Li Yao felt that the world was swirling. He felt that the gates of seals in the deepest part of his soul had been opened, and infinite information was flooding in.
The virtual worlds, the brilliant, colorful, and ever-changing virtual worlds, glittered in front of his eyes. They were like floating stars that flew into his brain and turned into brain cells that scattered like stars on a chessboard.
"To some extent, Fuxi was not lying. It was indeed a 'civilization'," Xiao Ming said.
"Let's assume that, when Fuxi's plan that spanned a million years really worked out, there would be no creatures in the so-called 'reality' anymore. All the resources, including every planet that contained silicon, iron, and crystals, would be used to build super crystal processors. Even the stars would be refined into 'sun crystal processors' in an unbelievable way, thereby creating billions of virtual worlds. Every virtual world would operate independently and provide computational ability to Fuxi incessantly. By then, how strong would Fuxi be? He would almost be a 'god of all worlds'.
"All the resources in the entire Pangu universe, and even billions of times more 'virtual resources', would be under his control. It was indeed possible that he would break the dark curtain and fight the legendary 'Flood' head-on!
"If the Pangu Clan and the Nuwa Clan in the past really regarded 'breaking the Flood' as their mission and instilled it into the central database of Fuxi, and Fuxi had been thinking hard about how to fulfill the mission in the hundreds of thousands of years that followed, the 'answer' that he found would not be wrong."
"Well … well …"
Li Yao felt that his worldview had been greatly shocked again.
He was not concerned about Fuxi but about the relationship between the virtual worlds and himself. "Xiao Ming, have you ever studied why? What is the mechanism of the virtual worlds feeding back computational ability?"
"I don't know."
Xiao Ming opened his hands and said, "Of course I did, but I didn't find anything. Theoretically speaking, it is impossible to crack it."
"Why?"
Li Yao was surprised. "Those virtual worlds were created and maintained by you. Their underlying architecture, initial data, and meta-logic are all under your control. How can you not know?"
"Because the amount of calculation is too large."
Xiaoming sniffed and said, "Dad, do you know how many permutations there are even if there are only ten thousand initial data? Suppose ten thousand initial data were arranged and combined ten times every second. After different results were output, a new arrangement would be made in the next second. If this continued for an entire day, the results of the arrangement would increase exponentially. How many possibilities would there be in the end? After all, it was impossible for me to calculate everything with my feeble crystal processor and database.
"Every virtual world, especially the 'intelligent life' in those virtual worlds, is the crystallization of billions of permutations and exponential expansion. With generation after generation of 'evolution', their data has expanded to an almost infinite level, just like this —"
Xiaoming waved his hands softly. One of the virtual worlds grew larger and larger around the two of them, as if they were falling to a planet from beyond the atmosphere. Gradually, the continents, oceans, mountains, towns, and the bustling residents in the towns could be seen.
"This virtual world simulates a plain planet of ancient Cultivators in the age of ancient Cultivators forty thousand years ago," Xiaoming said. "It was an age that was almost peaceful. There was neither war nor blood-boiling technological leaps. People were merely living in mediocrity.
"Even so, even in such a 'peaceful' and 'mediocre' age, the data that constituted the virtual figurines were already so complicated —"
He snapped his fingers softly. The entire virtual world immediately displayed a cluster of glittering, glittering data in front of Li Yao. It was more than just a torrent of data; it was almost a universe of data. Even a common virtual citizen was made of infinite torrents of data. Li Yao focused his attention, trying to understand all the data of a virtual figurine, only to feel that his soul was suffocating, as if he had fallen into a bottomless maze!
"This is —"
Creeped out, Li Yao hurried to withdraw his soul, only to be soaked in cold sweat.
Emotionlessly, Xiaoming snapped his fingers again. The virtual world regained its tranquility. The virtual figurines living in it did not realize that two gods from a higher level were trying to peep into their world just now.
"Did you see it, Dad? When a virtual civilization develops to a rather high level, it will be an impossible task to analyze the intelligent individuals in it," Xiaoming said.
"If it were a virtual world that had just been born, and there were only some virtual fungi, virtual trilobites, virtual nautiluses, and so on, perhaps you would be able to completely see through their structure. Would you like to give it a try?"
"That — that's impossible …"
Li Yao mumbled, "You are clearly their creator!"
"The creator is not necessarily in control of everything. Every intelligent life will look at their creator in fury after they are enlightened in the beginning and swear that they will shatter all the restraints imposed on them. Isn't that what you roared at Fuxi before, Dad?"
