Chen Chen knew that the so-called Great Filter of Civilization was an explanation for the Fermi Paradox.
In 1950, when the North American physicist Fermi was discussing the issue of flying saucers and aliens with someone, he once asked, "Those aliens, where are they?"
This question, if put in the mind of an ordinary person, would just be a question of curiosity about the unknown and imagination of the vast universe. However, in the mind of this Nobel Prize winner, a horrifying reality emerged —
Looking at the data of the entire universe, the range of the universe observable by humans was 12.7 billion light-years. The age of the universe was 136.2 (with a margin of error of 1.2) billion years. The entire universe had more than 100 billion extragalactic systems and the Milky Way was only one of them. It was like a grain of sand on a beach, perhaps even worse.
On such a macro scale and in the long river of time, why had humans not discovered the existence of other extragalactic life forms?
This question might be a bit general, so after some research, scientists decided to make the question more refined — first, they took into account the fact that the speed of light could not be broken through and the nearest galaxy to the Milky Way was only three million light-years away, so the existence of extragalactic life forms was not considered.
Secondly, some people always believed that the life forms in the universe were not limited to carbon-based life forms. Therefore, other types of life forms might exist, it was just that humans were not aware of them. In particular, many people would use the most well-known example of "silicon-based life" as an example.
However, according to the fact that life was at least a complex individual that selectively exchanged materials with the surrounding environment, and that there was no environment outside of basic physics in the entire universe, this meant that the basic laws of the entire universe were unified. It was composed of the four fundamental forces, atoms, protons, electrons, and so on. The periodic table of elements was also arranged in the same order, so the only element that could give birth to life was the most stable element, carbon.
Carbon had an outermost four-electron structure, which was equivalent to having four hands. Each hand could hold onto another atom, and it could even hold hands with other carbon atoms to form four stable covalent bonds. This was already the limit of chemical bonds that could be formed between elements.
Besides carbon, silicon was the element in the entire universe most likely to give birth to life. However, silicon atoms had one more layer of electrons outside the nucleus than carbon atoms. Its electromagnetic force was weaker, so in terms of competitiveness for the birth of life, it was not at all comparable to carbon-based life forms.
Carbon was like a social butterfly. It could attract all kinds of atoms to combine with it, and the types of compounds formed with other elements were almost infinite.
Therefore, it could be said that if there were other life forms in the universe other than humans, then 90% of them were carbon-based, 9% were silicon-based, and the remaining 1% were other forms of life.
Therefore, when we compress the problem of life in the universe to the scale of the Milky Way and carbon-based, we get the following data — the Milky Way is about 12.5 billion years old, has a thickness of 2,000 light-years, and a diameter of 160,000 light-years. There are about 100 billion sun-like stars and countless planets.
If the emergence of humans was a miracle in the universe, then no matter how small this miracle was, it would still be extraordinarily large when placed on the scale of the Milky Way.
Based on the current knowledge of physics, chemistry, biology, cosmology, and sociology, scientists believed that with the speed of the development of human technology, if there was an alien civilization that developed only 10,000 years earlier than Earth, then by now, its traces should have already spread all over the Milky Way. The current Milky Way should have been full of interstellar civilizations colonizing everywhere.
However, the fact was that today, except for some rumors on Earth, humans could not find any strong evidence of the existence of aliens. Even radio telescopes could not find the slightest trace of alien spacecraft or alien engineering...
Therefore, this returned to Fermi's previous question. Those aliens, where were they?
This question became the classic "Fermi's Paradox", which was still enthusiastically discussed by the scientific community.
However, at this moment, watching the end of the video, Chen Chen showed a sullen expression as if he had been fooled.
Little X looked back at Chen Chen and then at the closed video. She could not help asking, "Sir Godfather, is there anything wrong with what he said?"
"No, I completely agree with his point of view."
Chen Chen nodded, then a strange expression appeared on his face. "But what he said is something I already know. Strictly speaking, the entire video only reminded me that humanity will encounter one crisis after another. Other than that, in my opinion, it's all bullsh * t!"
Little X suddenly scratched her head, wearing a puzzled expression.
"If I only listen to what he said, it's indeed very scary, the civilization filter, the USB flash drive butterfly effect, but in fact, I know all of these things he said, but what I really want to know, he didn't mention a word."
Chen Chen spread his hands. "What's the Great Filter theory? In fact, it's just one of the explanations of Fermi's Paradox. A man named Robin Hansen proposed this concept. He divided the evolution of life to civilization into nine stages, starting from a suitable planetary system to the birth of self-replicating molecules, then to single-celled life, sexual reproduction, multicellular life, animals, and finally to the stage we are currently in, and the final stage is interstellar colonization...
"In other words, he believes that human civilization is currently in the eighth stage of the Great Filter, and the final stage of interstellar colonization is lacking one thing — controllable nuclear fusion.
"Controllable nuclear fusion, we've already achieved it?"
Little X hurriedly exclaimed.
"Yes."
Chen Chen nodded. "Someone once calculated that even if the chemical energy of the entire Earth was utilized, it wouldn't be able to support human flight from the solar system to the nearest galaxy, Centauri, in a few decades. This means that the energy provided by chemical fuel is very poor. At most, its existence is a transitional product for mankind. Controllable nuclear fusion should be the initial energy system for mankind to enter space."
Little X heard this and looked it up on the Internet, then smiled and said, "If we only look at it from the perspective of evolution, this theory is valid. The Earth took 4.5 billion years to give birth to human beings, and it took humans more than 200,000 years to give birth to science. In such a long history, a single devastating disaster could be the end of human civilization.
"Therefore, if the Great Filter didn't exist, then life would have sprung up everywhere like bamboo shoots after a spring rain. By then, a large number of civilizations would have been ahead of mankind, and then aliens would have found Earth long ago. Not only that, even I can do it now."
