The Wallfacer: Everyone wants to break through my wall.

To avoid following in the footsteps of the Aries civilization, the Unified Department will not approve any battlefield exploration missions for Dis if he is unwilling to undergo mind transformation.

Chapter 345 Individual Will Is Not Free

A few days later, the exploration information that Dis brought back from Aries at the risk of his life was learned by a group of high-ranking members of the Unified Body, and the Taylor faction naturally had a copy as well.

"If the data collected by the sent explorers is accurate, then the technology used by the Taurus civilization will have been basically investigated."

"Professor Aitmin, what technology did the Taurus civilization use?" Lin Feng asked.

Aitmin replied, "Neuroscience."

Lin Feng was taken aback, then asked curiously, "Neuroscience? Isn't that only used in education and virtual reality? Can this technology be used as a means of attack?"

“Before I learned about the Taurus civilization’s use of force against the Aries civilization, my understanding was the same as yours,” Aitemin replied.

"Tell me in detail how the Taurus civilization accomplished this."

Aitemin reminded him, "The explanation is fine, but I can only give you a general outline. I can't explain the details. The Taurus civilization's brain science technology is clearly superior to ours."

"A general outline is fine. This kind of attack has shown me another layer of horror, and I now urgently want to understand in detail what is going on."

What Lin Feng wanted to know was the defense method against this faster-than-light attack. Compared to wormhole attacks, this kind of attack, which utilizes the speed of information transmission within a civilization, is the kind of attack that civilizations that have unlocked quantum entanglement real-time communication technology least want to face.

Civilization simply doesn't have time to take countermeasures because quantum entanglement transmits information in real time, and even if there are artificial information gaps in the middle, the gaps won't be significant.

"Before I can understand this blow to the Taurus civilization, I need to ask you a question," Etmin said.

Do you believe that individual will is free?

Lin Feng thought for a moment and replied, "Yes, humans possess wisdom and initiative. Individual will can even overcome the purest instinct of life, 'resistance to death'."

"As you know, life feeds on entropy, which leads to a resistance to death. This instinct is deeply rooted in the minds of all life in the universe, but humans can overcome it."

Aitemin's virtual avatar nodded, then shook its head and replied, "Your reasons are valid, but I regret to inform you that they are wrong. There is no such thing as free will; it is merely a puppet of information, reacting differently to different information received, including emotions, feelings, thoughts, cognition, and so on."

“Your traditional understanding of ‘learning’ is essentially a way of acquiring information to shape one’s thoughts. Information shapes one’s will and determines one’s actions, rather than one’s will enjoying freedom. The latter is completely illogical.”

Lin Feng fell into thought, and after a while asked, "Then what is the connection between this and the attack from the Taurus civilization? Did the Taurus civilization use this kind of information interference to destroy the Aries civilization?"

Aiteming said, "That's the principle, but it's very difficult to implement in practice. Everyone's standards of cognition are very different. That's why people with different views feel like they're looking at a stubborn idiot. This is the result of differences in personal will. If we compare this difference to the genetic level, it's equivalent to the difference between plants and animals."

"When you were still on Earth, did you ever see any germs infecting both animals and plants at the same time? No, right?"

For this reason, before understanding the Aries War, almost no one in the Unified Confederation had considered that neuroscience could be used as a means of attack on a civilizational level.

Lin Feng said, "But the Taurus civilization obviously succeeded. They successfully infected animals and plants. Well, it should be more than that. The Aries civilization had more than one intelligent species, but they were all destroyed in an instant. By analogy, they even infected inanimate things."

Aitemin nodded and replied, "Yes, the Taurus civilization did it. They used 'addiction' as a starting point and used audio information to interfere with the brains of Aries civilization members, inducing the brains to secrete 'addictive' pheromones, thus achieving control over individual will."

Upon hearing Aitmin's explanation, Lin Feng frowned and asked, "So, to the Aries people, that audio clip is equivalent to heroin or marijuana?"

Aitemin said, "It's even more outrageous than that. Can you imagine how addictive it would be if more than a million tons of marijuana and heroin were concentrated into a single drop? At least with drugs like marijuana, users have a brief window of time to calm down after using them. But this audio, designed by the Taurus civilization for the Aries civilization, has absolutely no such advantage. Aries people who have listened to the audio will not stop listening until they die."

"But if it's just addiction, the Aries civilization shouldn't be heading towards destruction, right?" Lin Feng asked doubtfully, then added, "At most, it's just an extreme dependence on the audio specially made by the Taurus civilization."

Aiteming said, "Yes, so the Taurus civilization added other syllables to the audio to stimulate Aries people, who will then exhibit a strong desire to share, a sense of accomplishment, and a sense of belonging."

