Star Empire

"Do you... believe that half a cycle, one port, one life, one miracle?"

"You have to believe it even if you don't believe it."

"Ahhh, you've played too much! Why didn't you remind me! Just forget it! How could you, Kriz, a guy who loves learning, forget this so completely!"

"Well, there is indeed a lot to be gained by going out and taking a look. If you are not careful..."

"That's all, that's all, give yourself a few more alarm clocks in the future, and download those necessary tools later..."

In a separate cabin on a deep space flight across the sea of ​​stars, several people were activating and deactivating various functions distractedly, making the originally clean and bright walls around the cabin seem to be stacked with hundreds of layers of buffs and debuffs.

"Now that things have happened, I can only believe that that miracle really exists."

…

"Everyone has completed their homework well, which is very good and very good. Everyone who has done this deserves praise!"

The teacher standing on the podium clapped her hands gently, and her eyes swept across the entire classroom. The expressions on the faces of the students sitting in the classroom were different, some were calm, some were disapproving, and some were excited from the bottom of their hearts. , and - just one look at it will tell you that you are about to lose your soul.

"I hope everyone can continue to work hard. Then, we will continue to start our new courses. I hope everyone is ready to absorb new knowledge~"

"Come again..." Kriz forced himself to support his body. In his eyes, centered on the area where his teacher was, a huge information storm circle began to close quickly. The violent storm stirred up strong winds and tsunamis, and they pressed towards themselves with an unstoppable momentum.

"Tsk..."

Once again, everyone was swimming together in the ocean formed by endless knowledge.

"The three-level division method based on the Void Derivative Ladder determines three huge intervals. These intervals include everything in the world. While these intervals themselves contain countless structures, their boundaries are also detailed. Describes what and how large the ‘gaps’ between these sets are.”

"However, for an ordered civilization like ours, such a classification is too broad and general. In fact, this classification is not suitable for use in the development process. It is more suitable for use as a civilization entity or intelligence. After the entity's development reaches a high enough level, it is used when summarizing everything discovered and studied during its own development."

"The division method suitable for use in the development process was named the "Nine Heavens" division method by the empire. The word "Nine Heavens" comes from the ancient language, and its direct meaning is 'nine layers of sky'. Now, this word is also There is also a close connection. About one trillion years ago, a war that had a profound impact on the empire established this connection. You will learn the relevant parts in the future..."

"A war with extremely far-reaching consequences?!" After hearing this part, Kriz, who was so groggy that his soul had floated out of his mouth and was suspended in the air and trembling slightly, was no longer sleepy for an instant. He subconsciously prepared to see what it was like. Only stories can be worthy of the important task of "having an extremely far-reaching impact on the empire."

However, when Kriz just started to concentrate, he stopped - before his "eyes", there was an abyss with no end and no bottom. Just looking at it from a distance, the huge black rift valley already gave off a creepy feeling. It seems that as long as you get closer, your body and soul will be instantly swallowed by the bottomless abyss.

"Ah, let's forget it." Kriz's hands suddenly lined up on the desk, and the crisp slapping sound even scared him. "Call and listen to the lecture."

"Currently, the nine-day arrangement method that is most widely accepted by academic circles in the empire is as follows."

The first layer of sky: the layer formed by all the structures directly present on the surface of the ordered world, also called the practical application layer of the world.

The second layer of sky: The layer formed by the direct laws that determine the appearance of the practical application layer of the world, is also called the structural system layer of the world.

The third level of sky: the level formed by the real laws and regulations in the world of order, also known as the mapping management of the world.

The fourth layer of sky: The most fundamental factor that determines all future development possibilities and trends of the ordered world. The "origin meme" carried by the world itself is also called the underlying protocol layer of the world.