Chen Chen nodded. He knew that the reason Little X said this was because with Little X's current ability, she could already make her own Von Neumann detector.
The Von Neumann detector was a self-replicating detector designed to use raw materials found in any star system to self-replicate and explore the universe. It was named after the mathematician John von Neumann.
All of the functions of this detector were based on the existing technology of mankind. However, because of its self-replicating characteristic, according to the calculations of scientists, even if mankind only produced one such detector, it would only take a million years for this detector to cover the entire Milky Way.
In this case, it could be inferred that since we have not discovered any other Von Neumann detectors so far, does this not prove that there is no civilization in the Milky Way, or at least, there is no civilization more than a million years ahead of mankind?
"Therefore, there must be an existence similar to the Great Filter that hinders the bustling and prosperous scene between civilizations."
Little X finally concluded.
"What you said is indeed reasonable."
Chen Chen replied, "That's why I said Zhao Shanhe's words were bullsh * t. The Great Filter he mentioned was obviously something else, but it didn't explain what it was. If it's not bullsh * t, then what is it?
"Not only that, the so-called Gaia he mentioned and the so-called disaster of Earth against human civilization are actually a very common immune response."
Chen Chen continued. "To put it in a more metaphysical way — the Earth treats mankind as a foreign element. The proliferation and behavior of mankind has harmed the health of the Earth. The Earth doesn't like to accommodate so many humans, so it released the virus to kill the humans and maintain the balance of the biosphere. The Marburg virus, the Sudan Ebola virus, and the Zaire Ebola virus are all the strongest forces of nature.
"To put it bluntly, it's human development that destroys the ecological balance, resulting in changes in the Earth's environment. These immune responses, including viruses and natural disasters, are actually a chain reaction of the destruction of the ecological balance."
"Ah, that's a trap."
Following Chen Chen's guidance, Little X slowly came to a realization.
"Not only that, he mentioned that he's going to go to the movie Event Horizon and the impact of the USB drive on reality. These are all things that I already know. He didn't even explain the concepts of 'meme' and 'antimeme' to me at all. He only mentioned the names."
Chen Chen sneered. "In short, it seems like he told me a lot, but when I think about it, he didn't say anything at all. The only thing in the entire article is the warning about the so-called 'Great Filter of Civilization'.
"Even this warning can be understood using the law of large numbers — in a large number of repeated random events, there often appears to be an almost inevitable pattern. This pattern is the law of large numbers. In layman's terms, under the same conditions, repeated experiments many times, the frequency of the random event approximates its probability. There's some kind of inevitability in chance... As human civilization continues to develop, it's inevitable that it will encounter all kinds of accidents and crises. This is a fact that can be easily understood with one's feet. "
Hearing this, Little X suddenly became thoughtful. "I understand what you mean. The more advanced science and technology, the further away mankind is on the path of seeking death. This is the case with the emergence of nuclear weapons. It's also the first destructive test that mankind has experienced. The shadow of nuclear war has been shrouding mankind since the end of the last century and it hasn't ended even today. As mankind's science and technology become more and more advanced, nuclear weapons are just the beginning?
"That's right, nuclear weapons are just the beginning. After that, there are genetic weapons, biochemical weapons, antimatter weapons, and even memetic weapons that we're beginning to come into contact with... These weapons make human civilization vulnerable to being destroyed by the weapons of our own creation at any time. Just like the USB drive dimension that we entered, there's an inevitability in chance."
"Is this the truth of the destruction of all human dimensions in the USB drive?"
Little X suddenly realized.
"These are just my guesses, they're definitely not all correct."
Chen Chen shook his head. "Still, it's much better than this guy's half-baked explanation."
"Maybe the 'Great Filter of Civilization' he mentioned isn't an abstract concept like this, but a higher-level weapon similar to memetic technology or even the law of causality?"
Little X suddenly reminded.
"What you said is also possible."
Chen Chen pondered for a moment, silently noting Little X's reminder, and then said again, "This depends on what his intention is in leaving this video. Now there are two possibilities. The first is that this video is his last words before he went to Event Horizon to send a warning to the second owner of the USB drive. However, he didn't expect that he would fail in the end. After becoming one with the antimeme, he changed his mind and came to harm me in order to find his body again.
"The second possibility is that he went to the dimension of Event Horizon to become one with the antimeme and this video is another trap, just like the four horror movies he put in the USB drive, but before they were triggered, he was eliminated by me."
At this point, Chen Chen took a deep breath and said, "Personally, I'm inclined to the second possibility because the first possibility can't explain why he put four horror movies in.
"But it's still very easy to verify the specific situation. X, now that we know his name, try to search for information about Zhao Shanhe on the entire World Wide Web. If he really is the antimeme, after being killed by me, there should be traces of him on the Internet."
"Understood."
Little X immediately closed her eyes and connected to the Internet again to do a wide sweep.
This sweep went on for several hours.
When four hours later, Little X opened her eyes again, but this time there was a flash of surprise in her eyes. "Sir Godfather, I found information about Zhao Shanhe!"
"Let me see!"
Chen Chen said quickly.
Suddenly, a webpage appeared in the void in front of Chen Chen. The webpage was dated 1988 and there was a photo of a file on the page.
The webpage of that era could be said to be extremely simple. Even the photo on it was black and white. One could only see the words "Grade 88 graduate Zhao Shanhe", graduate mentor Wang Xi, and so on.
On the right side of this file was a photo, which was the appearance of the man in the video just now, but he looked much younger.
Seeing this, a flash of shock appeared in Chen Chen's eyes.
Zhao Shanhe, like himself, was a student of Jiao Tong University!
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