I will be crowned king

"...On March 2, little Torre, who was simple and full of curiosity, came to ask me again about the principles of the difference engine and what the role of a machine that repeatedly does mathematical problems is."

"Well, I think it's time to explain it to everyone, because not only the royal family, the Qiuzhen Sect, but also the Truth Society have begun to express opposition to me, they feel that it is a waste of time and money. Funding this 'Isaac's Big Toy' is a pointless exercise."

"To be fair, I understand them very well. Not to mention that they don't understand the world, and even they themselves don't understand it. Of course, they don't understand what it means when the true face of the world is presented in such a concrete way before their eyes."

"When the breeze blows on their faces, what they feel is the strength, temperature, direction of the wind...these factors are combined to give a complete feeling; what they can't 'feel' is the reason why the wind is born, the strength, temperature, etc. Where it comes from, and why you can 'feel' all this."

"All of this is running in a huge and sophisticated system. This system...or the 'God's will' and 'law' as some people talk about it, has completely exceeded the limit that a normal human being can understand. "

"Of course, I think humans will eventually figure it all out, but I suspect that even on that day, the vast amount of knowledge will definitely exceed human capabilities; as a group, we will probably know, but as individuals , it’s probably an honor to be able to see clearly what’s going on.”

"So we must simplify all this, simplify it to use very few symbols as basic units, and then use the combination between them to explain everything; we are not gods, but we can use a simple, crude, seemingly ridiculous , a self-righteous approach to gain insight into God and the world God created.”

"Yes, if the Difference Engine is really created, anyone who owns it and knows how to use it will be more qualified to call himself a 'Messenger of God' than the guy wearing the triple crown in the Holy See..."

Taking a deep breath, Anson suppressed his curiosity and put down the translation he had not finished reading: "I have a question..."

"You guessed it right."

The technical advisor interrupted directly, showing an expression as if he had already guessed what he would say: "These are not entirely the contents of Isaac's notes, some of them are inferred by me through the arrangement and combination of runes... Well , and there are about 10% of the supplementary content."

Anson: "...Why?"

"Because ancient runes are a kind of...well, how should I describe it?" William Gottfried frowned, and suddenly clapped his hands: "A kind of too concise writing! You It can be simply understood as a combination of symbols, which only expresses and states the meaning, but lacks basic modifications, let alone any grammar.”

"If it is a pure literal translation, what you will see is a bunch of words with unclear meanings, because the ancient rune text is not compatible with our language, and it was not used for communication when it was created."

"But Lord of Order, your technical advisor is an expert in ancient runes, and is very familiar with the life of the arrogant Isaac Rand." William Gottfried continued to add, without any concealment. Contempt for a certain saint:

"You're not the first person to try to collect his notes, and you probably won't be the last."

So that's it... Anson nodded slightly and continued to focus on the notes in his hand:

“Ask, what is mathematics and what is it really used for?”

"The Ring of Order is above. I can't remember how many times I have explained the importance of basic subjects to these potatoes! Why do some people always want to apply theoretical knowledge in daily life? Yes, mathematics is a tool , but would you use a steam core to heat pies and boil water – even though it’s really meant to boil water!”

"To be honest, I really envy Carlos's dictatorship more and more; if every time someone stands up to oppose, protest and question my research topic, I have to patiently prove, explain and debate for them, I probably won't be able to do it in a hundred years. He will go down in history not as 'Isaac the Genius' but as 'Isaac the Orator'!"

"It doesn't matter, let them object. My dear prototype 'Babbage' will be completed soon, and there is no need to talk nonsense to them anymore."

"The closer it is to completion, the more I feel that the original design is still too conservative and too childish. There is no way. When I was six years old, I still had some illusions about the 'handmade workshop' and did not realize the division of work and processes. Transformation is the real future.”

“But fortunately, for the current stage of research, this computing power is basically enough.”

"I think that by the next party, I should be able to answer Xiao Tuo Lei's question in a general way; the so-called difference engine is a tool that can process, calculate and store information; its underlying operating logic is based on some very basic It can even be called crude 'backward reasoning', but as long as the amount of information is enough, it can give answers to all the questions you ask."

"You give a question, enter the conditions, and then wait for the calculation result. The long series of symbols at the end is the answer it gives; it is not a god, but it can become a tool for humans to 'spy' on God."

"But the amount of calculations that this level of difference engine can do is still too little, and the efficiency is too low; it is necessary to increase efficiency, and it is even better to classify them."

"Future differential engines should add some conditions to the underlying logic to process various types of information to further improve practicality - such as being installed on a ship to measure monsoon and sea current changes, temperature levels, and being installed in areas close to volcanoes Calculate the likelihood of earthquakes, or give it to a bank, and they can reduce the number of accountants they employ from a thousand to twenty."

"That way you won't think I'm wasting your money anymore, potatoes!"

How much this guy likes the word potato... Anson couldn't help but raise his eyebrows, turned over the first page of the translation, and a few large scrawled characters immediately caught his eye:

"...John's words woke me up. Does the machine have the ability to think independently?"

"This is really a shocking question! I have been working on the difference engine for more than a year, and I have not made more progress than the question he raised; the ring of order is above, which even makes me think that his sentence "Plants are also It wouldn't look so stupid if you had feelings."

"Yes, why can't machines have the ability to think independently? Why can't they have the ability to think?"

