When Aoki first saw the symbols on the ground, he felt an inexplicable sense of familiarity. Something crawled out in the depths of his mind, like a worm, squirming, and when he couldn't climb out, it would eat at his brain.

This was not the first time this had happened, and every time he thought about something a little deeper, especially about his own past, his head hurt as much as it did now.

He once wondered if he was infected with the gray brain virus, and if it weren't for the fact that his subconscious mind was still able to use it freely, he even suspected that a shadow had taken over his brain.

In the past, when he encountered such a situation, he would inevitably stop thinking, lazily stretch his waist, and then light a cigarette. Now that his cigarettes are blistered, and without smoking, his brain can't secrete more dopamine to suppress the pain in his nerves.

His mind was now like a boiling hot pot, and the symbols on the ground had become delicious ingredients, all of which were crumpled and thrown into the pot, stirring with his brains, tossing up and down with red chili oil and sporadic pepper particles.

He grinned and frowned at the things, and said, "I seem to be able to understand a little bit ......."

Everyone looked at him, waiting for him to speak—if you understand a little bit, then speak up, and tell everyone to solve their doubts.

But Aoki couldn't tell. It's not that he's lying, it's that he doesn't know how to say it. You really can't explain to a foreigner who hasn't eaten Chinese food what hot pot is, and what exactly is rummaged in it!

The crow moved lightly on his head: "Quack, I told you not to brag casually!" There are linguists here, and it's not right for you to blow the bull of linguistics in front of a linguist! It's like no one can brag in front of Ruhua that they can make sauce elbows......"

Aoki reached over his head and grabbed the crow's foot and neck. The crow was startled, flapped its wings and shouted, "Hehe, don't do this, I'm just kidding, quack, don't throw me!" ”

Instead of throwing it, Aoki grabbed its feet and scratched it on its head, as if the scalp was itchy and it would be more comfortable to scratch.

"Wow, cool!" The crow immediately took the initiative to scratch his scalp, "You can't be a lice, are you?" ”

Su Huilan said, "Aoki, what do you understand? Say it. ”

"I don't know what to say because I see fragments of information that I can't put together into something meaningful, but I do understand a little bit," Aoki said. ”

Mrs. Larry encouraged, "Then describe the fragments of information you see, even if it's just a little bit. This is how the language was deciphered, and when Champollion deciphered the Egyptian script, he only started with the name of a pharaoh. All you need to do is give me a hint and maybe we can work together to translate the text in its entirety. ”

Aoki shook his head and said, "No, ma'am, it's hard for me to describe because what I see can't be translated into words. I saw a lot of patterns, and I didn't know what that meant. ”

"Pattern? What I see is also a pattern, and what Madame painted on the ground is the pattern, doesn't anyone see it? Petru said.

Mrs. Larry's eyes lit up, and she said, "Mr. Aoki, please tell me, what kind of pattern do you see?" Oh, you don't have to describe the specifics of it, you just tell me what it's like, like shapes, colors, and so on. ”

Aoki thought for a moment and said, "It's three-dimensional, like a holographic projection, but it's all broken, and as for the color, it's messy, I can't tell." ”

Mrs. Larry looked a little excited, and even her breath tightened. She frowned, her hands clenched into fists, her fingers rubbing together. After a while, she said, "I see, this is a more advanced text, more advanced than I thought!" ”

"How advanced is it?" Alice asked.

"Linguistics is actually a branch of informatics, and the written word is a way of recording and transmitting information," said Mrs. Larry. In philology, the most common method is to divide them into pictographic, ideographic and phonetic according to their origin and function, but there are also some rare methods that are divided according to the shape of the text, for example, we call the characters on the clay tablet fragments found on the island of Crete linear scripts, and the Chinese characters as square characters. Have you ever heard a saying that Chinese characters are equivalent to QR codes, and English is equivalent to barcodes? ”

Alice said: "Yes, but this is just a popular opinion on the Chinese Internet, and it has no academic significance, right? ”

"It's true that this doesn't mean much academically, it's just the self-amusement of netizens, but it reflects the fact that there is no doubt about the fact that Chinese characters carry a lot more information than English," said Mrs. Larry. ”

Su Huilan said suddenly: "Madame, do you mean to say that English is actually a linear text, that is, one-dimensional, while Chinese characters are two-dimensional, and the two-dimensional information module naturally carries more information than the one-dimensional information module." ”

"That's it." Mrs. Larry smiled and nodded, "After the unification of linguistics and informatics, we have proposed the dimensionality theory of language, but this is very complicated to say, and it also involves the application of thermodynamic laws in informatics, but there is a very interesting conclusion - the exchange of information between organisms usually uses the information encoding method one dimension lower than the spatial dimension in which it is located. ”

This sentence is a bit tongue-twisting, and everyone who listens to it unconsciously repeats it in their mouths: the way in which information is encoded one dimension lower than the spatial dimension in which it is located......

Mrs. Larry looked at everyone as if puzzled, and explained: "To put it in layman's terms, people are three-dimensional creatures, and our language is usually encoded in two dimensions, because this encoding method can carry the maximum amount of information within the scope of our understanding. If you use three-dimensional coding, the amount of information is larger, but the human brain can't respond, and it is more difficult to learn, and if you use a lower dimension, such as one-dimensional, then the amount and efficiency of information transmission will be very low. This is the case with the knotted rope in ancient times. ”

"But madam, you are still saying just now that English is linear and Chinese characters are two-dimensional, are we Europeans and Americans low-dimensional creatures compared to Chinese?" Alice said unconvinced.

Mrs. Larry said, "Of course not. I said that the linearity of English is only relative, in fact, both English and Chinese characters are evolved on the basis of standard two-dimensional coding, English gives up pictograms and only retains the phonetic function, which is to reduce the complexity of information encoding, but improve the ease of transmission of information, you can think of it as 1.5 dimensions, and Chinese characters combine pictograms, ideograms and morphophonics, improve the efficiency of information encoding, you can think of it as 2.5 dimensions. The way these information is encoded is within our normal understanding, and which one to use depends on which one we need, and different times and social models require different speed and efficiency of information dissemination. ”

Su Huilan said: "I see, madam, these words on the ground are encoded in a more advanced way. ”

Mrs. Larry nodded and said, "Yes, I should have thought of it when I was at the altar." These words are projected to the ground through the moonlight in the gaps of the pumice stones, and their real message may be in the spatial arrangement of those stones in the air, but unfortunately they are no longer visible. Thankfully, Mr. Aoki reminded me, and I thought it was a three-dimensional encoded text message. ”

"Madam, you just said that biological information is encoded one dimension lower than the spatial dimension it is in, and Mr. Aoki can actually see the three-dimensional encoded information of these words, then ......?"

Alice looked at Aoki with a strange look, and she didn't say the second half of the sentence - then isn't he a four-dimensional monster?