Chapter 427 "I"
Qi Nian and a group of ghosts surrounded a tall man.
He stood quietly on the street, spread his hands, and keys appeared one after another.
"You succeeded."
Another male voice appeared from the corner of the street.
Xun Weimo walked out slowly.
He looked at this familiar yet unfamiliar former companion, and for a moment, he couldn't find any better words.
The tall man turned to look at him, it was Bai Yanren.
Xun Weimo smiled helplessly, looked at the ghost figures behind Bai Yanren, and asked: "Until now, I still don't know whether you are a human or a ghost, and what you are doing."
Bai Yanren opened his mouth slightly and whispered: "It's not important."
He seemed to feel that he couldn't be so heartless, so he added: "If you want to know, you can follow me and take a look together."
Needless to say, Xun Weimo had the same plan.
I have been living in confusion these past few years. Fog Ji, Fog Realm, and Nine Hells were all in vain in the end, or in other words, it was a well-planned conspiracy from beginning to end.
The source of this plan is the man in front of me——
Baiyan people.
Xun Weimo followed him, and the two of them walked slowly on the streets of Yecheng.
As time goes by, one or two of the ghosts surrounding Bai Yanren will occasionally explode like broken bubbles at a certain moment and turn into mottled fragments, sinking into the ground little by little until they disappear.
"What do you think I am?"
Bai Yanren suddenly asked.
"You?"
Xun Weimo was stunned for a moment, then smiled helplessly: "This question is more like what I want to ask."
"What I am talking about is [my] thoughts."
Bai Yanren stopped and turned to face Xun Weimo, his pupils glowing slightly white.
In Xun Weimo's eyes, the world turned upside down and the day changed. In an instant, he was brought to a "new world".
"Since the birth of life, consciousness has been in a state of chaos, and there is no consciousness of birth [I]."
"Why did [my] consciousness arise? Did it emerge naturally after a certain period of time, or was it artificially shaped through acquired education?"
Bai Yan waved his hand, and all kinds of reptiles, birds, flowers, plants, and trees appeared in the vast white sky and land instantly...
"Before the consciousness of [I] is born, does it mean that [I] can be an insect, a bird, a plant, or any kind of life form?"
Bai Yan seemed to be talking to him, but he also seemed to be talking to himself.
Xun Weimo was extremely shocked by his strange method. Who is Bai Yanren? god?
But he quickly calmed down and shook his head: "Human beings have done experiments a long time ago. There are only a few species with self-awareness, and their self-understanding is far from the level of humans."
"So, at least the birth of self-awareness is not exclusive to the human species, right?"
This is what Bai Yanren wants.
Xun Weimo opened his mouth and was speechless.
The standard for humans to judge whether a life has self-awareness is usually to subject them to a series of experiments, the most famous of which is the "mirror test", that is, whether they can recognize themselves in the mirror.
In this experiment, elephants, dogs, orangutans, dolphins, and even pigs, which are generally considered stupid by humans but are actually quite smart, were able to pass the mirror test and recognize themselves in the mirror.
Self-awareness, or self-knowledge, is indeed not exclusive to humans.
"Then... the shaping of acquired education is impossible..." Bai Yanren murmured. "So, I think all species have the possibility of developing self-awareness, but... they each require different times."
Bai Yanren waved his hand, and an ant appeared out of thin air on his hand.
"For example, it."
"If it takes two to three years for human beings to start self-awareness, then the time they need may be one year, ten years, or a hundred years."
"In other words, this species will not be able to usher in the day of self-recognition until the end of its life cycle, but it is not that they cannot start."
Bai Yanren's expression became very strange. He observed the ant in his palm and spoke in a low voice, as if he was afraid of disturbing it: "If... there is such an ant, it breaks the lifespan limit of the species and ushered in the new year. How do you feel when you start to understand yourself? ”
Xun Weimo's expression was even more complicated, and he was simply puzzled.
He first looked at Bai Yanren, then looked at the ants in Bai Yanren's hands, and asked: "This question is meaningless. All life forms have race life limits. If according to what you said, this life form will open itself up." The time of cognition is after the lifespan of the race, which means that this race is destined to be unable to realize self-knowledge and be unable to develop spiritual intelligence.”
"Besides, breaking the lifespan limit is impossible in itself. If it is broken, it will no longer be an ant. Its life essence has changed. Maybe... it is a god among ants?"
"Ant..."
"God..."
Xun Weimo's voice became smaller and smaller. He looked at Bai Yanren and suddenly understood something. A creepy feeling that had not appeared for a long time quickly spread from the bottom of his heart to all parts of his body.
Could it be said that Bai Yanren is...
Bai Yanren was thoughtful.
He waved his hand again, and the ants disappeared, and the sky and earth in front of Xun Weimo turned white again.
"Once upon a time, there was such a place."
Bai Yanren said softly.
"Life also existed in that world, but the life system in that world was very weird. It only gave birth to a few sporadic species."
Following Bai Yanren's words, earth-shaking changes took place before Xun Weimo's eyes!
Clumps of gray-white grass quickly spread out on the ground. At the same time, a dazzling sapling stood alone on the vast flat grassland, growing rapidly at a speed visible to the naked eye, with its horny dragon-like root system penetrating deeply. The earth, branches and leaves instantly blocked the sky and the sun, which is unimaginable.
"It is called the mother tree. In the eyes of life in this world, it takes root in the earth and absorbs nutrients."
"Actually, its roots are rooted in another world, that is, the level of laws of the human world. The nutrients it absorbs are also a kind of energy that is completely invisible to living bodies in the human world. Humans call it emotions."
"Happiness, anger, sadness, joy, greed, anger, ignorance, resentment..."
"The explosion in the number of human beings has brought about an overflow of emotional energy, which is manifested in another world...the birth of a new life form."
"They are born from the overflowing human emotions absorbed by the mother tree. They have a human-like appearance, but they are also strange, perhaps because the overflowing emotions themselves are extreme products."
Under Bai Yanren's voice, faded and twisted human bodies appeared on the giant tree one by one, like reptiles.
Moreover, their number is increasing, gradually occupying every part of the mother tree, and even falling off the tree and landing on the gray-white meadow.
"Let me ask you."
Bai Yanren suddenly stopped talking.
He stared directly at Xun Weimo.
"These twisted human forms have no self-awareness, and their life cycles are also very short. In human terms, they live and die."
"But..."
"What if one of them lived a full day and developed self-awareness?"
(End of chapter)