Earth Era

Unless it is a god who is truly omniscient and omnipotent, it is impossible for all other beings to know what the end point of natural evolution is. Since you don’t know, you can’t set it.

This is not something that can be set haphazardly. Every step of evolution must be extremely precise and clear, otherwise the robots will be at a loss. It makes no sense to simply set the first step of evolution to be interplanetary travel, and then set the second step to be faster-than-light travel. With this setting, I'm afraid all the robots will be dead and they won't be able to find the correct path by exhaustive methods. The correct setting method must be precise. For example, in this step of evolution, the material performance must be evolved to such-and-such, and in the next step, the thruster performance must be evolved to such-and-such. This setting is meaningful.

Therefore, what the genius didn't know, he couldn't set. In other words, no matter how long the robots evolve, their level of technology will never exceed the knowledge of that genius. And in this case, why bother letting the robots evolve? Wouldn't it be better to just build the most advanced robot within the scope of your knowledge from the beginning?

As for whether the number of robots is enough to use the exhaustive method, Xiao Yun also has some thoughts of his own. Xiao Yun negated this possibility after a simple calculation.

The so-called exhaustive means that every possibility must be tried, otherwise it cannot be called exhaustive. Then there is the following example. There are 266 people in a group, and they are divided into any combinations between one and 266. That is, one person is considered a combination, and any two people are also considered a combination. Any three, four, ten, or fifty combinations can be considered a combination. So... how many combinations are there in total?

This is a very simple arithmetic problem, and the final calculation result is a total of two 266th power combinations. And how big is this number?

According to scientists' estimates, all the mass and energy in the universe, converted according to the theory of relativity, is approximately equivalent to ten to the 80th power atoms. And... the number two to the power of two hundred and sixty-six is ​​just a little larger than the number ten to the power of eighty. In other words... for just a group of 266 people, the number of different combinations among them is already more than the number of atoms in the entire universe. So what about specific scientific research?

The development of a new type of material may require the addition of many different elements and compounds in different proportions. The content of these added elements is uncertain, the smelting time is uncertain, and the sequence is uncertain. In everything, In the case of uncertainty...how many ways are there to combine them?

This is an incredible and incalculable number. It must be more than the number of different combinations between the collective of 266 people. So in this case, how can the infinite copying robots use the exhaustive method to exhaustively exhaust all these possibilities? Without exhausting all possibilities, how can they know which combination is correct and optimal?

The research and development of just one new type of material will consume all the energy of all robots. Using the exhaustive method, it is impossible to use all the materials in the universe to build robots. This is just the research and development of one material. It is impossible to overcome even this obstacle, let alone achieve true technological evolution.

So... based on the above two points, Xiao Yun knew that it was not feasible to rely on the exhaustive method and a clear combination of evolutionary purposes to allow robots to evolve continuously, even beyond the scope of the manufacturer's own knowledge. No one can do this, even if the genius is the most outstanding among all intelligent beings in the universe, he cannot do it.

These are the two most likely successful conjectures that Xiao Yun has thought of so far, but both of these conjectures were rejected by Xiao Yun after further in-depth thinking.

While thinking about it, Xiao Yun made some improvements to the second evolution method and added some restrictions. The basic idea behind these improvements is that the exhaustive method is actually the most inefficient method to try. There are many combinations that are actually not necessary to try at all. For example, if a person makes a kind of food without knowing anything about it, since he knows nothing about it, the ingredients of this food may be anything in the universe—— Including a ball of hydrogen gas, an iron-rich asteroid fragment, or some liquid, or the soil on the planet, or even the feces excreted by some living creatures... these things may be used to make this One of the combinations of ingredients needed to grow gourmet food.

If calculated by the exhaustive method, this person needs to try all unlimited combinations of all material forms in the universe. This is an unimaginably huge number. Even if this person has a life span of one quadrillion years and has the equivalent of one quadrillion universes of matter at his disposal, he will not be able to finally make this delicacy. The reason is simple. There are so many combinations that it is simply impossible to try all the combinations within the time frame that humans can understand.