"If it not only mechanically follows the designed conditions and performs a lot of useless calculations, but can accurately determine the answer I want based on the information, wouldn't it greatly improve the efficiency of calculations? !”

"Of course, there is definitely a lot of pre-work that needs to be done - numerous pre-conditions need to be set, the underlying logic of the difference engine needs to be optimized, and a large-scale information library needs to be established, larger than the 10,000 Wang family libraries. .”

"After receiving my thanks, John looked like he was looking at a madman; it was so refreshing, I thought they had already regarded me as a madman."

"It doesn't matter! Just be crazy if you're crazy. When Babbage II is born, the entire world of order will look up to me - although I don't care about flowers, applause and those longing eyes, really, not at all. No."

"The problem is that this may take far longer than Babbage's lifetime. The amount of calculations required in the early stage alone is at least a hundred times more. Even with the assistance of the difference engine, the workload is far more than that of one person. normal life expectancy.”

"Even with the most optimistic estimate, it will take at least sixty to seventy years. With my current quality of life, a sudden death at almost fifty years old in more than ten years should not be a surprising result."

"I may need to seriously consider that old friend's proposal."

Anson was completely shocked, so shocked that he was completely speechless.

Yes, Saint Isaac...that is, Isaac Rand was indeed a genius. He invented the steam core, participated in the design of the difference engine and thousands of other inventions that shocked the world and even a hundred years after his death. Created countless epoch-making theories... But!

AI?

Is this really the imagination that a person who was still using coal to boil water could come up with?

Not only that, but from what he said, he didn't just think it up, he even put it into practice... Anson finally understood why William Gottfried became so vigilant.

So far, at least what he has learned about the Difference Engine used by the Church of Order may exceed the "Babbage" mentioned by Saint Isaac in terms of structure and computing power, but it is essentially the same as that first-generation prototype machine. There is not much difference, there is no change from quantitative to qualitative change.

And "Babbage II"... Regardless of whether it has been completed or not, the theoretical achievements of Saint Isaac for more than ten years will fundamentally break the Holy See's absolute monopoly on academics and knowledge.

Assuming, of course, that the church doesn’t get all of this.

With deep shock, Anson continued to look at the last part of the translation; the content of this part was even shorter than the previous one, with a large number of ancient runes and words written and crossed out by William Gottfried mixed in. The content is obviously not fully translated yet:

"...February 2nd, today is a somewhat special day. My good friend from the Old God Sect suddenly reminded me that it is futile to master the three major magics at the same time. I am destined to be unable to successfully achieve perfect evolution."

"I really hate this guy more and more. He always refuses to tell me the truth until I'm about to find out!"

"But it doesn't matter this time, because I actually gave up on the possibility of mastering three major magics at the same time... It's like combining three completely different logics into one. I may have some advantages in the early stage, but problems are inevitable. .”

"Furthermore, the three different evolutionary pathways have allowed me to collect enough data. Together with the existing preconditions, it is enough to carry out the most basic deduction work."

"...After comparing the data, I found that the three paths have their own serious drawbacks, among which (being crossed out) is the most obvious. I think it should be closely related to the order and time of its birth. It is very likely that from the beginning, It has unavoidable shortcomings (crossed out)..."

"Since (a large section of content has been crossed out), then the key lies in the attitude towards the world? Objective existence, the existence of consciousness, the existence of self; how to define the concept of self-existence seems to directly affect the development of subsequent paths. …”

"...On January 5th, there was a lot of useless data again. I seemed to have entered a certain bottleneck period. It was time to study something else and change my thinking."

"Little Tuolei came to me again and excitedly talked about the latest research results of those theoretical groups; they believe that the world and people are one, and our existence is like an organ of this world."

"I'm not interested in the brainwashing remarks of these religious fanatics, but this idea may be worth a try... Well, the world and people are one. If it is based on the concept of 'I am the world', maybe there will be some new breakthroughs..."

Seeing this, Anson's eyes continued to move downwards, and found that there were only a bunch of runes that had not been fully translated, and a page full of crossed-out black lines.

"The following content involves a lot of content related to the Old God Sect and the evolutionary path. I am not an expert in this field, and it will take time to translate."

Taking the translation from Anson, William Gottfried said casually: "Of course, if you really want to improve efficiency, you can find a trustworthy spell caster to help, but the level must be at least the blasphemy mage level, and the level must be You need to know something about the three major magics.”

Since you are a blasphemy mage and you are also proficient in the three major magics at the same time, if I want to know such a person, why would I need you... Anson smiled and nodded:

"No, I still trust you more."

After reading the translation, the two exchanged information about the difference engine. The technical advisor seemed to be very dismissive of the "artificial intelligence" mentioned by Saint Isaac, insisting that he did not think that the other party had any research results... Wait until Anson felt that It was already half past three in the afternoon when my tongue became dry.

After saying goodbye to William Gottfried, Anson left the arsenal directly and was about to tell Thalia about the fourth path of St. Isaac's deduction in the translation. However, he was stopped by the clerk outside the factory gate. .

"already left?"

"Yes, at noon today, Miss Thalia has left Beluga Port with Her Highness Freya, and there is no extra person except the driver." The little secretary replied faithfully:

"She asked me not to tell you about it right away, so..."

Anson raised his hand to interrupt his defense: "Do you know where she went?"

"No, Miss Talia didn't tell me." The little secretary shook her head: "But she mentioned a general direction and said that as long as she tells you, you will understand."

"What direction?"

"She said... that place is very close to Winter Torch City."