"I can't understand it." Lin Feng shook his head.

After thinking for a moment, Aitmin explained it using an analogy.

"Let's put it this way. Suppose you're playing a competitive game and you keep losing badly, even getting mocked by the opposing player for 'playing the game with your feet.' You're sulking for days because of this. Then, you finally win a game, and coincidentally, the opposing player is the same one who mocked you before. At that moment, wouldn't you feel the urge to mock them back? Wouldn't you have the thought of slapping your win in their face and showing off?"

"The Aries' desire to share, sense of accomplishment, and sense of recognition are essentially manifestations of their personal will being interfered with by external information. When the Taurus civilization's audio reaches the Aries on the front lines, they will be eager to share this 'happiness' they have learned about with their family and friends, and they themselves will gain a great sense of accomplishment."

Lin Feng asked, puzzled, "Is it worth it? Don't any of the Aries realize that doing this will lead to the destruction of civilization?"

Aitman said, “A sense of responsibility for civilization also comes from personal will, and personal will has been controlled by information. There are many such examples on Earth. Some addicts are willing to kill their entire family in order to continue using marijuana. If you talk to them about responsibility, they will only talk to you about impulse.”

Lin Feng nodded in understanding. "If the Taurus civilization captures a sufficient number of atomic beings, we might end up like the Aries civilization. Do you have any good ideas?"

“To be honest, this kind of attack would be more effective against civilizations with less advanced technology and less efficient information transmission. It would only be very effective against civilizations that widely use quantum entanglement,” Aitmin replied.

Lin Feng shook his head. "High-tech civilizations in the universe must possess efficient means of information transmission. Such an attack would be extremely dangerous to any civilization capable of transmitting information efficiently."

"This time it's audio, what if it's images next time? We can't stop observing the universe, and being blind in the universe is even more dangerous."

Aitmin replied, “That’s true, but such attacks also have serious flaws. You don’t need to worry too much. If we can take precautions beforehand, do a good job of intelligence gathering, and maintain the existing strategic direction, it’s not a very serious problem.”

"What defect?" Lin Feng pressed.

Aitemin countered, "Don't you find it strange? We also listened to the audio from the Taurus civilization, so why are we unharmed? Have you thought about why?"

"I've thought about it, but I haven't figured it out," Lin Feng said.

Aitemin replied, "The reason is simple: the Taurus civilization's attacks were not targeted at us, so this highly targeted attack method was ineffective against us. In the Aries War, if the Taurus civilization had not fully collected data on all races of the Aries civilization, their attacks would have left behind a large number of survivors."

"At most, we can only severely damage it, not destroy the Aries civilization. The reason we can achieve that effect is ultimately due to the Taurus civilization's excellent intelligence gathering capabilities."

Lin Feng pondered for a moment and asked, "So, we should actively encourage those perverts to mate with other species?"

"I'm just providing you with information; how you make the decision is your job."

"Thank you, this has been a great help to me."

Lin Feng smiled and thanked the other party.

Chapter 346 It's never wrong to stay alive.

"No! I can't agree to this! How can we allow those mating maniacs to run rampant? Wouldn't the Atomist society descend into chaos if that continued?"

“A single race has obvious weaknesses. If the unified entity were to suffer an attack similar to that of the Aries civilization, the consequences would be devastating. Our unified entity needs a greater diversity of complex intelligence.”

The Council of Ten debated whether ingrained mating beliefs should be changed to encourage the reproduction of Atoms and other organisms.

Clearly, this behavior is highly disruptive to traditional values. Not only would humans find it unacceptable, but many Trisolarans would also find it unacceptable.

Among the ten members of the council, only one representative from the Earth government supported the idea. She advocated guiding public opinion and encouraging all Atomians to accept this new concept of reproduction, which would not only add a layer of security to the unified entity but also enrich the ideology and culture of Atomian society.

She believes this is a result of the development of civilization, an inevitability of progress, and that the barriers between species will inevitably be broken down with the development of civilization, including reproductive isolation.

Since this is inevitable and beneficial to the overall civilization, the unified entity should not go against the inevitable trend of civilizational progress, but should actively embrace it.

The opponents simply cannot accept this kind of thing; from their perspective, it's just too outrageous.

Imagine you're walking down the street and someone suddenly strikes up a conversation with you. You refuse, and they reveal that they just wanted to connect with a certain cell in your body...

If we extend our thinking further, imagine you reject someone's advances on behalf of your own cells, and then you're accused of depriving your own cells of their freedom to marry, suddenly becoming utterly wicked...

If left unchecked, and even supported and guided, what kind of chaos would the Atomic Human Society descend into? The representatives of the opposition dared not even imagine.

