The Heavens: A Qing, the Yue Girl at the beginning

Chapter 466 Information Simulation, History of Civilization (4k)

"However, these contents are not the focus of our discussion today... Specifically, regarding the evolution of human civilization, I have another view, which can better reflect the influence of various factors."

Mr. Turing looked around and knocked on the table with his elder silver ring. A translucent field expanded, causing several strings of static electricity, and activated the micro-projection equipment that was hidden by indoor statues, pillars, hanging silks, ancient paintings and other objects.

The lights in the hall dimmed, and the 3D projector started to work, projecting a three-dimensional and hazy blue light area between the crowd, as well as a corresponding control screen, interspersed with decorations of various data streams.

What's going on? A meal turned into an academic seminar? Zhao Qing was thoughtful, realizing that Finkel's communication with the others must have added a lot of information and a big lie. No wonder he hid again.

Shi Yi Guang obviously noticed this as well. He moved his chair towards Zhao Qing and handed her a piece of date toffee cake. At the same time, he opened a new recorder, ready to record the speeches of everyone so that he could conduct a detailed analysis later.

Ange and Elizabeth both looked as if they had known this for a long time. The former put down his wine glass and crossed his legs, while the latter elegantly wiped her mouth with a napkin in her hand, both of them looking at the speaker on the stage.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Mr. Turing began, his voice was quiet but full of confidence, "We are gathered here today to witness a groundbreaking theory - a new neural network model based on cellular automata to simulate the development of civilization."

"The world we live in is like a huge neural network. Each of us is a node in this network. Our thoughts, emotions, and knowledge are all intertwined and transmitted in this network... This means that we can start with information theory and conduct in-depth research on it."

As Mr. Turing spoke, he took out a laser pen and pointed at the 3D holographic projection area, causing colorful and intricate neural network images to emerge. They were as bright as stars and flowed slowly in the air, as if a huge living organism was breathing and beating.

"In this sea of ​​stars, every bright spot is like a shining star, representing individuals with higher education. They are the elites of society and the shining stars of civilization. The connections between them are like interstellar bonds, transmitting the light of information, knowledge and ideas. We cleverly compare the efficiency of this transmission to the synaptic density in biological neural networks, which is the spark of the collision of wisdom and inspiration."

Mr. Turing touched the projection, and one of the bright spots instantly magnified and turned into an extremely detailed neuron structure: "Look, this is the neural network model of our social elites. Their knowledge structure and way of thinking are like the dendrites and axons of neurons, intricate and orderly. And their innovation and learning abilities are like the synapses of neurons, receiving and transmitting new information all the time, and nurturing new ideas."

He pointed to the lines again: "These lines are the information transmission channels of our society. They may be as vast as the Milky Way or as long as a stream. They can be the ocean of books, the veins of the Internet, the gathering of meetings, or daily communication. The efficiency of information transmission is the booster of civilization development, and our system is exploring the secrets of civilization development by simulating the transmission process of this information."

Then, Mr. Turing touched a button on the holographic projection, and the image began to change, showing neural network structures at different levels.

"In this model, I introduced the concept of cellular automata," Turing explained. "Cellular automata are discrete mathematical models that can be used to simulate dynamic systems in space and time. I divided the entire social system into a number of cells, each of which represents a social group or community. These cells influence each other through information transmission, forming a large and complex network system."

As Mr. Turing explained, the neural network image on the holographic projection began to dynamically display the information transmission process between these cells. Like cells, they are constantly dividing, growing, and connecting to form one neuron cluster after another. The whole picture seems to have become a living organism.

Turing paused and continued, "In addition, in order to more accurately simulate the dynamic changes of social systems, we added variables such as politics, culture, and war to the model, and used evolutionary algorithms to fit and optimize the model. Through repeated iterations, the model can be closer to reality."

"So, how can we use this model to estimate the speed of civilization development? There must be an indicator to measure the level of civilization!" Angers asked curiously, "I remember reading about it in a book, something called 'Kashof Index'..."

"Kardashev Civilization Index," Mr. Turing corrected. "This is a concept proposed by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Kardashev. Later, in Carl Sagan's logarithmic formula, it was calculated entirely based on the total power of the entire civilization. The standard for Type I civilization is 1E16 watts, and the power of Type II civilization is 1E26 watts... According to this algorithm, the current human civilization is around level 0.71."

"Each level has a difference of 100 billion times?" Angers turned to look at him. "So we still have to increase our total power by to times to reach the lower limit of Type I civilization? This sounds a bit exaggerated."

"This is roughly equivalent to the multiple increase in the total power of human civilization since the Industrial Revolution. The gap is indeed quite large." Mr. Turing nodded: "But we all know that only considering a single power value is not comprehensive enough in this regard."

