What Enya said was not difficult for Gawain to understand, but he still fell into a long time of reflection after listening to it, and in the process of thinking, some long-pending theories were confirmed, some key points that he had not understood were added, and most importantly, he finally confirmed a guess that had been there for a long time but had never been sure.

The gods are some kind of "closed system", or in other words, the premise of the establishment of the gods in a certain civilization system is the "locked" of the civilization system in the corresponding field of knowledge - when a system no longer produces new cognitions, when the members of the system no longer try to find answers to certain questions from the outside, but point all the explanations of the problems to the inside of the system, the foundation for the birth of the gods will be formed.

Therefore, once the system becomes open, when external information can become the "solution" to certain problems within the system, the gods born on this system will be immediately attacked, and they will quickly go crazy in the deadly contradictions.

This is something like a bug that freezes the process, or an external contamination injected into the system causing it to crash.

"Therefore, when the final disobedience occurs, the group's ideology does not actually change drastically - because there are only a few 'observers' who jump out of the system, and the information they see does not immediately affect the entire group," Gawain slowly finished his contemplation and looked at the golden dome in front of him and said, "'Institutional change' is not a major cause in the process of final disobedience, not even a valid reason, a really effective reason...... It was the gods themselves who were denied. ”

"From my own experience, it is like this," Enya said in a soft voice, as if the things she was talking about had nothing to do with her, "the relationship between the ideology and the gods is extremely close, and the relationship between the two is by no means as simple as the relationship between the 'hotbed' and the 'product', and even in a sense, the gods themselves are the embodiment and integration of the ideology - the gods are the ideology, so as long as a tributary of the ideology comes into contact with specific information outside the system, it is equivalent to the gods coming into contact with this information. And if this information cannot be denied by the logic of the system itself, then ...... The collapse of the system is inevitable. ”

Speaking of this, the voice coming from the golden dome suddenly stopped, she seemed to be sorting out her fragmented memories, Gawain waited patiently for a few seconds before hearing Enya's voice sound again: "...... I remember that last moment, when the dragon's ship broke through the atmosphere and stepped into an area that no one had touched in mythological times...... Even though I was completely out of control of anything at the time, and even thinking had completely stopped, that feeling was still deeply imprinted in my memory through the link between divinity and humanity.

"It was a cold and painful tearing feeling, with a great fear of being suddenly thrown from a warm and comfortable environment into a cold and unfamiliar environment, like a baby being born, suddenly separated from its mother's body, facing a sinister external environment—my divine part had to admit the existence of the starry sky, that there was no heaven above the stars, that beyond the planet was a vast 'extraterritorial', that my power was nothing but a tiny flash of dust in the universe, that I was meaningless in the vastness of space...... In a very short period of time, the mythological system that mortals have built up over millions of years has been shattered by the cold laws of reality, and the myth cannot be established, and the gods cannot be established. ”

Enya's voice stopped, and Gawain sat across from her, holding his chin with his hand, and after a long period of thought, he slowly said: "Therefore, if civilization is regarded as a system that is constantly evolving, then as long as this system develops to a certain stage, the 'divinity' must die out - because the divinity is destined to close the loop, it does not match the direction of evolution of the whole system, and we can only retain the human part like you at most." ”

"That's the obvious conclusion."

"It's too cruel for a god," Gawain sighed softly, "It seems that everyone is entitled to live, only God must die—don't you think that's unfair?" Just like you, even if the human part of you is still 'alive', you as a god are dead......"

Enya was silent for a few seconds, and then said softly, "God can also die, this is the greatest justice. ”

Gao Wen's heart was touched, and he couldn't help but say: "Although it may be a bit off-topic to say this now, many of our technologies are pursuing the ...... of allowing mortals to gain eternal life."