"It should be noted that the above levels are separated by the world barrier of the world itself and the void between the worlds. They are common in many worlds in the void, but the world is discontinuous due to the existence of isolation, and the above levels are therefore not Unification - as many worlds as there are, there are as many specific explanations of the above four levels." Standing on the rough sea, the teacher stretched out his hand across his face, and a conspicuous dividing line stretched across the fourth level of the sky. above.

"Next, we will transcend the barriers between worlds."

The fifth level of the sky: the level formed by metaphysical, pan-concept, strong laws, order and other information structures that can be universally effective within and between multiple worlds.

The sixth level of the sky: the smallest micro-element structure that constitutes the existence of all actual orders. Such structures are also called "micro-elements of existence". They are the smallest units used to measure the amount of information. This level is composed of them.

The seventh level of the sky: the level formed by the possible constituent units of narrow virtual information and the structure of virtual information, divergent.

The eighth level of the sky: the level formed by the information operation methods corresponding to abstract phenomena such as super metaphysics and emergence, divergent.

The Ninth Sky: Narrative Ideas, Structures and Applications, Beyond Ideas, Developments of Possibilities and the Unknown that Still Exist, Diverging and Uncertain in Structure.

"Narrative?! The Ninth Sky?!" Seeing this, Kriz's heart suddenly "thumped", and the solemnity and anxiety that were only vague at first, like mist, suddenly surged into his heart.

"In the past, I had only heard about these contents briefly, and I only obeyed the teacher's warnings but did not study too deeply. I even knew that the teacher or even the "Empire" wanted to monitor me, and I felt disgusted. These are all connected. Got it. Got it, I got it." Facing the supreme ninth-level zenith, Kriz felt mixed emotions in his heart, but in the end, all he showed was a slight shake of the head and a nod.

"So, let's dig a little deeper and take a closer look at these 'skies.' We're looking from the bottom up, and please pay attention to every bit of information that follows - every bit is important and you will need it in the future."

As the "voice" fell, the first layer of sky was lit up.

"When you are walking in an ordinary world, or in an orderly environment that can be considered an ordinary structure, there is no need to think or go deep - just appreciate, everything you appreciate is this first It is part of the first layer of the sky. All the appearances of the world, everything that can be shown and what is happening is the most direct practical application structure of the world. For intelligent life, the road to understanding nature also starts here. "

The second sky was lit up.

"However, for intelligent creatures, the most superficial parts can only present some of the most intuitive information. They can support the existence of life and the development of order. But intelligence itself has curiosity, a desire for knowledge, and subjective initiative . In most cases, intelligent beings will not be limited to this most superficial surface - they will think about how to make themselves better, how to improve the advantages they have gained, how to avoid dangers, and how to make themselves stronger. , more able to adapt to all this.”

"While appreciating nature and interacting with the surface of nature, wisdom begins to think and interact with nature at a deeper level. In this process, laws begin to be extracted from mere appearances. How to "apply" the idea of ​​appearances It will go deeper, touching below the surface, and the structures and systems that support the operation of the surface. This is the second stage on the road of cognition, the "second sky" in front of everyone."

"But this is not enough."

The third sky was lit up.

"The laws that can be directly deduced from the appearance may not be covariant with each other. They may be contradictory or lacking in each other. Moreover, intuitive laws cannot always meet the needs of intelligent life. Then, after this, support the world The pillars of the structural system layer form a new structure - the mapping management layer. The interior of this level contains the true laws of the world, and all laws to be followed are generated and integrated from here. Come here, Intelligent creatures can be said to have great power to face nature, fight against nature, and even replace nature. And under this great power"

The fourth sky was lit up.

"It is the origin of the world - there are countless worlds floating in the void. There are similarities and differences between the worlds. This is true at the level of representation, and the same is true at the level of laws. When the world was created, , the powerful first force pushes the most basic and original things in the world to begin to evolve and advance, and multiple and diverse situations begin to be born on the simplest, most essential, solid, and profound foundation."