"If we substitute the situation of various countries, countries that have developed large-scale low-end and medium-end industries can easily outperform countries that mainly develop high-tech industries in this index... This actually ignores important factors such as scientific and technological development and culture and art, and needs to be corrected."

Mr. Turing smiled and pointed to another interface in the holographic projection. This interface displayed a set of exquisite data charts, including multiple indicators such as information storage capacity, technological development level, and cultural diversity.

"This is the 'civilization development index' I came up with," Mr. Turing explained. "It combines various factors in the social system and is calculated through complex algorithms. Among them, the 'information storage index' is the one I value most. It represents the total amount and complexity of information in the social system. When the information storage index increases, it means that the information processing capacity of the social system is increasing and the level of civilization is also improving."

At this time, a series of dynamic charts and simulation animations appeared on the holographic projection screen. Mr. Turing pointed to the data on the screen and said: "These charts show the development trajectories of different civilizations in different historical periods. By comparing and analyzing these data, we can find some interesting patterns. For example, in some historical periods, the development speed of civilization suddenly accelerated, which is often closely related to the improvement of information transmission efficiency. In other periods, the development of civilization fell into stagnation or even regression, which was usually due to interference from factors such as political turmoil, cultural conflicts or wars..."

After watching for a long time, Zhao Qing had to admit that there was indeed a profound truth in using information transmission and storage to analyze the development and changes of civilization. Mr. Turing was worthy of being a master in the field of computer science and theoretical biology. He faked his death and lived for many years, and he actually made such an amazing achievement.

In her understanding, the circulation and convergence of information is indeed the most important factor in the development of civilization. Civilizations in different regions absorb and integrate with each other in the process of integration, creating new cultural forms. The policy of "closing the country to the outside world" is an obvious counterexample.

Measuring the level of civilization by the information storage index is certainly insufficient, but at least it will not produce the outrageous result of "one large modern power station > the sum of all ancient humans" as the latter is far superior to the former in terms of resource richness and sustainability.

"This reminds me of Seldon's psychohistory in Asimov's The Galactic Empire," Elizabeth Laurent asked softly, "Is there something in common between it and the neural network model you developed?"

"It's a good question, but you may have remembered it wrongly. Psychohistory is mainly a concept developed in the Foundation series."

Mr. Turing's eyes sparkled as he answered, "In essence, 'psychohistory' is the use of psychological theories to explain group behavior. In reality, it is also called 'historical dynamics', 'social physics', etc. It is more about comparing individuals to particles in thermodynamics, applying statistical thermodynamics methods to group society, and requires extremely large orders of magnitude to achieve relatively accurate predictions, such as the huge population of the Galactic Empire in the book, which is in the hundreds of trillions."

"But in my theoretical model, there is no additional factor of psychological state. Everything is calculated and deduced only through information transmission, exchange and storage. The data is much clearer and more accurate. It can simulate small communities of hundreds or thousands of people for a long time, without the need to count trillions of people."

"By the way, neither the legendary psychohistory nor my 'civilization development-information storage index-neural network system mathematical model' can make reliable predictions about the future. In other words, they can only roughly predict the future without major breakthroughs in technology."

"Just think about it, how can a backward civilization simulate the specific form and development trend of an advanced civilization?" "If it can't predict the future, what is it for? To test Norma's computing performance?" Angers took a deep breath and felt cheated: "Mr. Turing, if you want to apply for research funding from Kassel College and the Laurent family, you have to be sincere!"

So this is what this meeting was about? Zhao Qing was speechless, and he suspected that he was being treated as a wealthy investor representing a mixed-race organization, and that he came here to decide whether to fund Turing's research project.

However, since they have already met and arrived at the dinner venue, it is not too late to discuss cooperation and other matters.

"You are a history teacher in the academy, but you can't even see this..." Mr. Turing wiped his sweat and complained in a low voice: "Although it is impossible to predict the development of more advanced civilizations, it is possible to predict the development of backward civilizations! You should be able to imagine the significance of the ability to trace the past!"

"You mean..." Angers said in a deep voice, "to uncover the ancient history that has been buried for thousands of years and use it to study the ancient human society and dragon civilization?"

"Good." Turing's light pen drew an elegant arc in the air, guiding everyone's attention to the 3D holographic projection again: "By introducing data such as historical events, major climate changes, and geological environmental changes, we can reverse the development of human civilization from ancient times to the present. The research of the former Laurent family head has made a lot of contributions to this."

“Some historical events may be forgotten or blurred for various reasons. They may be tampered with by rulers, misunderstood by historians, or forgotten by time. But in this model, they are all recorded in the form of data, and any missing parts can be treated as code cracking. By analyzing these data, we can restore the truth of history.”

