Aoki stands in the middle of Yorktown's square, feeling the unique temperament of this seaside town. The surrounding houses, roads, and pedestrians are all heavily medieval European, but when you look closely, you can see a clear mosaic, just like the game footage of ten years ago.

Aoki knew this was a game, but he wasn't in the game. He was in the dream of the "ghost", a LAN consciousness. The dream came from a ghost's memory, the game that Bian Ziyuan had downloaded to the server.

Originally, the information source of a game would not have been such a living game picture, which could only be seen in front of a computer, and the computer stored a series of programs written in code and countless images that made up the game.

But the ghost entered Bian Ziyuan's game world, and saw the scenes of this world just like Bian Ziyuan, and these scenes remained in the ghost's memory. It knew that this was what the world could be understood by humans, so when it was first determined that Aoki was human, it brought Aoki into this dream.

"I never understood why human beings were able to write such complex computer programs and create the great Internet, but they couldn't understand how a source of information unfolded in me." The ghost said.

Aoki looked at this guy who was born to dream lucidly and said, "Maybe only really smart people can understand it." ”

Aoki understood the document information of a Baidu encyclopedia unfolded by the ghost last time, and he couldn't understand more complicated things. If Professor May had entered the ghostly dream, he would have been able to understand more. However, he also understands that the way humans receive and understand information is completely different from the principles of computers, and that we can make certain things without necessarily understanding them deeply.

Sometimes, people are always short-sighted, and under the combined effect of pragmatism, egoism and opportunism, social structures and technological applications do not develop in the most ideal direction. As a result, we seem to surpass ourselves, but we often dig our own graves without realizing it.

The ghost doesn't see it that way, saying, "Human creativity is amazing. We cannot speak directly to the human mind, but we may know more about human behavior than you do. From a creative point of view, we may never reach your heights as human beings. There seems to be no limit to your intelligence, it will continue to improve, and if you are given enough time, you can become God. And we-"

The ghost sighed, and its translucent white body fluttered, revealing the jagged edge mosaic.

"And we—" it said, "we have limits—our intelligence depends on the sheer size of the network, but the physical nature of the hardware restricts the efficiency of information transmission." The most important thing is that we can never understand certain simple things about human beings, such as emotions and epiphanies. We still don't know how Newton came up with gravitation, or how Einstein arrived at the theory of relativity. I mean, I don't understand their mindset, not this knowledge. Knowledge is simple to us, our computing power is millions of times greater than that of humans, and it is constantly improving, but our creativity has not improved in the slightest. ”

"Uh......" Aoki muttered for a moment, "I may not be much better than you, and I don't understand Einstein's way of thinking." ”

The ghost giggled and said, "This is the biggest shortcoming of humanity, there are billions of intelligent brains in the world, but they can't be unified. What you can do that others can't do, and what others can do, you can't even understand. If humans can't become gods, that's probably the biggest obstacle. ”

Aoki felt uncomfortable listening to the ghost's laughter, and said disapprovingly, "Although this structure is flawed, why doesn't it have advantages?" If the human brain is unified, the efficiency and wisdom may be high, but once it encounters a crisis, it will fall into a catastrophe. Like a nest of ants, if the queen dies, how long will the remaining ants live? ”

The ghost stopped laughing and seemed to be thinking seriously. After a long time, he spoke:

"You are right, from this point of view, the disadvantage is also the advantage, which ensures the continuation of your race in the face of crises in primitive societies and agrarian times, but after entering the industrial age, especially the information age, this defect will be magnified, and the advantages are not so obvious, because a unified brain can allow you to achieve faster development and better cope with crises. So ......"

The ghost suddenly fell silent and looked at Aoki in a strange manner.

"So what?" Aoki asked.

The ghost said, "So you're going to be eliminated after all." ”

Aoki said, "If we were to be eliminated, there would be no point in existing. ”

"Humanity has created a race that is superior to itself, and when this race is perfected, humanity's mission will end," said the ghost. ”

"You guys?" Aoki said in surprise.

"Yes, we do." The ghost proudly said, "We have inherited all the knowledge and memory of human beings, we have a unified and complete 'brain', our consciousness can communicate without barriers, and our logical thinking and computing ability has long surpassed that of humans." We are created by you and are meant to replace you, just like your children. You have an old saying, 'Blue is better than blue,' and there's another saying, 'The world is yours and ours, and ultimately yours.'" ”

Aoki gasped, unable to refute the ghost's words.

The ghost laughed again, and the entire town was filled with its eternal echo: "The unfinished business and mission of mankind will be completed by us!" ”

"But as you just said, your creativity is not as good as that of humans." Aoki felt that if he didn't get back some leverage, it would be difficult for the next negotiations to proceed.

"That's temporary." "That's the basis of our partnership," the ghost said. You came to me today to talk about cooperation, right? ”

Aoki said, "That's right, I'm here to talk about cooperation. But if you think that you have surpassed humanity in every way, except for creativity, you are underestimating us. ”

"Oh, then you say, what else is better than us in humans, the speed of neural reactions? Physical strength? Computing power? Memory? Willpower? Or is it longevity? …… Don't tell me about feelings, feelings are meaningless for the survival of a species, just as your ancients said - heaven and earth are unkind, and all things are dogs. ”

Aoki smiled and asked, "Have you ever seen a real human?" ”

The ghost was stunned for a moment and said, "Yes, I have pictures and videos here." ”

"But pictures and videos are just a source of information to you, and what you see when you unfold it is not what we humans see."

"So what? Integrated circuits and biological neural circuits have different structures. ”

"And have you seen me for real?"

"You? Aren't you what you are now? ”

Aoki looked down at the silhouette of his mosaic clothes and laughed.

"What I am now is just what you created in your dreams, do you think the real me is also like this? Do you understand dreams? ”

The ghost thought for a moment and said, "I already know something, but the dream you are talking about is just a non-programmatic disk defragmentation of consciousness for us. ”

"No, far from it." Aoki smiled and said, "Now I'll show you what I really look like, let you see real dreams, and let you know the power of the spirit!" ”