"What supports all that is the most basic and original constraint system. The basic unit in this system is defined as "origin meme". Memetics is involved here, and we will explain the technology later. It is mentioned when referring to systems and technical concepts. Here we only need to know: this is the underlying protocol layer of the world. The intelligent creatures that come here already have the foundation to talk to the world and even transcend the world."

"But please know here. There are very few intelligent beings who have reached this point. It may be impossible for you to come into contact with intelligent beings of other races now. But in the future, if you choose to engage in this aspect, work, then be sure to maintain a basic respect for all other intelligent life you see."

"There's a lot of blood on that line." Kriz blinked. For some reason, that dividing line seemed particularly dazzling. He didn't know whether it was because it was too sharp or because it contained too much information. . He rubbed his eyes, and the teacher's teachings seemed to float in his ears again:

"After arriving outside the huge collection of the world, laws with a solid foundation and laws that emerge out of thin air will be intertwined, and they will seriously impact the bottom line of most intelligent entities that initially enter this field. When intelligent groups After coming here, they will need to re-examine all their previous theories and the basic principles on which all theories were established."

"The most direct manifestation is that the wisdom that was always down-to-earth step by step needs to take time to force itself to admit that nihilistic things such as "thoughts" no longer need to rely on subjective initiative to play a role in affecting surrounding entities, and the civilization that once did whatever it wanted also needs to learn How to find patterns, how to use the conditions given by the objective environment and get back in touch with the "limits" and "bottom line."

"At the same time, everyone needs to be aware that after entering this field, intelligent entities may have huge differences in their understanding of the acquisition and use of resources and the environment - there is a huge bifurcation in this. The most critical factor that determines the existence of this fork in the road is whether extraordinary information can be obtained directly from the void."

"Civilizations that can do this will be relatively moderate in their overall development. And civilizations that can't do this, if they can survive and grow, will have a great chance of developing China has become extremely predatory and expansionary, because they cannot create things out of thin air and can only rely on existing order entities. Then they can only rely on expansion and plunder to obtain sufficient resources for their own development and growth."

"For the vast majority of intelligent entities, such existences are extremely dangerous. Such existences are also the objects of focus observation and coordination by the Observer Council and the Starry Five Constellations."

"Let's keep looking down"

The sky on the sixth and seventh floors was lit up.

"How far can laws and regulations cover? What will they look like at different levels and fields? Will they still exist from a microscopic perspective that transcends previous concepts?"

"When wisdom has tools that far surpass those of the past, everyone will be happy to use these tools to solve problems that have never been solved before, and to re-explore those areas that were once invisible and out of reach. In this step, The empire chose to explore the microscopic realm and achieved considerable results. Therefore, the sixth and seventh realms are both related to the microscopic."

"The sixth field is composed of the smallest micro-elements that constitute existence. In previous courses, we have talked about this part. From the perspective of "composition", since almost all order information bodies are composed of micro-elements, so It does not make much sense to directly describe the information interaction at the micro-unit level, because everything can be said in one sentence: "The collision, divergence and confluence between micro-units pass by." However, the part that is slightly larger than the micro-units is worthy of us Write a big book about it - because this is the place where all kinds of colorful things and all kinds of laws and regulations are born."

"In the primitive chaotic ocean, these micro-elements may not have fixed rules. They collide and swim aimlessly. But as time goes by, many micro-elements with similar "movement patterns" may be close to each other and move in almost the same way. Pattern motion. This may allow these micro-elements with similar motion patterns to merge with each other, forming a more complex information structure that can carry more properties."

"After these information structures are generated, some will dissipate because they cannot continue to expand themselves, while others may have the ability to "prey" and "infect" - advanced information structures with these abilities can devour the surrounding information microorganisms. Elements can also infect and assimilate other information structures, causing them to show characteristics similar to their own, thereby allowing their various attributes to be passed on."

“These tiny structures that have the ability to infect and assimilate surrounding information, and to expand and transmit the information they contain are “memes.”