At the same time, a vast river of history automatically emerged on the projection, from the ancient barbaric times to the dawn of civilization, and then to the current era of technological prosperity. Each stage was like a brilliant star field, embellishing the long river of time.

Turing randomly clicked on a spot, and one of the time periods was expanded. The European region inside was magnified, and it was covered with densely packed information transmission nodes, representing the remains of ancient human habitation. However, the light was quite dim, indicating that the amount of information stored at that time was not high.

"This was more than 8,000 years ago, at the end of the reign of the Black King Nidhogg, when ancient human civilization had entered the Neolithic Age."

Mr. Turing waved his hand, and nearly a thousand bright spots appeared in the projection. The edges of the extremely large spots were connected by some thin lines. "This is a picture of the dragon civilization inferred based on the current relevant records. The authenticity of the data is unknown, so we will temporarily use a lower estimate of the information storage capacity."

"After a lot of analysis and calculation, I came to some conclusions that are not quite consistent with the current college textbooks: the dragons did not completely regard the humans at that time as slaves. On the contrary, they spread a lot of technology and culture to humans and even helped them build early civilizations."

Ange coughed twice and reminded, "The textbooks were changed two years ago, and new content on this aspect was added, which clearly pointed out that it was dragons who taught humans how to use tools and fire. The purpose was to explain that dragons might use benefits to lure hybrids, so don't be fooled by their promises."

"…Is there any archaeological evidence for this statement?" Mr. Turing questioned: "Except for the Chinese Suiren who drilled wood to make fire, other places seem to hold the view that 'the gods first gave fire to humans', such as Prometheus stealing fire in ancient Greek mythology."

"However, this can only reflect the early civilization's worship of natural spirits, and it does not necessarily mean that dragons taught this technology. There is no reliable historical record of things that happened tens of thousands of years ago."

"It is obvious that the author of this textbook selectively adopted unreliable 'historical materials' and used this clever method to reach the conclusion he needed."

"Textbooks don't have to be so rigorous..." Remembering that he was the editor-in-chief of the new version of the Dragon Clan History textbook, Angers pretended to lower his head and take a sip of wine, choosing to skip this topic: "Besides this, do you have any new discoveries?"

"Well... I have a more accurate estimate of the total number of ancient humans at that time. It was roughly around 1800 million, of which the dragon civilization area covered about 1600 million."

Mr. Turing explained: "There is no doubt that this number of humans, even if they were enslaved by the dragons, would not be enough to produce considerable value. The dragon nobles obviously mainly exploit the majority of civilian dragons - it is estimated that the number of civilian dragons is at least tens of millions."

"For the Dragon Clan civilization, which can build multiple transoceanic bridges and whose Kardashev Civilization Index may be between 0.9 and 1.2, the productivity of human civilization at the same time is only around 0.25, which is insignificant. The total amount of information storage is far from enough to affect the economic and cultural level of the former."

"In theory, humans should be a complete burden to dragons, almost useless, just like Country M is unwilling to accept immigrants from the Third World. Their power is simply not enough to overthrow the Black King's throne on their own, as the secret party has publicly stated."

Mr. Turing added: "In fact, I tend to think that there is probably a force in the dragon civilization that favors humans, and even protects and cultivates human civilization. Otherwise, given the situation where the White King persuaded humans to rebel, the brutal Black King would have killed them all long ago."

"Kill them all? Can dragons do that?" Ange didn't seem to approve of the existence of friendly dragons. "In my opinion, humans' tenacity and ability to survive are far beyond imagination. In desperate situations, they will always unleash new potential..."

"In any case, as a large animal, humans have limited ability to survive." Turing shook his head: "If human society today goes all out, we may not be able to exterminate all rats and cockroaches, but we can definitely exterminate all apes except humans."

"In the face of a powerful civilization that unified the world, ancient humans, in terms of survival ability, were probably not much different from apes - in many cases, it was the smaller creatures that were better able to survive those huge disasters."

"Therefore, there must be some reason why humans have survived to this day. A large amount of evidence, both explicit and implicit, points to the power behind the killing of the Black King, who protected and taught the ancient humans."

"If we can carefully check the data model of ancient history from beginning to end, we should be able to find more relevant evidence and discover evidence of the other party's real existence - this group of dragons may have been hiding among us all along."

After hearing this, everyone couldn't help but think deeply and began to re-examine their past cognition.

Zhao Qing, who had already guessed this, thought about it and asked his own question: "Mr. Turing, have you done any research on the seemingly slow development speed of the dragon civilization? Can the theory of information transmission and storage explain this?"

……

Increased to 5K
I feel dizzy and have a lot of things to do. I will update 6K later.
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Let's discuss the issue of civilization development and information history
Why haven't I seen other similar opinions?