"I know, it's just that even with the oldest silver empire in the Loren continent today, the history of civilization this season has only gone for about tens of thousands of years, and for the time scale of mortals, these tens of thousands of years can be called eternal - the immortality pursued by mortals is meaningless in the face of the astronomical scale, and there is no real eternal immortality in the world," Enya said in a deep voice, "But on the other hand, things that are meaningless in the face of the astronomical scale still have meaning in front of mortal individuals, so this is the reason for civilization to move forward." …… Look up at the sky, look down at your feet, and never forget one of them, so that civilization has the opportunity to go further. ”

"What is the relationship between the astronomical scale and the mortal scale...... Gawain pondered for a moment, and suddenly laughed, "We are obviously discussing such practical issues as the ultimate catastrophe and the ultimate disobedience, but in the end it seems that we have studied philosophy. ”

As he spoke, he shook his head, and after sorting out his thoughts a little, he said: "Then we can conclude that it was the civilization that suddenly opened up to the outside world, which led to the occurrence of the 'ultimate catastrophe', and this 'opening' only needs a small but very 'exact' opening, even if only one or two individuals in the civilization group break through the system blockade, it is possible to achieve the conditions...... The essence of this process is not that 'man looks outward', but that 'God looks outward'? ”

"It's understandable. It's like using a needle to puncture an airbag, the tip of the needle may be small, but for an airbag that is on the verge of limit, the overall collapse only needs a small breach. ”

"Then the research institute of the Theocratic Council can finally make a qualification," Gawain breathed a sigh of relief, "We have been thinking about the division between the 'divine disaster' caused by the loss of control of a single god and the 'ultimate divine catastrophe' that leads to the extinction of civilization, and now it seems that ...... The crux of all this is what exactly caused the collapse of the 'closed-loop system' of the gods.

"Under the premise that the closed system is not destroyed, a large number of individuals who make up a civilization produce continuous and extensive changes in the trend of thought and gradually cross the critical point that the system can bear, thus causing the gods corresponding to the trend of thought to get out of control, and thus produce a 'divine disaster', which we might call 'the first type of transgression'.

"Under the premise that the closed system is destroyed, any individual that constitutes a civilization - as long as it is an individual within the 'ideological trend', has direct and undeniable contact with the information outside the system, and at the same time the logic within the system cannot deny this contact, then this contact will lead to the collapse of those systems built on the premise of a closed loop, and since all gods are built on the premise of a closed loop, the loss of control of the gods will inevitably occur at this stage, and we should call it ...... 'second type of transgression'."

"Very good summary," Enya's gentle voice came from the Golden Dome, "To date, apart from the lucky ones taken away by the Voyagers of the Ancient Era, in all the known history of this world, there has been more than one civilization that survived the first type of crossing, but survived after the second type of crossing...... Only Tallund. ”

Gawain stared at the golden dome in front of him, and said solemnly for a long time, "Yes, so far. ”

"I'm glad to see that you're not deterred by this cold fact, though I knew from the beginning that someone like you would never stop in the face of such difficulties," Enya's voice seemed to bring a smile to it, a mixture of appreciation and comfort, "so confirming the margin of the 'second type of transgression' will help you in your plans for the future?" ”

"Huge help," Gawain nodded immediately, "At least, now we can confirm that sending an unmanned probe into space will not cause the 'system to collapse' - transgression can only be done by intelligent individuals in the ideology, in other words, only sane individuals are qualified to become 'observers', which makes us feel safe to do something, but ......"

When he said this, he frowned, and his expression became slightly weird: "Maybe I'm digging into the horns, but I'm curious about one thing now—even if there is really an 'observer' as a god's eyes that jump out of the closed system and actually come into contact with information outside the system, is this contact really undeniable?" The 'divinity' of the gods can still think that everything the observer sees is false, that it is a hallucination and a hoax on a massive scale, that there is some force that has tampered with all of the observer's senses and cognitions, and that the 'out of the system' has fundamentally been ......"