From this example, it can be clearly seen that there are many combinations that are actually meaningless. For example, the combination between hydrogen and ammonia is meaningless - this combination obviously cannot make a gourmet dish. Iron The combination of ore and soil is also meaningless. In addition, there is the combination of wood and plastic, the combination of carbon dioxide and methane, and copper ore... and so on, these combinations are meaningless.

But the most crucial point is that this person knows nothing about this delicacy. Since he knows nothing about it, he cannot know which combinations make sense and which combinations do not. When it comes to the development of new materials by infinitely replicating robots, it is impossible for infinitely replicating robots to know which combinations are meaningful and which combinations are meaningless.

However, just because the infinite replicating robot doesn't know which combinations are meaningful and which combinations are meaningless doesn't mean that the genius doesn't know either. He may be able to set a simple filtering rule - just like the person who wants to make gourmet food but is confused by the infinite combinations of ingredients, setting up a simple rule for him to "use only products from the earth" will help him to make delicious food. All material combinations except the earth were eliminated, reducing the number of combinations he faced by countless times. If you add another rule on top of this rule, such as "the main ingredient must use organic matter", then the number of combinations this person faces will be reduced countless times, because this rule will remove all inorganic substances in the main ingredient combination. All eliminated.

Similarly, the genius can set a rule for the robots who are struggling to develop new materials: "use iron as the main body, and the remaining trace elements shall not exceed one percent." Then countless combinations will be eliminated. Because the number of combinations is reduced, it becomes possible for robots to use exhaustive methods to develop new materials.

It's just that... this only solves the obstacle of developing new materials. The development of science and technology is not just as simple as developing new materials. And if this is the case, the genius needs to set some rules for every branch of science in the development of science and technology to exclude meaningless combinations. Then the genius will be faced with the original problem again - how does he create a solution for the beyond? Set rules for technology in your own knowledge area?

The amount of knowledge of that genius must be limited. Within the scope of his knowledge, he can certainly set detailed rules to help the robot evolve and avoid meaningless exhaustive combinations. But when the robot's technology develops to a level comparable to his, How should he set it? ——He has no way to set it. In other words, the path of exhaustive evolution by adding restrictive rules is still unavailable.

So... is there such a rule? This rule runs through the entire development of science. It is applicable to people in the barbaric era. It is still applicable to people in the interstellar era, even if it faces people who can The same applies to people sailing across river systems - does such a fundamental rule exist?

If this genius discovers this fundamental rule and applies it to the infinite replicating robot, the infinite replicating robot can use this rule to eliminate useless combinations in the early stages of evolution. After it evolves to be more advanced than the genius himself, This rule can still be used to achieve exhaustive evolution. Wouldn't it be possible to achieve the evolution of robots that do not require self-independent consciousness and the scientific system?

So...what exactly is this rule?

In addition to the speculation of "adding restrictive rules to help exhaustive evolution", Xiao Yun made a total of three speculations about the way robots evolve themselves. In addition to these three types, Xiao Yun has been thinking hard for several months but has not found any new ways to evolve. Among these three speculations, Xiao Yun believes that the combination between the third way of evolution and "fundamental rules that run through the entire science" is the most likely. So the focus of Xiao Yun's thinking was on "what are the fundamental rules that run through the entire science?"

But Xiao Yun couldn't figure out what this rule was. Xiao Yun thinks about it when he is resting, thinking about it when eating, thinking about it every moment, even to the point where he has a mental breakdown and needs strong anesthetics to fall asleep. Xiao Yun still can't figure out what this rule is.

Without this rule, robots cannot evolve themselves. The genius has almost certainly allowed the robots to evolve themselves. In other words, the genius thought of this rule. But... Xiao Yun couldn't think of it. (To be continued ~^~)