The human brain is perhaps the last bastion that scientific research has conquered, one of the most stubborn. Until now, we know very little about how the brain works, the mechanisms of memory storage and retrieval. Zhou Cheng once said that human beings may never have to worry about artificial intelligence being able to replace themselves, because we ourselves don't know where the metaphysical cognition of art, philosophy, inspiration, and artistic conception comes from, where it goes, how it can be imitated, how it can be replicated, and it is for this reason that I am in awe of most artists, and I am also full of curiosity about most of the artistic creation process.

After chatting with Team Cao for almost a night, and falling asleep for a while, Team Cao ran away in a hurry and went to the conference room to attend the first meeting of the four-person leadership group. I couldn't sleep anymore, so I simply got up and thought about going to the deck to have a look, I remember that in the morning a few days ago, Ding Jian would draw on the small deck above the cockpit, so I simply went to see it, and basked in the sun by the way.

When I got on deck, I found that the sky was very overcast, and the overhead was completely covered with thick clouds, and there was a tendency to get thicker, and in the distance, on the sea level, there was a wall of lead-gray clouds churning like huge waves, as if a great storm was coming, and the waves were getting bigger, and huge foam was beating against the hull.

There was no sunlight, no color, and not even a little energetic waterfowl, which made me a little disappointed, and I was about to turn around and prepare to return to the cabin, when I suddenly caught a glimpse of Ding Jian on the small deck, still sitting calmly in front of the drawing board, holding a colored pencil, looking into the distance in a daze.

I went up the spiral staircase and walked up to him, and on Ding Jian's drawing board was a half-painted work. It seems that when he first started painting, the sun was still rising, the sky was clear, the sea was calm and waveless, and a few waterfowl were dancing on the skyline. It is estimated that soon the black clouds pressed up, and he began to paint the dark clouds with very thick brushstrokes in the upper part of the painting, which should be very fast, and the brushstrokes are almost crazy, but they do not appear abrupt, but have a strong sense of layering, as if each stroke is accurately calculated, the length is just right, and the feeling of the black clouds pressing on it is extremely real. In particular, the projection of clouds on the sea, the simple brushstrokes, the change of direction, and the addition of some short lines of virtual and real immediately enliven the picture.

I think this is the result of the difference in the perspective of professional painters and ordinary people in front of the same scene, not just a matter of painting skills.

I quickly noticed why Ding Jian stopped his brush, and he drew the clouds in the middle of the upper right side of the picture. This cloud is noticeably thicker and even a little gloomy than the others. It seems that this part is the part that Ding Jian focuses on depicting, and the brushstrokes are a little messy, which should take a lot of hesitation. On the small wooden box in Ding Jian's hand, there were several thumb-length charcoal sticks, but in his hand was an orange colored pencil.

Approaching the drawing board again, looking carefully, I found that in the clouds in the middle scene, Ding Jian sketched some lines with colored pencils, the background of the charcoal was very heavy, and the brushstrokes of the colored pencils were both thin and light, which may be the reason for not being sure, hidden in the brushstrokes of the charcoal, and it could not be distinguished if you did not look carefully.

I got closer, and then I could vaguely see that Ding Jian's outline with orange lead seemed to be a human figure, and it was not one, layered, and the postures were almost the same, and I couldn't count the number for a while, could this be the figure with an orange halo that the boat boss had said?

"Uncle Chang, the wind is about to rise, why are you still on the deck?" Ding Jian didn't raise his head, and his posture didn't change at all, but the deep voice floated into my ears.

"Xiao Ding, the cabin is too stuffy, I didn't expect it to come out. I always feel that painting the sea is a very boring job, at least in my opinion, as long as the weather does not change, the scenery is the same, and you can paint the sea for four or five years, which is amazing. Seeing that he had noticed me, he simply leaned a foot in front of the painting and carefully examined the thick clouds.

"Uncle Chang, the same thing is seen by different people, it is the same, even if it is a person, with different moods, it is also the same. Ding Jian's answer seemed to be motivated.

"That's right, I remember a master once said, 20 years ago I saw mountains as mountains and water as water, 10 years ago, I saw mountains instead of mountains, and water was not water, and now, I see mountains as mountains and water as water. That's what it means, right?" I said as I picked up a charcoal bar from his wooden box and looked at it carefully. The texture of this charcoal strip is much softer than that of ordinary lead cores, and it is very light in the hand, but just a light touch will leave a dark mark on the hand.

Ding Jian raised his head and smiled at me, "Uncle Chang, I've only been painting for a few years, and I'm still far from the master's first realm." I didn't want to be a master, so I drew if I was interested. ”

"Xiao Ding, I am a layman in painting, I can only see that the painting is not like it, and I can't tell whether it is good or not. For example, the clouds you draw are very imposing, but why are there orange lines in the clouds? Is there just sunlight reflecting on the clouds?"

