most perfect experimental subject of the God Creation Plan. He has never made a mistake in every step. But in front of Lin An and the fugitives, no matter how he calculates
All meaningless.
Especially with powerful computing power and the ability to read minds, he almost previewed his own inevitable death.
That kind of pain and despair is enough to drive any human being crazy.
"So you started looking for special copies to gain stronger power? And then you entered the Ghost Skull?"
"Yes."
Ender nodded.
"I collected a lot of information and finally determined that your power must not come from the conventional system. I don't know what it is, but the companions around you gave me a reference direction."
"Special events, memes, and supernatural aspects. Only these three major events can make it possible for me to gain stronger power in the shortest time."
"During that time, I was avoiding the pursuit of the fugitives while desperately completing various special tasks. It was at that time that I accidentally discovered a memetic incident."
"But you're wrong about one thing."
Ender paused slightly and smiled.
"I didn't enter the Ghost Skull at the beginning. The Ghost Skull happened later."
"Entering here was also an accident. However, this is not important."
"The important thing is, what did I know before entering the Ghost Skull?"
Before Lin An raised his eyebrows, he subconsciously wanted to ask.
The next second, Ander suddenly waved his right hand, and a black and white photo with the color of the old era appeared between the two of them.
Zooming into the black and white photo as big as a map, a man is answering the phone with a serious look on his face.
"Lin An, have you ever thought about what memes are?"
"Memes are alive, they are another kind of life form"
Ender asked and answered himself.
In an instant, Lin An's eyes narrowed.
I don't know why, Ender suddenly said these words.
It gave him an extremely uneasy feeling.
Jiang Haochen also said this, and even Mo Ling also said it.
"It seems that you have heard some of it, but you must not know completely about memes."
Not paying attention to Lin An's reaction, Ander's tone was low, as if he was telling a bizarre story.
"The meme event is located in the San Francisco area, and the meme background is the name of the 1915 event"
"Phone Ghost."
"In San Francisco in 1915, people were excitedly waiting for the announcement of the connection between San Francisco and New York. Once the telephone lines between the two places were connected, it meant that the phones of more than a million people were connected together. From then on, they could communicate easily
to family and friends as far away as New York. However, what is different from everyone else is that there is a group of people who are uneasy and even want to prevent this from happening."
"The reason is very simple. These people were scientists and professors at the time. They believed that so many telephone lines connected together would resemble the synapses of the human brain."
"And in this telephone line, which seemed extremely complicated and huge at the time, it is very likely that self-awareness will be born out of thin air."
"The moment the phone line was connected, the scientists nervously picked up the phone and listened to the noise of electricity coming from the other end of the phone. But to their disappointment, they heard nothing."
"The scientists breathed a sigh of relief and thought they were overthinking it. But what people didn't know was that the moment they put down the phone, an electrical signal appeared out of thin air."
"And my mission is to destroy it."
Having said this, Ander waved his right hand, and a series of pictures appeared in front of Lin An's eyes.
The conversation changed
"Lin An, what do you think is the definition of life?"
When their eyes met, Lin An was slightly startled.
Although he didn't know why Ander suddenly mentioned this, Lin An still thought about it for a while and then quickly answered.
"Possessing the ability to reproduce, whether viviparous or egg-laying or self-dividing."
"Have basic consciousness and be able to change as the environment changes. And adapt to the environment and continue oneself."
Ender nodded and spoke appreciatively
"Yes, but there is another point, that is, life needs to have an impact on the material world. If it is invisible, intangible, and has no trace of its existence, it cannot be called a living thing, or it cannot even be called an existence."
"And the reason why I say memes are alive and a kind of life is because I discovered something very interesting."
Pointing at the picture with one hand, Ander saw that among the pictures he clicked, a picture with a cat and a line of English written next to it instantly enlarged.
"This is a cat picture from 2003, and it was also the first suspected meme on the Internet before the end of the world."
"It's called Can I Eat a Cheeseburger? It was born on the 4chan forum. It's a static image, only 4kb in size."
Lin An was slightly startled, 2004? That was a long time ago.
Before Lin An could frown, Ander clicked on another picture again and said to himself
"This cat has been circulating for a long time, but its spread is very small, limited to some forums and blogs on the Internet. But this one is different."
