Top academic

Zheng Xiwen had anticipated that he would still have to clean up Qiyue's mess, but he never expected it to be in this way.

He couldn't understand why a math problem presented by a computer could stump so many of the world's top mathematicians.

Although most of these mathematicians may be quite old and their thinking may not be as quick and sharp as when they were young, they have all mentored many students.

Qiao Yu and Zheng Xiwen explained, "The time was too tight. Actually, the problem wasn't that difficult. If they had about two weeks, they should have been able to find the final solution."

But my report will be in seven days, and by the time they see the July invitation, it will be about a day later, plus another day on the plane.

Add to that the need to book flights in advance, and there are only four days at most to resolve this issue. It's definitely asking too much.

While this explanation is quite reasonable, ultimately, these mathematicians were stumped by July.

Zheng Xiwen has considered that artificial intelligence may eventually surpass many jobs.

But he never imagined this would stump mathematicians. After all, the mathematical theories that construct July were all developed by mathematicians.

So even though July caused him some trouble again, he was increasingly less likely to underestimate July.

After all, this thing can even come up with math problems, which means July now has the right to look down on him...

The main reason is that spending a lot of time with Qiao Yu makes it easy to recall the fear of being dominated by mathematics during my high school years.

When I talk to July now, I can't help but recall the frustration I felt when I was learning functions, derivatives, and conic sections, and I just couldn't understand them no matter what...

Recently, abstract concepts have become popular again on the internet. Every time Zheng Xiwen sees this kind of content, he wants to suggest that netizens who like abstract concepts should just pick up a math book about functions and take a look.

The content described there is truly abstract. You don't need to look at anything too advanced, and it doesn't even involve advanced mathematics.

Just learn about composite functions, piecewise functions, extrema, and maximum/minimum value problems.

For example, let's explore why the cycle of 0.9 equals 1.

……

Perhaps because of the added filter of July, Zheng Xiwen was very cooperative in her work this time.

In just one day, we invited all the people who were supposed to be invited, according to the list sent by Mr. Tian.

This is not a simple matter at all.

Firstly, these mathematicians are located all over the world, and given their limited time, it's best to communicate through the most direct means rather than via email. Therefore, time differences must also be taken into account.

Secondly, there's the issue of setting exam questions in July. Therefore, some things need to be said tactfully, so as not to hurt the mathematicians' pride…

In short, July is not only good at posing difficult math problems, but also at posing difficult work problems to Zheng Xiwen.

Fortunately, Zheng Xiwen didn't complain this time. Mainly, he had a premonition.

There aren't many opportunities left for him to prove he's better than July. If July continues to grow for another six months to a year, he might not have that chance to prove himself anymore…

One day before the report meeting, the temporarily established organizing committee confirmed the list of attendees for Qiao Yu's report meeting, totaling 1237 people.

Among them were 838 mathematicians, and the rest were accompanying students and mathematicians' assistants.

This number is about half less than expected, but it doesn't matter.

Since July chose to send out invitations using a question-based selection process, it naturally had to be effective.

Zheng Xiwen, who witnessed the decision-making process behind the scenes in July, was deeply moved.

Only 573 mathematicians were able to obtain an invitation code by solving this problem within the specified time.

Of course, it remains questionable whether the more than 500 mathematicians solved the problem independently.

After all, this is an open-book exam, and there are no proctors yet.

Many mathematicians already have extensive exchanges with each other. Although, due to the rules, they may not give the answer directly, it is possible to discuss the thought process behind the key steps in a discussion format.

Zheng Xiwen also knew that more than 700 other mathematicians had probably arrived at the wrong answer.

This statistic comes from the organizing committee.

Because so many mathematicians called the Yanbei International Center for Mathematical Research to inquire why they hadn't received a reply even though they had solved the problem and sent an email to the correct address as instructed.

To be honest, comforting mathematicians who got these questions wrong is a real headache.

Especially when these mathematicians have a kind of inexplicable self-confidence, always feeling that they cannot be wrong.

Fortunately, Zheng Xiwen is not responsible for this kind of thing.

Over the years, the teachers at the research center who are responsible for handling these issues have accumulated a wealth of experience.

Moreover, this is when the benefits of being worldly-wise and shrewd become apparent.

Those who insist they are definitely right, or that the problem lies with the question itself, will usually fall silent once they hear the names of several mathematicians who have successfully solved the problem and received invitations to the competition.

After all, we're all intelligent people. People who hold the title of mathematician are definitely not stupid; what's truly worrisome is that some people are too smart.

In any case, the report meeting, which was decided on short notice, was prepared on time.

Although time was a bit tight, everyone had gotten used to Qiao Yu's pace of announcing big events all at once.

So everything proceeded in an orderly manner.

Not to mention that in recent years, Yanbei and Huaqing have frequently been visited by great mathematicians.

Qiao Yu doesn't like going out much, so people often take the initiative to come to her door to talk to her.

After a while, everyone got to know the temperaments of these mathematicians pretty well.

There were naturally no major problems with the reception.

Zheng Xiwen even felt that these mathematicians should not harbor any resentment.

Although Qiao Yu's decision to hold this conference was very hasty, Zheng Xiwen still felt that it would be the most important mathematics conference of this century, bar none.

It is even more important than the quadrennial mathematicians' congress. It is absolutely worth remembering by the people of the world for hundreds of years.

Even if one believes that civilization is still continuing, one should not and certainly will not forget this report meeting.

Although he doesn't understand mathematics, he understands people.

After listening to Qiao Yu and Tian Yanzhen's conversations so many times, he could roughly understand the profound impact that the mathematical foundations of creating July had on the world. It could be said that the future trajectory of human civilization was all contained in this report.

Therefore, anyone who can come here is extremely lucky. They will witness a historic event.