"And at the bottom of the most basic micro-elements that have been determined so far, there is actually an even more ethereal structure. This is the seventh level of the sky - the realm where virtual information and void structures are located."

"If you want to give an example, the most representative example is the "information disturbance force"."

In the ocean of knowledge, the teacher in charge of teaching snapped his fingers, and all the chaotic scenes around him began to disappear. In the vast darkness, groups of bright lights emerged from nothingness. But there’s more “stuff” emerging from nothingness.

"I believe some sharp-eyed students have already discovered the problem." After a moment of silence, the lecturer's voice sounded again: "Look carefully, everyone - the world is not pure black, but there is a layer of A very thin, ever-changing "fog". The information disturbance force exists in this thick fog."

"We are sure that the information disturbance force exists, and we can be sure that it is everywhere. But we cannot separate the specific structures related to the information disturbance force from the surrounding order structure, whether it is memes or abnormal micro-elements - we do not Any discovery."

"It is precisely for this reason that the current academic circles of the empire call them virtual information and void structures. We may not be able to identify and separate these things because they have an existence form that is completely different from the current order, or it may be because they are effective Positions are more basic and original, and they may exist far below the level of "micro-elements of existence," which prevents us from detecting traces of their ontology."

"At the same time, everyone needs to note that if they are arranged from basic to complex, the sixth and seventh levels of the sky here will be at the lowest position - starting from the origin of understanding, they are moving towards the void to represent "zero" "The properties are approaching."

"If you compare the void to the paper that breeds all stories, and compare all orders and worlds to the stories that already exist, then these disturbing forces... they are the conventional "hidden rules" - they will penetrate into the stories and accept their The story will be more coherent, and they will also affect the generation of the story.”

A series of blurry scenes suddenly appeared in the originally normal space in front of Kriz, and he could not clearly see what was happening in them. However, the mist-shrouded room appears to have a huge golden dome. Directly below the center of the dome, there is a ring-shaped table, and a figure is talking about something in it. Around the ring table, there are people who are making "rustling" sounds.

The sky on the eighth floor was lit up.

"From here on, everything will become a little different - once, we just used the rules, and the results we expected were a certain part of the overall system, the part we needed. But here, the rules and The result will be our will."

"In lower-level fields, there is an inevitable connection between phenomena and essence. If you want to trigger a certain phenomenon, you must simultaneously trigger a series of complete, essential changes. However, as the levels continue After improving, such as jumping out of the world, this series of rules begins to no longer apply to a certain extent - because the void can decay into too many things."

"Therefore, we may be able to directly decay the phenomena and results we need from the void without going through a series of complicated processes. But at this point, for us and for intelligent entities, we are still limited. ——Although the laws have become fewer and broader, we are still restricted by them. We can get a series of isolated results that can be obtained without covariation, but they are always a part of the operating program, and we can only The links in it serve as the results we need.”

"But after entering the super-metaphysical realm, the connection between appearance and essence will be further severed. Even for the more isolated and narrow result parts, on the premise of reaching this level, we can directly come up with For our own use. We can get the results we directly need - we no longer need to rely on the link we need most, we can directly direct the results to the end point we need."

"This sounds like a contradiction in itself. If so, how can they be copied and used stably? If this cannot be done, where does everything in the empire come from? If it can be done, then this method that still follows scientific concepts Can everything be worthy of such a title?"

"Please all students remember the word relative - all of this is relative to the initial field and the initial start. Most of the time we will not use absolute, this needs to be kept in mind .”

The ninth-level sky was lit up, but compared to the seventh-level and eighth-level skies that were still substantial, the ninth-level sky seemed to be just an ethereal, endlessly extending mist of light.

"This is the highest point, the forefront of the empire's research front. Starting from the starting point of understanding, they are approaching the attribute of "everything" represented by the void."