"You mean ...... 'quibble'?" Enya was not at all surprised by Gawain's tricky and almost unruly question, as if she had thought it herself, "Turning a blind eye to the facts as if you were burying your head in the dirt, and refusing to admit the information injected from outside the system by deceiving yourself, in order to maintain the self-knowledge and logic of divinity?" ”

Gawain looked serious: "Isn't this okay?" ”

"'Self-deception' is an effective means of escape for mortals, and sometimes it can even make people survive desperate situations, but ...... to the gods," Enya chuckled, as if with a deep self-deprecation, "The gods can't fool themselves. We are a vast logical system in our own right, and everything we have is based on the 'cognition-interpretation-feedback' process, which means that when an informational stimulus appears, even if our ego will deny it, the feedback triggered by the stimulus ...... It's all already happening. ”

Gawain looked at Enya: "An uncontrollable natural reaction? ”

A definite voice came from the Golden Dome: "An uncontrollable natural reaction. ”

"Then I'm curious—are you still subject to this uncontrollable natural reaction?" Gawain suddenly asked very seriously, "Is there still some kind of stimulus that makes you suddenly lose control of your will, and makes your instincts deviate from your nature again?" ”

"If my part of humanity hadn't been truly free, I wouldn't be here talking to you about these self-destructive topics," Enya said in a flat voice, "I know what you're worried about, don't worry—you're dealing with the freedom that the dragon of Tallrond has bought for millions of years of forbearance and the fate of the race, and if even such a desperate blow can't break free from the dark fate, then the world won't have much hope." ”

Gawain pondered for a moment and nodded slightly: "...... You're right. ”

Then he exhaled, returning the conversation to the beginning: "I remember that we were talking about the signals that suddenly went out in the starry sky, and we talked about two 'filtering factors' that caused our supposedly prosperous universe to become empty, so that no civilization could break through the planetary shackles except the one who set sail...... It's the Magic Tide.

"Now let's talk about the Magic Tide.

"What is the essence of the Demon Tide? How exactly did it sweep and reshape the world? What is the difference between the catastrophe that befell the Gondor Empire seven hundred years ago and the 'Great Demon Tide' that can truly destroy the world? ”

"Can you say these questions now?"

There was a moment of silence in the hatchery room, and Enya seemed to be seriously considering what she was going to say next, and the slight hum of the low-powered operation of the ventilation and magic devices became evident in the silence, surrounding it like a summer afternoon breeze - until Enya finally broke the silence.

"I know that you have realized that the Demonic Tide that befell the Gondor Empire in the past and the real Demonic Tide are actually two different things, you call the former the 'Little Demonic Tide' and the latter the Great Demonic Tide, but in reality, the difference between the two is even greater than you think, so much so that the former is not actually a Demonic Tide at all - it is indeed related to the Demonic Tide, but in essence, it is really just a 'pre-trembling' that has not taken shape.

"As for your perception of the Demon Tide, I have one thing that needs to be corrected: you think that the Demon Tide will change the basic nature of all things in the world, which is not true.

"The Real Magic Tide...... What you call the 'Great Tide' is that it doesn't change the physical world at all - in fact, it doesn't even interact with any physical matter, it's just an invisible wind that blows through the entire astral body. ”

Gao Wen's eyes widened for a moment, and the huge consternation even made him lose his usual calmness a little: "What did you say?!" You say that the 'Great Demon Tide' will not affect the material world at all? How is this possible?! ”

"That's exactly what happened."

"What is the impact of the Great Demon Tide? What about the apocalypse that actually exists? ”

"It does not affect the macrocosm, but the 'observer' itself," Enya's voice came calmly from the eggshell, with a coldness that had lasted for 1.87 million years, "It distracts the observer from all information contact with the material world, causing the observer's mind to interact with the real world in confusion...... Mass exile.

"So, it's not the world that is destroyed, it's the 'world through the eyes of the observer,' but if you look at the process from the perspective of the observer, it's really the same thing."