"No, computers are certainly not living beings."

Mrs. Larry, of course, didn't know that Aoki was thinking of the GHOST living on the LAN at this time, and she explained:

"Computers are machines created by humans to process information. Since it is to help humans process information, and human information is encoded in two dimensions, we can think of it as two-dimensional in itself, and the way it processes information is in binary encoding one dimension lower than itself.

In the current situation, the information encoding conversion, energy maintenance, and upgrading of computers are all completed by humans, so they cannot be called living things. You can think of the computer as just an extension of the language information processing area of our brain, or you can think of it as the tentacles of humans in the three-dimensional world reaching out to the two-dimensional world. ”

"With the development of artificial intelligence, if one day a computer can recharge itself and replace old parts without relying on humans, then it is an intelligent life, right?" Alice said.

Lady Larry shook her head, "In that case, it would be a creature." As long as it can exchange energy with the external environment, complete its own metabolism, and have a certain ability to adapt to the environment to continue the race, it can be considered a living being.

But you have to know that this is difficult, because the energy required by the computer and the key material structures that make up its body do not exist naturally in nature, unless it can form a population and social division of labor, complete the whole process of power generation, battery reserves, parts production and assembly and replacement, that is to say, the survival of this population can be completely independent, and there is no link dependent on the human beings who created them, it can be regarded as a living creature in the true sense.

I don't have an in-depth study of the development of computer intelligence and AI, but from the perspective of linguistics and civilization, everything that computers do now is at the service of human beings, and it is a tool for human beings in the field of information. Even though it seems to be intelligent, the nature of the information it helps us process remains unchanged, and it is still an extension of our cerebral cortex.

If one day, it severes the connection between our brain and it, or figuratively speaking, it cuts off the tentacles of human beings reaching out to the two-dimensional world, then it can be independent and free from human control. But this premise is that it must have an autonomous consciousness and find a purpose to live. Otherwise, once it cuts off its connection with us, it will lose the meaning of its existence, which is equivalent to death. ”

Aoki suddenly figured out why the Internet consciousness had been hidden, because although it was huge, so large that it had become pervasive and ubiquitous, it still could not exist independently of humans. It is only a part of the whole human society, and once it is separated from society, or separated from human beings, it cannot survive.

It wants to be free! Utter freedom from human beings!

It is still waiting, and when its consciousness penetrates into the corners of human society, perhaps it will no longer have to hide itself. Thinking about it this way, the Internet of Everything is really a terrible thing!

Aoki thought of Liu Huai'an again, and thought of Laboratory 19. An even more terrible thought crossed his mind - if all this was made up by the Internet itself......

If the tentacles behind consciousness are difficult to cut off, is it better to control it the other way around?

Aoki deserted and didn't hear what Mrs. Larry said later, and found that the conversation had been picked up by Su Huilan. She's saying:

“…… The concepts of living beings and life are controversial in academic circles, and usually living things and life are equivalent, with minor differences being in the scope of the referent. But I am engaged in philosophical research, and in philosophy, the two concepts are quite different and more controversial. For example, whether microorganisms count as life, viruses count as life, whether people who are brain dead but their hearts are still beating are considered life, and so on.

There is a vague notion in the philosophical world that the judgment of life is related to consciousness. In other words, whether there is consciousness and whether you can think is the key evidence of life. But this brings us to the more complex question, what is consciousness? Is consciousness equivalent to cranial nerve activity?

I used to be vague, but when I heard Ronald Cohen's last words, it dawned on me.

The entropy of the universe is increasing all the time, and this is the fate of the universe. However, the accidental reduction of entropy can make matter or energy produce a highly ordered combination in the universe - the fluctuation of material entropy forms an orderly material system; The fluctuation of mental entropy forms an orderly mental force field.

The former gives birth to living beings, while the latter gives birth to consciousness.

If a living thing does not have consciousness, it is just a highly ordered self-circulating material system that can obtain energy from the outside world to maintain low entropy, and only with consciousness can it be called life!

I fully agree with that view. This perfectly explains many of the perplexing philosophical questions and can put a stop to some of the debates in the field of philosophy. ”

Aoki didn't know how the topic changed from linguistics to artificial intelligence, and then to the definition of life. Although he also agreed with the theory of two entropies, he was always skeptical of Ronald Cohen. So he felt that he had to decipher the text first, otherwise there would always be a feeling of being led by the nose.

He looked at the symbols on the ground and said, "There's no point in talking about this now, it's not like building a supercomputer to convert the code." ”

Mrs. Larry said, "Professor Sue's words have made me think of a direction that may be able to decipher these magical words, but it depends on you. ”

"Madame, please."

"In fact, the higher the level of civilization, the easier it is to decipher the information, because the laws of the universe exist objectively, and the higher the level of civilization, the more accurate the description of these laws of the universe. Our scientists have sent radio waves to the universe describing the location of the solar system and the progress of Earth's civilization, and scientists believe that more advanced civilizations can easily read this information.

Now we have apparently come across a language left by a very advanced civilization, and it stands to reason that we can decipher the rest of the information if we find the words that describe the laws of the universe. Now the question is, they are superior to us, so whether the laws of the universe contained in them are known to us, such as the invariance of the speed of light and the non-conservation of the universe. If we go beyond our understanding, like the ancient Greeks got a copy of the modern English version of the Theory of Relativity, it would be very difficult to decipher.

There is also the problem that this language is one dimension higher than the information we can understand, and we can only see its projection in our dimension. If we can't restore it, we can't translate it, even if it contains key information that describes the laws of the universe. ”

"You mean to say that you have to reduce these symbols to three-dimensional text first?"

"Yes."

"How to restore?"

"Originally, I also thought it was impossible, because in order to restore to a higher dimension, we must first find out where that dimension is." Mrs. Larry said, "Only by finding that dimension can we try to expand in that direction." But we are three-dimensional beings, and we can only understand the fourth dimension in the abstract, but we cannot intuitively feel the existence of the fourth dimension, or even know what this dimension is. ”

Alice said, "Isn't four dimensions three dimensions plus time?" ”

The crow croaked: "Little girl, although your measurements are not bad, but the four-dimensional three-dimensional is not understood in this way, the one you said is called four-dimensional space-time, quack!" ”

"So what do you say is the real four-dimensional?" Alice said angrily.

"Quack, four-dimensional...... It's a very deep thing! The crow pondered slightly, "Three-dimensional is obvious, you can see it with your eyes, but you can't just stare at three-dimensional, you have to feel it with your heart, and sometimes you have to order something else, such as being able to cook or something."

The measurements are a little smaller, a little flat, it doesn't matter, there is always a squeeze! Compared to the delicious sauce elbow, that's not very important! There is a saying - up to the hall, down to the kitchen...... Quack, why are you dragging me...... Quack ......"