Regarding the audio attacks of the Taurus civilization, the representatives of the opposing side believe that there should be other ways to defend against audio attacks besides accepting this new concept of reproduction, and it is not necessary to choose to accept this reproduction method that they consider outrageous and radical.

Because this is just too... well, you know.

The Martian government representative said, "We can't be too hasty. Think about it, what kind of impact would the atomization of a large number of unfamiliar intelligent species have on the atomized society? There must be individuals among them whose thoughts are very different from those of humans and the Trisolarans. What if they want to break through the information blockade of civilization? Don't be naive enough to think that they won't do it!"

"How could you be so sure they would do that?" the Earth government representative retorted.

A representative from the Space City Federation stated, "Because they are different from humans and the Trisolarans, we don't understand them! One of their parents was a completely brainless animal! How can we guarantee their intelligence?"

“That’s an education issue. As long as we do a good job of education, there’s nothing we can’t accept. Intelligent species are essentially the same as animals, just more intelligent than ordinary animals. In reality, they are not superior at all and are also subject to the law of the jungle,” the Earth government representative argued.

The argument went on without reaching a conclusion. Neither Davis, representing the Taylor faction, nor Suzumiya, representing the Trisolarans, expressed their opinions on this matter. Lin Feng was still hesitant about whether or not to support this new concept of reproduction.

Don't underestimate this as just a matter of reproduction; it may actually involve peaceful evolution. If one day humans no longer have a place in the unified entity, what is the point of its existence?

This is a very important matter...

At this moment, one of the five representatives of the Three-Body Problem spoke.

"Perhaps we can take a compromise approach. The core of everyone's resistance to this is that they cannot accept that one of the mating partners is not intelligent. If that's the case, then let's give non-intelligent beings intelligence, so that they can have normal thinking abilities like atomic beings. Wouldn't that be better?"

For a moment, the meeting fell silent.

……

"Wow... these people really shocked me."

After learning about the meeting's contents from Liang Gong, Lin Feng sighed in this way.

The virtual version of Liang Gong couldn't help but roll its eyes at Lin Feng, complaining that he had included it in his story.

"Isn't this exactly what you wanted?"

"That's true, but I never thought about giving intelligence to non-intelligent beings. I thought at most it would just be about contact with low-tech intelligent beings and then producing offspring."

Lin Feng guessed that someone would definitely propose accepting the new reproductive method before him.

Lin Feng wasn't the only one affected by the destruction of the Aries civilization, and Aitmin of the Taylor system wasn't the only one in the Unified Body with in-depth research in the field of brain science. The solution Aitmin proposed was something that others could naturally come up with as well.

"So, is this not appropriate?" The girl blinked and looked at Lin Feng.

Lin Feng shook his head. "No, this is more suitable than the one I envisioned. There is no strategic need for sufficient concealment, and contact with low-tech civilizations also carries the risk of exposure."

Originally, Lin Feng's plan was to make contact with those individuals from civilizations still in the era of cold weapons and the Stone Age, using nature worship to create deities as a disguise, thereby mate safely.

This approach seems inferior to the one proposed by the Council of Ten, since it still requires contact with some civilizations, and there is no strategy that allows for refusing to contact anyone.

The approach proposed in the Council of Ten is clearly more suitable for a strategy that does not exist.

As for the potential risk of peaceful evolution, since the Council of Ten is so confident that it can suppress it, Lin Feng naturally has nothing to worry about. After all, they are professionals in administration, while he is not even an amateur.

Suzumiya's thoughts drifted to the future, contemplating the Trisolaran civilization of the past and the unified entity of the present. Suzumiya felt utterly lost about the future.

If millions of years had passed, what would the unified entity have become?

"Random passerby, if we continue down this path, what will become of our future?" Liang Gong couldn't help but ask Lin Feng.

Seeing the confusion in the girl's eyes, Lin Feng smiled calmly, "Don't feel guilty. But no matter what, it's never wrong to let civilization continue. Civilization must first survive before considering anything else becomes meaningful."

"It seems I've disturbed you."

Edith's virtual form appeared beside the two, her gaze sweeping over them.

Lin Feng didn't take it seriously, and instead shamelessly asked, "No, you've come at just the right time. Want to join us?"

"I'm not going to joke with you. We have serious business to discuss now." Edith rolled her eyes at Lin Feng, handed him a report, and then said seriously, "Feng, the Taurus civilization has made a new move. They have left Aries. Judging from their flight path in the Dark Domain, they intend to leave the Milky Way."

"Leave the Milky Way? Leave them all?" Lin Feng was taken aback.

Edith nodded and said seriously, "That's right. Sophon did not observe that they intended to establish a colony in Aries. What was originally thought to be a large-scale preparation of supplies for establishing a colony was actually preparation for leaving Aries."