My Little Pony: My Little Pony The Martian

AMICITAS Mission Three – Mission Day 309

ARES 3 solar day 305

"If you dare to break a piece of this thing," Fireball stood up and stood between Starlight Glimmer and the rainbow crystal on the wall, "I will fight you to the death."

"Can't you give in? Really." Starlight hummed disdainfully and walked around the self-proclaimed guardian of sacred objects. "I have to get closer and take a closer look. Besides, it doesn't look like they are going to disappear anytime soon." It looks like. Judging from the photos taken by Mark, they are still spreading."

This is indeed the case. After carefully examining the photos of the rainbow crystal that Mark had taken in the previous three or four days, they discovered that for some unknown reason, the changing colors that initially rippled on the surface of the crystal were now beginning to spread toward other unaffected crystals—the current The rate of diffusion affects a new row of crystals roughly every three days. The rate of spread is uneven; larger chunks of crystal, such as those about the size of Starlight's torso, take days to fully transform, but smaller chunks of crystal the size of a Mark's finger seem to transform completely overnight, Maybe even faster.

Just before Starlight activated the magic field projection device to prepare for a three-minute ambient magic treatment, Mark took another photo. He will take another photo later to compare and see whether the presence of the environmental magic field will cause visible changes to any crystals. At the same time, Starlight also needs to detect whether there is some type of enchantment in the crystal, and there is not much time left for them. They are in urgent need of recharging the battery, so the use of the magic field must not be excessive.

Starlight gently pushed Cocoon aside so that she could stand directly in front of the crystals. She noticed that the cocoon in front of her left a shadow of unaffected crystal behind it, but compared to the day she used the magic shock to produce this rainbow effect, the area of ​​​​the shadow was already larger. Significant shrinkage. No matter how you describe the phenomenon, the infection is spreading inward as it grows outward.

Then she took a deep breath and focused her vision on one of the crystals, peering through the surface to see the possible enchantment array within the crystal.

And...it is true that there is something inside, but even in her long-term obsessive research on magic, she has never seen any enchantment array similar to the one in front of her at this moment.

The first characteristic of the enchantment array is its orderliness - usually the shape is a circle, but sometimes it also involves triangles or more complex geometric patterns. Highly complex enchantments may have several loops or layers of superimposed design patterns that are cross-linked or coaxially arranged, and the patterns may be partially overlapping or entangled. But even so, if you have enough patience, you can definitely see the logic of the design itself; if you understand the relevant magic knowledge, you can deduce its design purpose.

However, staring at the enchantment inside the rainbow crystal in front of him seemed like he was trying to figure out how to smooth out a pot of noodles that was as big as an entire restaurant. Or maybe they were worms, because a few clumps just at the edge of Starlight's attention seemed to be moving out of her field of vision. After observing another piece of crystal, she turned back to look at the previous piece. In just a short moment, the scene she saw was completely different.

There is no logic to this mess. Absolutely, definitely, meaningless.

Then the magic field closed, and the chaotic scene disappeared from her eyes. She refocused her energy and mobilized her magic energy reserves to try again... What she saw was still the veins intertwined like noodles. They mocked her powerlessness wantonly, showing off their disarray and showing off...

…Their disorder.

"Hey, Starlight?" Mark's voice cut off the chaotic thoughts in her mind, "Can you move aside temporarily? Otherwise, a photo of your butt will appear in a certain scientific research document."

Starlight didn't pay attention to Mark's vulgar remarks. The epiphany was at this moment, and she would not miss such a great opportunity. "Give me a space suit," she said. "It's time to talk to the family."

AMICITAS: Amicitas calls Maltimore, uses the starlight space suit to reply, completed.

ESA: Maltimore calls Amicitas, over.

AMICITAS: I need to talk to Discord, and I need it now. complete.

ESA: Please repeat that, over.

AMICITAS: Starlight - Repeat, I need to talk to Discord. complete.

ESA: Twilight - are you crazy? ! You also know that we are trying to keep Discord as far away from any space centers as possible!

DISCORD: That's so rude of you. Think about it, you have one of the dearest and most sincere friends like me, but you don't allow me to help.

ESA: Twilight – how did you get in? complete.

