223: Chapter 223: Are Humans the First Intelligent Beings in the Universe?

"My first question, it might be complex, or it might not be complex, it might even be a bit childish."

Academician Chen's gaze was extremely sharp, as if he wanted to see through this question into Jiang Zhe's vision and understanding.

In fact... Jiang Zhe's written exam questions were entirely at the level of an Academician.

The current so-called assessment was just testing whether Jiang Zhe truly possessed the vision and thought process he displayed during the daytime answering session.

Therefore, neither Professor Sun, nor Professor Zhou, Academician Fang, or Academician Chen wanted to repeat complex concepts; instead, they wanted to chat, and through chatting, confirm that Jiang Zhe's level was genuine and valid!

"Student J, with your current understanding and vision, what role do you think we humans play in the universe?"

Once this question was asked, the netizens were stunned at first, and then filled with confusion.

"Ah? Is this question a joke?"

"Isn't it a bit too casual? A postdoc being asked this? It feels like just chatting."

"How do you answer this? It's a philosophical question, where is the standard answer?"

"Yeah, it completely depends on personal opinion and the ability to BS. Is Academician Chen trying to see the brother's perspective?"

"Feels harder to deal with than those professional questions. If you go too deep, it's very mysterious; if you go too shallow, it's really boring!"

"..."

Inside the villa. Jiang Zhe in front of the computer also frowned, slightly surprised.

The other party isn't playing with professional data, isn't asking about frontier concepts, but is asking such a seemingly vague question?

Is this Academician Chen trying to test my cosmology, or does he want to hear my enlightenment?

After a long while, he nodded. This was actually a bit interesting.

"The role of humans in the universe."

"Academician Chen, before answering directly, perhaps we need to first mutually understand a background—how unusual it is that we can exist here and start thinking with this question as a starting point."

"The universe was born about 13.8 billion years ago. From the initial chaotic heat, to gradual cooling, matter slowly gathered under gravity to form the first batch of galaxies."

"The Milky Way, where we humans on Earth are located, is one of them—800 million years after the birth of the universe, the structure of the Milky Way began to appear. It is very old, so old that some of its stars are almost as old as the universe itself."

"And we live on the surface of a rocky planet orbiting a middle-aged star on one of the spiral arms of such an ancient galaxy."

He paused for a few seconds and continued to speak:

"The Earth we live on formed about 4.6 billion years ago; the early Earth was a purgatory, until it slowly cooled down and oceans began to appear."

"Then, in the hot springs in the deep sea or some water-rich environments, after countless random chemical reactions and energy coincidences, finally, about 3.8 billion years ago, the first molecule capable of self-replication and information transmission appeared—that is, the starting point of life."

Speaking of this, he nodded slightly, his eyes sharpening, "Please note, it took nearly ten billion years from the birth of the universe to the stabilization of the Milky Way; it took hundreds of millions of years from the formation of the Earth to the appearance of life. And this is just [appearance]."

"After that, the evolution of life was even more treacherous; it took nearly two billion years from the simplest life to eukaryotic cells; these 2 billion years were enough for humans to ascend to god-like technology."

"And life, it was just from single-celled to multi-celled, that was another threshold that took hundreds of millions of years."

"Every critical evolutionary leap of life required extremely harsh environments and rare genetic mutations, as well as the [luck] to survive in the center of a nuclear explosion!"

"During the five mass extinctions, countless branches of life completely disappeared."

"It wasn't until a few million years ago that the lineage to which humans belong began to show the use of tools and the growth of brain capacity."

"Recorded history is only a few thousand years, and the Industrial Revolution was only a few hundred years ago."

"Academician Chen, looking at this process: from the beginning of the universe to the maturity of the galaxy, to the planet being in place, to the germination of life, to the birth of intelligent civilization..."

"Every link is the absolute premise of the next link, and every link itself, on the scale of the universe, is very fragile and full of accidents."

"Life that can reflect on itself and build complex civilizations, under the physical laws and cosmic environment known to humans at present, is more like [an accident] that needs the goddess of luck to favor it at all times!"

Speaking to this point, his tone gradually deepened, "Understanding this difficulty and rarity is perhaps the key starting point for understanding our own role, and answering another famous puzzle—[why we seem unable to see/hear traces of other intelligent existence in the universe]."

At this time, Academician Chen's eyes were focused, and his body sat straighter.

"So, back to your initial question; in front of such a miraculously born and long-lonely evolving universe, what role do humans play?"

"I think we are likely to be such a role—"

"In this vast starry sky of the universe, which has just been prepared for billions of years to nurture complex life, we are the first batch to successfully ignite self and cognition, and start trying to illuminate the darkness and dispel confusion..."

"Pioneer."

Speaking to this point, he nodded solemnly, "Yes, we humans are the pioneers of the universe, and we are the first batch of pioneers!"

This conclusion did not have the imagination he used when telling Xiao Yu in the past, only cold, real data that existed relying on reality.

The people in the live broadcast room were completely surprised by these cold data from Jiang Zhe.

Before, they thought the universe was really lively, but from the actual point of view, especially looking at the cold data and the birth of life...

The universe, maybe, only has humans???

In the living room, Xiao Yu subconsciously covered her mouth.

In the Huaqing University dormitory, Ouyang Baili nodded slowly, "Very realistic!"

In Principal Fu's office, Old Yu said in surprise: "Pioneer... and the first batch?"

In the frame.

Academician Chen was also stirred by this answer.

These words were the most real historical observation data and the data that humans possessed.

But soon, he shook his head, "Student J, please continue your theory of pioneers, what does it have to do with the silence presented by this universe?"

Jiang Zhe looked at Academician Chen, nodded, and responded: "The connection lies right here, Academician Chen."

"The silence of the universe we perceive, the most reasonable explanation might be hidden in our status as pioneers."

"If the emergence of intelligent civilization is a small probability among small probabilities, then their distribution in space and time must be sparse and rare, and there must be an order of precedence."

"We humans are likely the first batch."

"Therefore, silence is not the result, but the cause—precisely because we are the first batch, we are necessarily in the emptiness of silence; we cannot hear a response, not because the universe has no other voices, but because our clock is running at the very front."

"And precisely because of this," he nodded slightly and continued: "Any information we send to deep space at this moment, after spanning unimaginable time, its nature will change."

"For latecomers, that is, future civilizations, what they discover will no longer be a greeting of the here and now, but will become an archaeological discovery for them—proving that in the distant past, there once existed a civilization called [Earth]."

"So, the true meaning of a pioneer is to wake up the earliest, ask questions in the absolute silence of the universe, and use all the evidence of one's own existence to mark the first scale on the cosmic timeline for all latecomers."

Speaking to this point, Jiang Zhe narrowed his eyes, his expression becoming more intense, "Academician Chen, and we humans are that first scale!"