Ender enlarged the second picture, and it showed a dog wearing sunglasses.
"This is an animated picture called Deal with It. It was created in 2010. The sunglasses fall on the dog's face in a cool way. It is often used by people to express this awesome meaning."
After waving the pictures away, Lin An's heart suddenly shook as the third picture appeared. He seemed to realize why Ander wanted to show him these things.
The third picture is not a picture, but a video.
In the video, a man was lifting a bucket with a nervous look on his face, and with a splash, ice cubes in the bucket were poured on him.
"The Ice Bucket Challenge first appeared in 2014 in the form of a video. In the following nearly ten years, it suddenly became popular and people rushed to imitate it."
After the words fell, Ander raised his head and spoke word by word.
"Did you find it? Lin An?"
"
They are evolving, they are reproducing at an extremely fast rate, and they are evolving into more and more advanced forms."
"From just an electrical signal, to a static picture, dynamic picture, and then to video!"
“From being unknown to anyone, to affecting thousands and tens of thousands of people, to hundreds of millions of people! From just being seen and used as emoticons, to influencing people’s behavior patterns! Memes are evolving at an alarming rate.
And multiply in large numbers on the Internet!"
"If a person's memory is converted into data and stored, a few hundred grams or a few hundred tons would be enough. But by the time the apocalypse breaks out, the meme data accumulated around the world has far exceeded this number!"
“The history of memes is like the history of biological evolution accelerated tens of millions of times!”
"From single cells to multi-cells, from invertebrates to upright walking! Their influence on the real world is also rapidly expanding. From the beginning, they just made people's emotions fluctuate, and later they actually affected reality and controlled human actions!"
"In terms of energy consumption, the energy consumption required for information storage is calculated. The energy they consume at this stage is equivalent to human beings entering the space age from primitive society!"
"Summary of the Statement"
"A thing that can evolve, reproduce, evolve into different forms according to the environment, and consume a lot of resources to ensure its own existence, what is it but life?"
"They are parasitic in humans and reproduce in network data. Our eyes are their eyes, and our hands are the hands that give birth to them!"
"Under the influence of memes, every photo we take and every text we write is their carrier. Every newly built power station and data center is their nourishment and hotbed!",
Lin An's head was shaken by the new angle, even though he had been exposed to memes very early on.
But the perspective given by Ander is undoubtedly more complete.
especially
(My mission is to destroy it)
(The mission era is 1915 Telecommunications Signal Unicom)
(The emergence of the Internet, or information links, has led to the faster and faster evolution of memes)
Lin An frowned. He seemed to have caught something and then it flashed away. He understood what Ander was talking about, and these things seemed to be inextricably linked to the knowledge in the ghost's skull.
contact.
But it's as if I'm short of a breath, as if the answer is right in front of my eyes, but I'm just one step away! This feeling makes people feel sick and want to go crazy.
"I agree that memes have the characteristics of life, but similarly, memes also rely on human cognition, and they do not actually have the ability to evolve themselves."
Lin An took a deep breath and couldn't help but express his understanding of memes.
"Memes seem to be influencing people, but in essence they are still influencing people. They do not have a complete life and subjective initiative in the material world."
"It is passive and does not have the ability to actively evolve!"
"Moreover, what does this have to do with human consciousness? Memes must ultimately be attached to the carrier and to something truly alive."
Before Lin An finished speaking, Ande suddenly chuckled and spoke quietly
"Lin An, you think memes are not real life because their evolution and reproduction depend on human cognition, and humans are alive, so it seems to have the characteristics of life."
"Just like if a moving thing is considered alive, how can an ax held in someone's hand be considered alive? It doesn't move on its own."
"But have you ever thought about it?"
"Maybe we are the axe?"
"The human brain is just a pile of meat. Your consciousness controls the body and becomes you alive. What is the difference between this and memes controlling humans?"
"Memes evolve with the help of human cognition and are influenced by humans. What is the difference between this and humans being influenced by substances and evolving from crawling on the ground to walking upright?"
"As for the most important sign of subjective active life"
As he spoke, Ander shook his head, as if with some pity, and looked at himself in Lin An's eyes with self-mockery.
"Lin An, what I said before is just a foreshadowing. What I'm going to say next is the truth I discovered in the ghost skull."