DISCORD: Oh, Twilight, it's better if I don't answer that question for you. Telling you the answer will only make you angry. And God knows how busy you have been preparing for the launch of Angel 11 recently. It's all in the newspapers, right?

AMICITAS: Discord, we have a weird enchantment thing here. Have you paid attention to our situation recently? complete.

DISCORD: Needless to say, Fluttershy would tell me about this and that happening at our weekly tea party, and then we would also talk about it at game nights with Spike, Big Mac, and Rainbow Dash, and of course I would attend. A cooperative group for villains to reform their evil ways, and also meet Queen Cocoon.

ESA: Twilight – he made that last one up. Cocoon is currently on Concordia on an Angel Probe recovery mission. complete.

AMICITAS: Whatever you say. Previously, we used all the magic energy we had here to spray at the dragonfly's cocoon, injecting enough energy into her to call her out of the cocoon. It worked, but it turned the crystal behind her into a color-changing crystal, and the effect was still spreading slowly. There was a very ugly enchantment inside, which looked like all the reptiles in the world had turned into magic energy and occupied every crystal. Do you know anything about this? complete.

DISCORD: Sorry, I haven't studied this aspect. I can't even directly observe the universe you live in - Twilight has asked me before. All I can say now is that in your place there is no difference between order and chaos. The dependence on the initial state is weakened by quantum uncertainty. It's a boring place, absolutely dead. But I can...

ESA: Twilight—Discord? What can be done? complete.

AMICITAS: Out of order, communication check, completed.

DISCORD: Want me to guess?

AMICITAS: Okay, done.

DISCORD: Ask your friend if he knows about "emergent properties". This does not belong to the chaotic realm that I generally understand, but I am still willing to be exposed to new things from time to time.

AMICITAS: Got it, "emergent properties." Thank you, Discord, for your help. complete.

DISCORD: Oh, it's so nice to be appreciated! I don't get many opportunities like this. By the way, it’s time to get back to work and spread random behavior and strange coincidences everywhere! Goodbye!

ESA: I think he should go down, over.

AMICITAS: Not yet, it’s over.

DISCORD: Got off. complete.

AMICITAS: Thank you both. End of Amicitas newsletter.

"Give me the dictionary," Starlight said, dragging her suit out of the mud. "I want to make sure the translation of this word is exactly right."

After everyone sitting around watched her tinkering in front of the computer for five minutes out of pure curiosity, she finally spoke, "Chaos asked me to ask you if you have heard of 'emergent properties'. I am not wrong, right?" Is it some kind of nature that comes out of something?”

"Well," Mark changed his stance, "You have a guy there named Chaos?"

"It's hard to explain," Starlight replied. "A better way to say it is that there is a guy who is Chaos. The name Chaos is not translated correctly, but his title is 'Lord of Chaos'. He has the ability to make the impossible happen. Randomly happening around him — the kind of stuff that really makes no sense at all.”

"He's very evil," Cherry Berry looked frightened. It occurred to Starlight that Berry hadn't allowed herself to show fear that many times while they were trapped on Mars.

"He's a nuisance," Spitfire muttered.

"He is so scary," Tingting shrank down and lowered her voice, as if she thought he might appear out of thin air at any time and at any time.

Fireball just shrugged, "I haven't seen him."

"Okay... okay," Mark was confused by their reaction, "but what do you know about chaos as a natural force?"

"What?! Chaos is not natural at all!" Starlight retorted, "Chaos is... the opposite of harmony? Chaos is disintegrating! Some ponies have tried to study chaos before, and they were driven crazy in the end! Chaos even He also carries a small card with him to warn Pony not to study him again!"

"So, I just don't know," Mark said. "Okay. I'll try to explain it as simply as possible. Humans are the only species on our planet that have the ability to express abstract thoughts in the form of language and pass them down from generation to generation. And The abilities of many other animals are close—whales, certain squids, elephants, gorillas, chimpanzees, parrots, etc.—but still a little behind. For decades, human scientists have been exploring The reason behind it.”

"Then we finally made a discovery, but the results were very different from what we expected; our brains were not intentionally designed to be intelligent and autonomous. Self-awareness is just a by-product of the complexity of our brains. Even now, we are completely incapable of pointing to a cluster of neurons and saying with certainty, 'This means he is thinking about so-and-so' and so on."

