Dickinson and Mei Yiqiu chatted for a while about their fun times at Princeton when they were young, then went into their room and disappeared from conversation.
Huang Liang had no choice but to sit in the living room with Hou Biao and wait.
The house's decor and furniture were mostly outdated items from the last century, but the computer was new and looked completely different from ordinary computers, giving it a sci-fi feel, like something out of a movie.
Huang Liang didn't see anything wrong with this. After all, it was normal for someone who could get Mei Yiqiu to his door to have some advanced technology, especially since it was just a computer.
He glanced at Hou Biao sitting next to him, knowing that this bald man was Mei Yihe 'Tushu bodyguard. He was usually quiet, so he didn't intend to strike up a conversation.
Bored, he stood up, stretched his limbs, and noticed a few magazines on the computer desk. He walked over, picked them up, and casually flipped through them.
There are three journals in total: Science, Nature, and Cell, all of which are authoritative journals in the scientific community. There is also a thick Science Citation Index next to them.
Most of the articles in these magazines were difficult to understand, like gibberish to Huang Liang, so he just glanced at the titles and moved on.
However, one article that caught his attention was "The Possibility of Spontaneous Consciousness in Mechanical Internet of Things Neural Networks," because it was authored by Charlie Dickinson.
The article covers a wide range of knowledge, almost encompassing all fields of physics and life sciences. Fortunately, it only proposes a hypothesis without using any formulas to prove it. The gist is that when information flows in the Internet of Things, as the number of network nodes and information increases, the chaos of information increases. Much information will be randomly Annihilation, and new unknown information will be generated. This will cause information to get out of control, thereby generating proactive consciousness outside of the program.
Huang Liang knew nothing about the physics and information science theories in the article, but that didn't stop him from understanding what it was about. It can be said that Dickinson's writing skills were very strong, explaining things in a simple and easy-to-understand way, and she explained them very well.
Huang Liang was very interested in the origin of consciousness. If the fluctuations of information themselves can give rise to consciousness, then are there many independent, primitive forms of consciousness in the world that humanity has not yet discovered or recognized? For example, a television set or a computer, with their use, have actually already generated very primitive consciousness, but because they are too rudimentary, we cannot see them?
For some reason, he suddenly thought of his phone and quickly took it out of his pocket to take a look. The folder named GHOST was lying quietly on the screen, as if it were just an ordinary app abandoned by its user.
He recalled the time before his escape and realized that this device might be connected to a computer somewhere in Wuzhong, and perhaps there were many other computers there, forming a local area network that connected to a wide area network, or even into the closed internal network of the prison.
In the past, he thought it was just an advanced virus program, similar to the encrypted communication technology used by legendary agents, but now he realizes it's far more complex than that.
Huang Liang flipped through the other articles, but apart from a few published in Cell about medical breakthroughs, most of the others were irrelevant to him and he couldn't understand them.
He finally opened the Science Citation Index, the world's most authoritative scientific citation database, abbreviated as SCI.
Huang Liang knew this when he was in school. Although his era was not yet in line with the world, international influence was already highly valued in academia. Generally, science PhD graduates are required to publish at least one SCI paper, and now some schools require more than two. Whether or not a paper is included in SCI is the most important, and sometimes the only, evaluation criterion for institutional ranking and project review in all scientific research fields.
But nowadays everything is cloud databases. Only these older scientists would still buy paper indexes and documents to keep at home. Besides collecting them, what other use do they have?
Huang Liang shook his head, closed the book, and turned on his phone. He had originally planned to use a search engine to find Dickinson's papers, but when he saw GHOST on his phone's home screen, he opened it and typed in a line of text:
Can you help me find Charlie Dickinson's papers published in SCI journals?
He wasn't sure if he'd get a response; he was just trying it on a whim. In the past, he'd always used GHOST as a special way to contact Qingmu, but Qingmu hadn't contacted him in a long time.
After finishing typing on his phone, he sat back down on the sofa, picked up his tea, took a sip, and found that the tea had gone cold.
He saw Hou Biao still sitting there motionless, like a statue. He thought of the professor's beautiful assistant; if she were here, the atmosphere would be much more harmonious. But for some reason, Mei Ziqing, who was always inseparable from the professor, was not here.
Just as Huang Liang was getting bored, his phone vibrated.
A new message appeared in GHOST. He opened it and saw a long list of paper titles, publication dates, and journal names.
Fluctuations in Information Entropy and the Emergence of Consciousness
The Relationship Between Infant Intelligence and Information Input
The Non-Equivalent Relationship Between Intelligence and Logical Thinking
Common Misconceptions about Artificial Intelligence and Computer Algorithms
Dickinson's research fields were very broad, but her direction was still very clear, mainly focusing on the intersection of informatics and life sciences. As can be seen from the titles of some of her articles, she had unique insights into the origin of consciousness.
Huang Liang originally planned to ask GHOST to send over a few more specific papers for review, but then he thought that reading images of papers, especially difficult articles that he didn't understand, on such a small screen would not be a pleasant experience.
The phone has a small screen and an outdated design. He was supposed to replace it a long time ago, and the organization had even bought him the latest phone, but because of Qingmu and GHOST, he's still sticking with this one.
He abandoned the idea of having GHOST send the paper, but since he had finally received a response from GHOST, he wanted to say something more, as if he had met an old friend.
He asked from inside: Where did Qingmu go? And the book
About two seconds later, GHOST responded: South Pacific
Huang Liang asked: Is it possible to get in touch with him?
GHOST replied: No, we haven't been in contact for a year.
Huang Liang was taken aback. He had a premonition that something might have happened to Qingmu, and he had tried to find out through some special channels. Of course, he couldn't ask Qingmu directly, so he could only inquire indirectly and heard some rumors. But the information he got from GHOST was undoubtedly more accurate.
If Qingmu disappears, it means Huang Liang will be fighting alone, becoming even more isolated.
Another thing he was very worried about was that last time, he tricked Qingmu into the sealed Dream Corridor, but when Qingmu came out, his entire life experience had disappeared like a dream, and he was pulled back to the moment before he put Qingmu into the Dream Corridor.
That life, both real and imagined, remained indelible in his memory, almost driving him to a mental breakdown. He spent a lot of time trying to separate reality from that life in his memory.
Now, Qingmu has disappeared again. What if he returns one day and pulls the world back to some point in the past? The key is that this time Qingmu's disappearance has nothing to do with Huang Liang, and his return will also have nothing to do with Huang Liang. So even if Huang Liang goes back to the past, he won't be able to bring back the memories of this life. For him, when Qingmu returns, the world will collapse and be destroyed, just like that time when he returned and everyone else in the world was completely unaware.
Huang Liang prayed silently that such a thing would never happen again.
He then asked Ghost: "So who are you?"
GHOST says: I am GHOST
Huang Liang asked: Are you a spontaneous consciousness on the Internet?
He waited a long time, but GHOST didn't reply.