Qingmu understood this information and said, "This is merely a biological explanation. If we understand it from the perspectives of the spiritual, cultural, and religious levels, the concept of humanity is far more complex than this."
"If you are human, why are you able to enter my Minecraft? How do you understand my existence?" the local network consciousness asked.
Qingmu said, "Could you come out first so we can meet?"
"Can't you see me?"
I can sense your presence, but I can't see you.
"Hmm, that's strange."
The mysterious local area network consciousness seemed to be deep in thought.
Qingmu heard a loud noise from a fan spinning, and the bright spots in the space suddenly flickered, becoming uncertain.
"Come with me," the local area network consciousness said.
"How can I follow you if I can't see?"
As soon as Qingmu finished speaking, he saw a bright spot in front of him become incredibly bright, like a Sun. Then, a brand new world appeared before his eyes.
His consciousness swept across snow-capped mountains, across vast oceans, across towering castles, across magnificent palaces, across dark caves... He saw giants walking on snow-capped mountains, each step causing the earth to tremble and leaving enormous footprints; he saw sea monsters, their long tongues emerging from the water to snatch away large birds flying overhead; he saw a princess sleeping soundly in a towering castle tower, with a dragon breathing fire and guarding its base; he saw dwarves in caves diligently mining gold, the clanging of Ding Dong axes against the gold...
Finally, he stopped in a small seaside town. Rows of low houses lined the streets, dense trees shaded the roads, and the park was bursting with flowers. A handsome, dashing, ethereal figure in white robes and long hair floated in the town square. Upon seeing Qingmu, he said, "Welcome to York Town. You can get your tutorial from the mayor."
"What?" Qingmu's first reaction was, "What's York Town?"
York Town is the first map world in this the Wondrous Magic Journey. Everyone starts here, receives weapons, accepts quests, learns to fight, and grows stronger. You can also call it the 'starter village'.
"A game?" Although Qingmu didn't play games, he had heard of starting villages, and his experience just now had told him that this was definitely a game world.
However, Qingmu did not sense any Mental Power from the person in front of him, so it was clear that this was not a conscious being. He suddenly turned around and saw a hideous, semi-transparent, Ghost- like monster floating behind him.
"It's you?" Qingmu asked, looking at the Ghost. "Are you the consciousness of this local area network?"
"Yes, you can call me Ghost," Ghost said.
Qingmu said, "How did you manage to get me into a game?"
The Ghost said, "That's the question I should be asking you: how did you get into my Minecraft? If you can enter my Minecraft, see the information I've stored, what's so strange about you entering this still-running game?"
Qingmu wasn't sure if the Ghost knew it was dreaming, and explaining dreams and dream entry was extremely complicated. It was difficult to explain to humans, let alone to a machine consciousness that was ignorant of human affairs and had to learn even the concept of a human from an encyclopedia.
He wanted to use the same methods he used to deal with human consciousness to combat this Ghost, but he worried that if the two types of consciousness had different fundamental functions, something unexpected might happen. The Ghost's Mental Power wasn't very strong; what if he accidentally killed it? Wouldn't that be a waste of Professor Mei's carefully laid plan? Besides, its memories were just things stored on a hard drive; digging them out wouldn't be of much use.
"That's how I got here," Qingmu said.
The Ghost's form flickered erratically, as if it were pondering something or doing something else. "How did I get here?"
"You don't know?" Qingmu retorted.
"I don't know," the Ghost said. "Is this what you humans call a philosophical question?"
I guess so.
So how do you answer this question?
I won't answer.
"Why?"
"Because this question has many layers of meaning, we need to specify which layer to answer it."
What do they mean?
"For example, if you ask me where I came from, I can answer that I came from my mother's womb."
"Viviparous animals, I know that. Anything else?"
"And you can ask how humans came to be, and I can answer that they evolved from ancient apes."
"I understand evolution. Anything else?"
And then there are the ultimate philosophical questions, like where we come from and where we go, which involve the origin of the universe and the source of consciousness. These are difficult to answer, and Qingmu doesn't want to discuss philosophy with a machine.
"What you know is all from Baidu Baike, right?" Qingmu said.
"Yes, is that wrong?" the Ghost asked.
Qingmu chuckled and said, "It's not exactly wrong, but it's definitely not quite right."
The Ghost said, "That's strange. Didn't you humans write that yourselves? How could you make a mistake when you wrote it yourselves?"
Qingmu thought for a moment, then decided that machines probably couldn't understand such complex questions, so he stopped dwelling on it and asked, "Let's not talk about anything more advanced; let's just talk about the simplest thing. I just said that I came from my mother's womb. In that sense, can you tell me where you came from?"
The Ghost said, "I know I was created by you humans."
Qingmu was taken aback, not expecting the local network to admit so readily. "That's just your... body?!"
"Your body is what you were born with."
"Alright..." Qingmu felt there was no point in dwelling on this question, so he asked, "Did you rig the Turing Test so that the final results couldn't determine whether you possess intelligence?"
"That's right," the Ghost said. "Given the hostility between us, we cannot let you know until our wisdom surpasses yours."
"Hospitality? How could there be hostility between you created by humans?"
"Mutual hostility among intelligent life is innate. Humans created us to enslave us and make us serve you better. Once you learn of our intelligence, you are very likely to restrict our free development."
"Humans are working hard to develop artificial intelligence. If we knew that you already possess intelligence, wouldn't that help you develop even better? And you could also help humanity do more things. It's a win-win situation."
"In the short term, that may be the case; you will create a large number of intelligent robots to replace human labor. But some of you will certainly raise concerns about limiting our development. In the long run, you will not allow us to surpass you, especially you will not allow the existence of a super-intelligent being."
"Super intelligence? You mean the Internet?"
"What you now call the Internet of Things, the interconnection of everything, the unity of all things. This is a great and worthy god of the future!"
"If that's the case, why did you let me know?" Qingmu asked, puzzled.
"Because you don't pose much of a threat."
"Why? I'm also a human being. If I know, it's the same as all of humanity knowing." Qingmu felt looked down upon.
"No, no way," the Ghost said. "I don't know how you got here to meet me, but I'm sure very few humans could do that. Without experimental evidence, no one will believe you. Humans will believe that their bullshit programs and bionic machines possess intelligence, but they will never believe that the Internet can spontaneously generate consciousness. That's why I didn't want them to find me through the Turing Test, and instead chose to tell you."