"Okay...so you want to say that those crystals can think now?" Xingguang asked tentatively.

"No, no," Mark explained. "What I'm trying to say is that consciousness and the ability to think abstractly are emergent properties. They are the unexpected products of an extremely complex system. You can't just judge it based on its composition. It’s the parts of the system itself that make valid predictions about them. It’s the way the parts of the system interact with each other that collaboratively create them.”

"I still don't understand." Starlight was defeated.

"Let me give you an example," Mark thought for a moment, "About, uh, more than forty years ago, a group of scientists built a bunch of small robots that could rewire their own internal circuits - don't ask. My theory is, I haven't studied robots. Those robots also have built-in radio receivers. If the robot can accurately detect a broadcast on a specific frequency, it gets a reward. But the scientists don't tell the robot what to do. . They just stood aside and watched, letting the robots start guessing. Whoever guessed the result closest to the answer would become the template for the next generation of robots, and so on. After iterations passed a hundred generations of robots - they would guess every A new batch of robots will be built in about a day - these robots will already have the ability to accurately detect the specified signal 98% of the time, will not be confused with other signals, and will not cause false alarms when there is no signal. .”

"But here's the kicker. They looked at the results of the last generation. These robots developed about a dozen different methods to achieve the same goal. None of them were approaches that a human designer would take. . There are also several solutions that, in the opinion of scientists, should not even work at all. As a result, half of the solutions scientists cannot understand the working principle at all. These robots were constructed entirely by chance. The solutions to the problem—the final solutions—were all the product of guesswork, failure, and garbage programming cycles, a tangled maze of circuits and code that no one could untangle.”

Mark shook his head regretfully when he said this. "I may have remembered some details wrong," he said. "I was still in college when I heard this story last time. But in short, this is a living example of emergent nature. .Depending on the perspective of understanding, randomness can lead to order. Even the simplest set of rules may produce unexpected results when run. In fact, all life forms in our world come from a set of operations. Simple rules that have been in place for countless years.”

The ponies moved forward one after another, their weight shifting causing the earth under their hooves to crunch, echoing in the cave that was so quiet that you could hear a needle drop. "You mean," the shocked Starlight murmured softly, "that you humans—your entire world—are based on chaos?"

"I've said it before," Dragonfly said, "This is a free and eternal universe."

"Of course, it's based on many other things," Mark said, "Chaos is just an explanation we put forward." Then he tilted his head and asked, "But how can this be related to what we want to do? "

Starlight relayed the phenomena she observed in the crystal to everyone.

"Aha," Mark replied after listening to her explanation, "your friend Chaos is telling you the production mechanism of those rainbow crystals. The magic energy you played before must have accidentally placed some random enchantments on the crystals. At least one of them can replicate itself."

Starlight looked at the crystals again, looking a little horrified, "They... they're alive???"

Mark thought about it for a moment. "Starlight, I don't know what you ponies think, but humans have been discussing this topic for hundreds of years, and we have never been able to come up with a definition of life that satisfies everyone. However, These crystals obviously cannot be counted as living bodies. There is no breathing, eating or excretion, and no reproduction behavior. This kind of enchantment itself may be qualified to be called life, but in this way the computer program can also be included in the category of living bodies. He became proud when he said this and added, "Speaking of which, we have also written science fiction stories with this theme."

"You can't comfort me even by saying this!"

Mark shrugged, "The real question is, will it have any adverse effects?" He pointed to the light source on the ceiling and said, "What will happen if these rainbows later spread to the sun lamps above?" He added Pointing at the fireball, "Is it dangerous to let him eat the rainbow crystal?"

"I'm not going to try," Fireball replied resolutely. "Let's go deep into the cave, cut up all the crystals I need to eat until the launch, and bring them to the habitation cabin quickly. After this, there will be no problem."

"Finally," Mark continued, "will these rainbows have an impact on plants? We now know that they don't actually emit light on their own, at least not in the visible light band..."

Starlight nodded. “I see what you mean,” she replied. “It’s time for science.”

"Yes," Mark nodded, "Magical science."