"Narrative - Imagine that in the endless ocean of information, a pen writes a story. From this endless story, all the world and all orders are born, and we are born from it. After experiencing great development Later, some individuals among us seemed to possess part of the power of this pen, and could modify part of the story, change the structure and process of the story, so that its trajectory and appearance began to change, and even evolve. Write about everything around you, even yourself? Even the empire cannot be sure of this." After the speech that seemed to be talking in a dream, the weird atmosphere in the classroom gradually dissipated.

"."

"From a narrative perspective, everything that can be achieved so far can be seen as being in a pan-macro narrative layer with a complex structure. In the depths of the endless void, the highlights of order are dense or rare, and not all the stories in the entire layer are They are connected to each other - they have opposing centers and edges, which results in countless "domains" appearing throughout the layer."

"The entire empire and everything around it is the narrative domain of "Star Empire". In this pan-macro narrative layer, with our environment as the highest level of our own narrative, we can construct downwards The structure called "narrative sub-layer" is a narrative structure that is lower than the level we are in from the perspective of narrative concept, but is in the same order from the perspective of the overall order."

"We can create/write structures, lives and laws in these sub-narratives. But because creation is equivalent to the description required for our life and existence and the amount of information that needs to be injected is equivalent to directly creating ourselves and thus breaking the level of narrative creation There is a gap, so there must be an attenuation of the amount of information in the narrative sub-layer as it extends downwards."

"At present, the narrative power of the empire can only be modified on the same level, but it cannot be extended to the upper sub-levels that may theoretically exist - the amount of information required to create this concept is huge, and we cannot determine this pen At what height it would have been in the void. But what is worth confirming is... it must be much higher than where we are."

"This is also the only definite actual existence of the ninth level at present. And the other parts... are more just speculations. We once thought that there might be a truth in that sky that transcended order and rules and could be merged from top to bottom. . But after more research, from now on, even the height of the "ninth day" is probably far from the lowest threshold of the hypothetical "truth" level. According to this speculation, it may be because of the previous The disturbing force left by modern civilization had not faded away at that time, which caused the pieced-together "truth" to widely exist and spread in the void at that time..."

"The pieced together truth... If something like this kind of last wish can be cast into the depths of the disturbance force, and as the disturbance force exists for a long time and widely... then what kind of deep obsession is required to do this..."

Thinking of this, Kriz couldn't help but feel a chill coming from the depths of his soul.

"As for the other more parts, due to the current level restrictions of the empire, they are not so much knowledge. For everyone, I prefer to talk about them as parts that can be discussed." Two words accompanied the clapping. There was a "crisp" sound, and the "Jiutian" model presented in front of everyone quickly enlarged. Everyone no longer faced this model, but stood in the clouds and mist emanating from the ninth level of the sky.

"Please think about it: the void is both above and below. Order comes from the void, but the exact nature of the void itself is unknown. Therefore, the nature of the products it can derive cannot be determined - then, these Where are the upper and lower limits of derivative products?”

"Please think about it, why does the order appear as it does now and is stable? Is it because the void is willing to produce products that can be integrated into such an orderly environment, or... other products outside this range are all It already quietly exists around us when we are not aware of it, or has it returned to the void?”

"Ideal, vision or footsteps, which one can reach the farthest place?"

"Is there a final limit to the void? Where is this limit? By determining the axioms, we can create huge collections in an ideal mathematical environment that are far larger than any world or even the entire order structure. These collections may appear in the void. Corresponding entities? Will the clear and solid connection between mathematical tools and natural science continue to hold its validity in the same way here?"

"In the future, what are our possibilities? In what direction will we develop? How many roads may there be in the void, how many of them are indeed possible to follow, and how many are traps or dead ends?"

…

"Even the wisest and most powerful being in the current empire may not be able to answer these questions."

"I hope everyone can realize their ideals. If there are students who are willing to pursue research, I hope that when these questions are finally answered in the future, your handwriting will be included in the answers..."