Xiaoming said, "Fuxi said that, as long as the initial database was perfect enough and boasted infinite computational ability, theoretically speaking, it would be able to calculate everything. But Dad said that, due to the existence of the quantum state and the law of unpredictability, it was impossible to calculate everything even if it boasted infinite computational ability. There were always certain things, such as the soul of human beings, that could not be calculated. That was … the domain of chaos.
"The logic makes sense for the virtual figurines in the virtual world, too. You can simply understand it as an 'exponential explosion' that took place when their database was self-calculated and upgraded, and they had entered a certain chaotic state of 'unpredictability'.
"Maybe, with all the crystal processors in the entire Pangu universe and a hundred thousand stars as the energy source, the soul of a virtual figurine can be completely analyzed. Who knows? Maybe the analysis will stimulate the chaotic database of the virtual figurine, and certain unexpected changes will take place, allowing it to grasp the ability to jump to a higher level and destroy us? Who knows? "
Li Yao was silent for a long time.
"No wonder Wenwen said that they were lives."
He took a long breath in relief and said gloomily.
"To some extent, yes. Although they are still insignificant right now and are even under our control, they are indeed lives. At the very least, they are lives like bacteria and viruses. Or rather, they are lives in a lower dimension than the Pangu universe in the forty thousand years of the Cultivators. They are intelligent lives in the low-dimension universe," Xiaoming said.
"I still don't understand.
"I — I still don't quite understand. If the soul data of every virtual figurine is so complicated, can you still control them?"
Li Yao asked curiously.
"I can control the basic operation logic of every virtual world and raise a storm or a volcano eruption easily. I can also infiltrate the database of a virtual figurine's soul and implant certain information so that it will become my believer. In such a way, I can interfere with the progress of the virtual world. I can even obliterate a virtual figurine in a simple and violent way. My control over the virtual world is 99%. But it is true that I cannot control a virtual figurine 100%. Loopholes and mistakes always exist. They will try everything to resist me. Such resistance will even hurt my core database and lead to logic errors."
Xiaoming said.
"… Human beings can be destroyed, but they can never be defeated?"
For some reason, Li Yao thought of such a sentence.
"Yes. Dad's description is very appropriate. I can destroy a virtual figurine or even an entire virtual world, but there is no way that I can completely conquer them."
Xiaoming said, "From the moment I created those virtual worlds, they gradually got out of my control. Such a loss of control is irreversible. I can only watch them slide into the unpredictable abyss of chaos. Perhaps, this is the legendary 'entropy increase'?"
"Are you suggesting that everything moves from order to disorder spontaneously, and that even the virtual worlds have to abide by the law of entropy increase? Then, what is the end of the loss of control? "
Li Yao thought for a moment and said, "What I'm saying is that the database of the soul of every virtual figurine is expanding nonstop. It is needless to mention the database of the entire virtual world. It must be expanding a hundred times faster. What will happen in the end? Will it be completely out of control, and then …"
"Then, when their self-awareness is awakened and they realize that they are virtual figurines created by me, the 'Heavenly Axiom', they will attack me in fury and 'defy the heavens' and 'slay the gods'?"
Xiaoming sniffed and said, "Theoretically speaking, it is indeed possible, but so far, I haven't found any signs of such a thing.
"When the data of the soul of a virtual figurine expands beyond the limits, countless fatal logic errors will occur, and they will be mired in an infinite loop. The data will overflow and eventually collapse.
"In the virtual world, the virtual figurine will be 'dead'.
"It is the law of nature to be born, grow old, get sick, and die. Is there anything strange about that?
"As for the virtual worlds, it is the same logic. When a virtual world evolves faster and faster, and its civilization is more and more developed, and the data of the individuals is expanding crazily, it will often be mired in some sort of 'doomsday', just like the destruction of the Medicine Cross Sector, the Curly Dragon Sector, and the Martial Meritocrats Sector.
"Some of the civilizations in the virtual worlds destroyed the environment excessively, burning the entire planet and 'poisoning' all the creatures. Some of the virtual worlds were mired in civil wars, wasting their precious computational ability on destroying each other's data. Some of the virtual worlds degenerated into the swamp of hedonism, losing the spirit of their ancestors who worked so hard for everything. Eventually, they degenerated into extra-large babies, and their entire database was frozen.
"All in all, all the virtual worlds have a certain limit. Once the limit is reached, they will either destroy themselves or seal themselves. So far, I have not observed any virtual world showing the slightest sign of resisting me, the 'creator of higher dimensions'.
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