CHAPTER 892: CHAPTER 137 THE GRAVITY OF REALITY

Evolutionary pressure, or selective pressure, can be considered the pressure exerted by external forces on the evolutionary process of an organism, thereby altering the direction of this process. The so-called "survival of the fittest in natural selection" means that nature exerts selective pressure on organisms, allowing those who adapt to the natural environment to survive and reproduce.

Selective pressure is precisely one of the driving forces of evolution.

Yawgmoth grinned: "This question isn’t that difficult, after all. Evolutionary pressure, besides changes in climate and environment, mostly comes from other species or other individuals within the same population. The enemies, prey, other species within the same ecological niche, and every individual competing for mating rights within a population are all sources of evolutionary pressure. Much of evolution comes from ’competition between species.’

Moreover, evolution also has significant path dependence. For example, once an organism enters a parasitic niche, it mainly binds its fate to its host species and rarely detaches. But if a dramatic change occurs in a planet’s environment, the originally thriving populations will suffer a severe blow — like an asteroid strike. In such cases, surviving species with evolutionary potential will begin to diverge, occupying the vacated ecological niches.

I even think that in the last three hundred thousand years, the evolutionary pressure on the ancestors of humans, already ’large predatory animals,’ comes more from within the species itself!"

Ingrid nodded: "Makes a lot of sense."

Only Xiang Shan sighed: "Too unromantic."

Xiang Shan genuinely hoped for a civilization so dedicated to the stars to exist.

At least with such a civilization, the universe wouldn’t be too lonely.

After this casual chat, Ingrid and David submitted their routine reports. Of course, both were very loyal, specially thanking Yawgmoth and Xiang Shan for their contributions in this brainstorming session.

Besides, the district also began organized analysis of those machines within Argon. However, it seems some European Union members have some internal bureaucratic disputes, thus the Rama Project has not yet been authorized to dismantle alien machinery, so everyone has to study the smallest fragments first.

The earliest results, of course, came from those studying the symbols on the alien slabs. As Xiang Shan had said, the aliens’ computer also used binary. There indeed was a region composed of 0s and 1s, aligning symbols with mechanical commands.

Xiang Shan wasn’t the only one to propose this view. However, in the final research report, the project lead, an old scholar from the European Union, still included Xiang Shan’s name in the list of "collaborative researchers."

Earth’s scholars believe that this symbol system is not like the mnemonic system in Earth’s assembly languages, which operators use to conveniently operate electronic devices, but is instead specifically designed to compress information and enhance the information density on the slabs.

Normal mnemonics would directly select some already existing vocabulary or its abbreviations with natural semantics from the natural language to replace "010001110111011100101" type mechanical language. This makes it easier for a Biological Brain to memorize, thus facilitating user operation of the machinery. While higher-level languages are even better, closer to natural language.

Of course, even if humans can translate those symbols into pure mechanical language written in 0s and 1s, it wouldn’t be of much use.

Indeed, those are "languages that machines can understand," but there’s also differences between machines. It doesn’t mean that putting these things into Earth’s computers would naturally make them run. That’s unrealistic.

The information within also cannot be converted into human-readable content. This might even contain "videos and audio files of unknown format," but unknown format means unknown. Computers developed by Earthlings might not even open some of the formats Earthlings use, let alone those of aliens.

Furthermore, many people believe that this symbol system was likely specifically designed to enhance the information density on the slabs. It really doesn’t resemble normal natural language. There are a large amount of symbols that are merely combinations and variations of simple geometric shapes. This doesn’t comply with normal writing habits.

However, Kanhara Tsun and a group of scholars have raised objections. They believe it is too hasty to judge based on "writing habits.

"That’s a very unreasonable judgment," Kanhara said, "Human writing habits are entirely based on human physiological foundation. But aliens might completely exist on a physiological foundation entirely different from humans."

In the Rama Project District, everybody passionately discusses everything about aliens daily, as if it were some kind of science fiction literature society.

However, most of the time, scientists are merely fantasizing.

After all, there’s no evidence.

Xiang Shan finds this kind of life quite enjoyable.

One day after dinner, Liu called Xiang Shan, saying he wanted Xiang to join him for a walk to aid digestion.

On a small path, Xiang Shan asked, "Teacher Liu, do you have something you want to say to me?"

Liu nodded: "Indeed, Xiang, I need to ask you a question. What do you think about the Rama Project?"

"It’s quite good, right?" Xiang Shan replied without hesitation: "The workload isn’t heavy; discussing about aliens every day is also quite fun."

Liu tapped his forehead: "Well then."

"What happened? Teacher, why do you want to talk about this?"

Xiang Shan faintly felt something amiss.

Liu explained: "You know, our country, when assembling this research team, time was very tight. They hastily enlisted a large number of ’potentially useful professionals,’ the team is rather bloated. And now it has become like this... The main issue is there’s not much content or enough research subjects."

Xiang Shan sharply perceived: "Are you heading back?"

Liu looked at the distant giant white tent: "In my younger days, I quite enjoyed watching ’UFO Mysteries,’ but this is Earth. How does the saying go? ’Any thought that aspires to soar will plummet, the gravity of reality is too heavy.’"

"But, this is studying aliens!"

"The aliens’ technology is only a bit more advanced than ours," Liu said, "And here we have five major countries, along with many scholars from other countries. Some of the debris even needs to be sent back home to military-backed research institutes. This ’bit more advanced’ isn’t enough to be shared among so many. The competition is a bit too fierce."

"Even if there were something to be gained from this, it would likely be heavily restricted by confidentiality policies."