Chapter 105

When academician Ding heard their conversation, he turned back.

He sighed in a low voice: "do you think it's funny and powerless? These days, we have been discussing how to repair the technical problems left by our predecessors. But there are bigger hidden dangers around us, social and cultural ones. "

"There are many hidden dangers in our civilization. Ethnic conflicts, ideological conflicts, any small problem, can lead to a big problem. Even if the decision-makers know it, they don't know how to solve it.... "

"Do you know how much we paid to develop space? We can't stop development because of some hidden dangers. "

It's hard to predict what will happen in the next tens of thousands of years.

But what can we do? Without these people, how long will the development of Europa last?

Many people on earth may never know that some people are quietly paying for their good days.

Zhang Yuan sighed deeply and nodded.

The limitation of human beings' vision is only their own life. From the perspective of Informatics, the vast majority of political policies are arranged according to the "greedy algorithm", that is, the local optimal solution in the current state.

Future interests should make way for immediate interests.

It is beyond the limit of human wisdom to plan for thousands or tens of thousands of years.

He's not going to be sentimental about it. Even if he is allowed to be the decision maker himself, he can only choose in this way.

Since it exists, it must be reasonable.

The more complex and developed the civilization is, the less powerful the individual will be. Even if he is the leader of the coalition government, what can he do? In today's society, all kinds of forces have constraints on each other, and there are many things that can no longer be changed by one person.

Talking about this, elder martial brother Zhao suddenly said: "in terms of the future development, in the new civilization school, there is an abstruse and complex subject, which is still in the dream up to now, called new civilization historiography. I don't know if you have heard of it."

"New civilization historiography? History? " It's not the first time that Zhang Yuan has heard of this term, but he doesn't know much about it. His ears stand up curiously.

Zhao Qingfeng laughed, "this subject is very complicated. If we explain it in one sentence, we want to find the global optimal solution of civilization, rather than the simple greedy algorithm of calculating step by step."

"Let me give you an example. The development of civilization is very similar to the process of personal growth."

In ancient times, because of the poor living environment, as long as a teenager had a little strength, he would be pulled to work. Although it meets the current survival needs, it also kills the future interests. This kind of training method is called "local optimal solution strategy", which only considers the present, not the future.

In the modern environment, a teenager will receive compulsory education. Education seems to have no current benefits, it's just a pure effort. However, the knowledge learned will play a greater social value only when a person grows up and becomes an adult.

A person's life span is only a few hundred years, and there are a large number of samples. It is not difficult to plan as a whole and find a relatively good solution to the meaning of life.

But what about a civilization?

Civilization is a collective of all people. It has a very high degree of complexity. Its life span is thousands of years, which is completely beyond the life span of individual human beings. How to make overall planning?

But this is what new civilization historiography wants to study.

"At the beginning of the development of civilization, with a small population and backward science and technology, there was always a risk of premature death. It's the equivalent of human infancy. "

"Baby, you know? The world outlook and values are not yet mature. Therefore, a civilization is also the most malleable in its early stage of development. "

"What about us He inherited a great legacy. " Zhang Yuan said with a smile, "is it the kind of rich second generation baby?"

"You're right." Elder martial brother Zhao's expression became serious: "we certainly have a deeper foundation, which is equivalent to the second generation of rich people, but it doesn't mean that we can squander."

"What do you think is the most important thing for a civilization?"

"Technology, of course!" Zhang Yuan replied immediately.

Elder martial brother Zhao gave a smile and made an expression of "I knew you would say that".

Then he shook his head: "technology is the external skill of civilization. Do you know the external skill? As long as they are willing to work hard, they can be speeded up. "

Zhang Yuan frowned and said, "quick success? The development of science and technology is not so easy... "

"Quick success here refers to Xiaocheng. Some simple technologies, if not limited to patents, should not be difficult for other countries to imitate?"

"Well..." Zhang Yuan accepted this statement for the time being.

"For a civilization, what is more important is actually internal skills, including the human environment, political system, public ideology and so on. These things need to be cultivated slowly, and it is basically impossible to achieve quick success."

"These internal forces actually determine the upper limit of the development of science and technology, which is the key research content of new civilization historiography."Zhang Yuan has never been very interested in politics, but he knows a little bit about it because of the influence of various cultural courses in his university days.

For example, in some countries in South America and Africa, people's ideology tends to be hedonistic, and they are satisfied when they have enough to eat. Under this relatively lazy ideology, it is difficult for the whole country to develop, and it can only be used as a raw material producer.

In the East Asian cultural circle, people have a strong sense of hardship and are willing to fight for a better tomorrow, even for the happiness of the next generation. They can endure some hardships.

Therefore, in this humanistic environment, it is a historical necessity for these countries to go to the forefront of the world.

So, why is there a totally different cultural environment?

"The history of the new civilization you are talking about should be more liberal arts?"

"No! You're wrong. Its ultimate essence is mathematics! "

"Ah?" Zhang Yuan was surprised to stare, a little unclear.

Elder martial brother Zhao smiles According to the view of new civilization historiography, the inherent history of the whole civilization is divided into a large number of key nodes, each node contains the major historical accidents at that time. The history of the former node will have a certain impact on the latter node and the whole network. "

"You can think of it as a neural network."

This idea is very intuitive and easy for Zhang Yuan to understand.

"At the beginning of civilization, when there were few key nodes, the final output of the network was easy to be changed, that is, a single great man could have a very huge impact on it."

"But with the increase of population base, information and culture, there are more and more network nodes, and the influence of a single genius on the whole network will be smaller and smaller."