"That's not it, maybe it's from the heart, right? What the masters recorded with their brushes can become classics, and often not what the eyes see. Uncle Chang, last night I heard Uncle Liao talk about your work in Ji'an, Northeast China, I wonder if you still have that painter, the young man who died in the mining accident, his works? ”

Listening to Ding Jian's words, I couldn't help but think, it seems that art is connected to each other, the person Ding Jian mentioned is Xiao Fan, Fan prodigy of Ji'an, I am very impressed, I can't imagine that Huansheng is the same. The boy with special functions who we have never met, but who has always been like him for a long time, has indeed painted a lot of unbelievable paintings.

"Xiaoding, I'm sorry to disappoint you, that young man's surname is Fan, it's a pity that we don't have his works, but what you said earlier is very right, he can always see a lot of details that ordinary people can't see, and show them in a unique way. I remember that he painted a picture of their mining area, not at eye level, but from the perspective of looking down from the air, at that time, Xiao Fan could not fly over the mining area by plane, it should be that he was familiar with the mining area, according to the daily accumulation, imagined. But many years later, with the remote sensing aerial photos, everyone found that Xiao Fan's painting was almost not bad at all, as if he had really flown from it once. "I consciously said a few more words to Ding Jian, hoping to give him some touch, and he can tell some of his true thoughts.

Ding Jian nodded thoughtfully, put down his paintbrush, and asked me with a very solemn expression, "Uncle Chang, why do you say that people always encounter people or scenes in their dreams in the real world? Ding Jian said as he handed me the folding stool he was sitting on and sat on the deck by himself.

Ding Jian's question was somewhat surprising to me, could it be that an artist with an extremely rich imagination is more likely to blur the boundary between imagination and reality?

"Xiao Ding, it's hard for me to have a definite answer to this question, do you want to listen to the orthodox statement, or listen to my personal opinion?" I sat down on the small bench and asked him with a smile.

"You say orthodoxy first, and then you talk about your own, I don't want to miss either. Xiao Ding showed a rare hint of cunning.

"The orthodox way of saying it is mainly because of the problem of human memory, or the problem of the working mechanism of the brain. Our brains are sophisticated computers that collect, analyze, and store data about the effects of the outside world. However, the external world is too complex, and our perceptions are transmitted to the brain all the time, and if they are all stored in it, it is estimated that the brain will soon be filled with data. ”

"It is estimated that the amount of data is large, and the brain is still facing a trouble of retrieving and extracting data, so the human brain has evolved a special function, and the current fashionable term is fuzzy operation. The brain automatically chooses to remember or delete events based on how important they are, and it is estimated that they will delete far more than they remember. After that, a retrieval path is automatically generated, and whenever the mind touches this path, the memory will appear. We call this association, seeing things and thinking about people, or thinking about things at night. ”

However, after a long time, as people get older, their memory will decline, different retrieval paths will become blurred, and even different paths will overlap with each other, so two different things will become one thing in the brain, and similarly, memory errors will occur when the two things happened, so there will be a situation where the scene is familiar, but I don't remember when I came. ”

Speaking of this, I paused, and Ding Jian, who was in deep thought, had already blurted out, "Uncle Chang, this orthodox explanation is not comprehensive, sometimes, there are some things that I confirm that I have not experienced, but I still feel very familiar, some people don't know each other at all, but they feel familiar when they see it for the first time." Even when I paint, I will unconsciously add some things that are not in the scene, but I still feel very natural and coordinated, as if I once really existed. ”

"In psychology, this phenomenon is called selective memory, the brain will selectively split the events you have experienced into different components, maybe the brain selectively forgets the time and people of the event, and only a certain scene remains, one thing loses most of the details of causality, only one perception remains, and this perception is often further split, becoming more fragmented, and the real scene at that time has been very different. So you may not have experienced exactly the same thing, but the feeling is similar and gives you a sense of familiarity. Of course, this is still the mainstream psychological interpretation, not my understanding, my understanding is only from experience, which is deviant. ”

"And what is your understanding?" Ding Jian looked up, and he could see that his eyes were full of anticipation.

(The ancient good yarrow burning turtle can show the ancient in the present, the ancient in the present, the high school, the high in the low, the small in the big, the big in the small, the many in the one, the people in the things, the things in the people, I show the other, and the other shows me.) It is the Tao, its origin is not present, its past is ancient, its high is uncovered, its low is unloaded, its big is not outside, its small is not inside, there is nothing outside, there is no one in it, there is no self in its near, and there is no other in it. Inanalyticable, incompatible, indescribable, inconceivable. But it is muddy, so it is the way. --"Guan Yinzi")