Qiao Yu was ultimately too reserved; he handled this high-level conference so hastily, leaving the mathematicians and peripheral staff only seven days to prepare…

If it were someone else, they would probably have announced it to the world six months in advance...

With this in mind, Zheng Xiwen became much more arrogant when receiving foreign mathematicians.

He decisively rejected all those impolite requests to meet with Qiao Yu before the report meeting.

Fortunately, most mathematicians who knew Qiao Yu were aware of his eccentricities.

I don't really like meeting and communicating with people before holding important presentations.

Even if we want to catch up, we should wait until after the report meeting.

This is actually understandable.

The content to be covered in the presentation is usually outlined in the invitation's summary. It's perfectly normal for mathematicians to review their work beforehand, fill in any gaps in their knowledge, or simply to avoid distractions.

Not to mention a top mathematician like Qiao Yu, whose rude habits are forgivable.

Therefore, many mathematicians, including Tao Xuanzhi, only discussed matters with familiar mathematicians after arriving in China, and would never make such a rude request.

Those who made such requests were mostly new mathematicians who weren't very familiar with Qiao Yu, or who were still some distance from the world's top mathematicians, or a few who liked to rely on their seniority...

Zheng Xiwen felt even less pressure to refuse people like this.

In particular, some people were invited because of Tian Yanzhen.

Sunday finally arrived. At 10:00 AM, the lecture began on time in the auditorium of the Centennial Hall of Yanbei University.

The second floor of the hall, which can accommodate more than 2,000 people, was not open, and the first floor was not fully occupied.

The school originally wanted to organize students to attend, but Qiao Yu refused.

In his view, it doesn't matter whether a lecture is full or not.

There's absolutely no need to have a group of students sitting in the back listening and dozing off.

After all, too many snorers can seriously affect the sleep of many mathematicians...

But in reality, when Qiao Yu stood on the stage of this report meeting, he energized all the mathematicians present.

Yes, at this report meeting, Qiao Yu did not sit there reading a prepared report into the microphone as usual, but stood there without holding anything in his hands.

"Thank you all for attending this special symposium held in memory of Mr. Lott Dugan."

As stated in the invitation, this lecture is both to commemorate Mr. Dugan's great contributions to the mathematics community and to share some of my latest research findings.

Otherwise, I'm afraid Professor Tao will continue to issue arrest warrants for me on his blog. After all, I'm not a celebrity, and I don't need to maintain my online popularity all the time.

The opening joke earned a knowing smile from the people in the front row.

Although many people are still dissatisfied that this report meeting required answering questions, they eventually swallowed their dissatisfaction when Qiao Yu was standing on the stage.

"At the host's suggestion, we have just observed a moment of silence for Mr. Dugan's passing. So I will now go straight to the main topic of today's report."

I will now pose a question to you, and I hope you will take a minute to think about it before we continue our presentation.

The question is, do you believe that mathematics can foster consciousness?

As Qiao Yu finished speaking, the mathematicians attending the conference began to look at each other in bewilderment.

Clearly, this is no longer a serious mathematical problem, but a philosophical one.

Wait a minute, the theme of this conference is metamathematics, but the first question is whether mathematics can give birth to consciousness?
When many mathematicians realized what was happening, their gazes involuntarily turned to astonishment, and they even began to whisper among themselves.

Fortunately, a minute passed quickly.

Qiao Yu didn't keep them in suspense any longer. She raised her hand to silence the audience before starting her self-answered questions.

"I believe everyone has already thought about this. To answer this question, we first need to define consciousness."

This is the most common method in mathematics. After all, without a definition, any proof is inaccurate.

But how do we define consciousness? This is a difficult problem in itself. I've pondered this question for a long time before realizing that consciousness, as a subjective thought process, is essentially impossible to define. Does this mean the problem is unsolvable?

Qiao Yu paused here, then shook her head firmly and continued, "I don't think so."

"Over the past thirty years, artificial intelligence technology has emerged. Its mathematical foundations include linear algebra, discrete mathematics, calculus, probability and statistics, as well as information theory, numerical analysis, and so on..."

However, none of these mathematical foundations can enable artificial intelligence to evolve further into general artificial intelligence, or strong intelligence, which is what we commonly call AGI.

The reason is that machines lack consciousness. Defining consciousness under this condition becomes quite simple.

Therefore, I define consciousness as an optimal choice that ignores all computational processes.

This might be a bit difficult to understand, so let me give you an example. For instance, a joke that has been popular online for a long time.

When a young man sees a woman who perfectly matches his aesthetic, he often says that in that instant, he has already thought of the name for his future son.

Did you all notice this process? When you meet your ideal partner, you can immediately imagine a blissful married life in your mind...

All processes are compressed, and human consciousness can select the most ideal and perfect prediction result in an instant.

This is where consciousness and mathematics most contradict each other. Mathematical problems all require rigorous reasoning, proof, and calculation, so solving a mathematical problem is a process, which is why mathematics is process-oriented.

However, the optimal choice of consciousness is often made instantly, compressing all intermediate steps and time. From this point of view, consciousness is a highly abstract representation, and its essence is result-oriented.

The former involves analyzing the problem, finding solutions, and ultimately arriving at a result. The latter involves first setting a target for the best possible outcome and then designing the process to achieve that outcome.

This is the core issue. With the current mathematical framework, it is indeed very difficult for us to design a truly intelligent system.

All artificial intelligence that is currently known to the public and frequently used is essentially just executing a pre-set algorithm process.

Is it possible to find a direction in mathematics that can be used to describe consciousness and become the theoretical basis for machine general knowledge in the future?

Professor Tao Xuanzhi asked me on his blog what I had been doing all these years I had disappeared. Well, that's my answer now: I've been thinking about that question, and I've already seen some results. (End of Chapter)