45: Chapter 45 How are ideas born?

The heavy alloy door closed silently behind them, sealing off everything from the outside world.

Chen Youhua followed behind Academician Zheng, stepping into a circular command center that was even more grand, cold, and infused with a sense of technology than the previous one.

The air was filled with the low hum of advanced equipment operating and an intangible, breathless tension.

Beneath the massive circular screen, the room was already filled with people.

In addition to the dozen or so Academicians he had seen before, there were a dozen new faces.

Their age range was wider, their temperaments more reserved and profound, their gazes as sharp as hawks, carrying a cold sense of scrutiny typical of those who had long resided at the core of power or intelligence hubs.

These were the top-level evaluation experts who had rushed over.

Everyone's gaze, like searchlights, instantly focused on Chen Youhua as he walked in.

Curiosity, scrutiny, shock, skepticism, inquiry... all sorts of complex emotions intertwined in the solidified air.

They had just made initial contact with that 'heavenly book,' and were now looking at the source who created it.

A sophomore student wearing ordinary casual clothes, his face still showing traces of youth.

The massive contrast made the entire space suffused with a near-magical absurdity.

Chen Youhua was indifferent to this ocean of gazes.

He offered no pleasantries, no self-introduction, and did not even glance at anyone.

He walked straight to the main console, deftly inserted the flash drive, and pulled up the title of the first paper.

"The Underlying Architecture of Consciousness Simulation: From Biological Emergence to Logical Mapping."

He did not immediately begin explaining those daunting mathematical symbols, but instead turned around, calmly scanned the faces below—some white-haired, some holding high office—and posed a question that seemed simple yet struck at the core.

"How is thought born?"

After posing the question, he made no move to wait for an answer, as if it were merely an opening lead-in.

His voice, amplified by the equipment, was clear and steady, carrying a unique, rational texture stripped of all emotional color.

"Set aside philosophical debates, set aside the speculation of 'I think, therefore I am.' Let us look only from the perspective of matter, from the objective biological foundation."

He raised his hand and pointed to his own brain.

"It is merely a lump of complex organic tissue weighing about three pounds, composed of lipids, proteins, water, and electrolytes. Thought, consciousness, self-awareness... what is the material basis for these seemingly profound things?"

His gaze seemed to pierce through the skull, staring at that hotbed of thought:

"It is the weak bio-electrical signals transmitted between neurons at millisecond speeds. It is the precise release and reception of specific chemical transmitters, such as glutamate, GABA, and dopamine, in the synaptic clefts, building connections that are either excitatory or inhibitory. It is the dynamic, self-organizing, non-linear electrochemical activity patterns generated by tens of billions of nerve cells through extremely complex network topologies under continuous internal and external stimuli."

"Through hundreds of millions of years of evolutionary selection, these patterns have been endowed with the functions of processing information, predicting the environment, and optimizing survival strategies. When the complexity and internal feedback of these patterns reach a certain critical threshold, the illusion of self emerges from within. It is not a spark of the soul, nor a gift from God, but a high-level attribute that emerges from the self-organization of complex systems in the material world under specific conditions. Just as water emerges with properties like wetness and fluidity under specific conditions."

Chen Youhua's words were like a cold scalpel, stripping away humanity's proudest thoughts layer by layer down to the most essential material level.

In the audience, both Academicians and evaluation experts listened with bated breath.

Some furrowed their brows, lost in thought; some had eyes flashing with the light of realization.

Others instinctively felt a trace of discomfort. This cold exposition that disenchanted the soul challenged deeply ingrained perceptions.

"Only by understanding this point," Chen Youhua's voice pulled everyone back from their thoughts, "can we enter the core."

His finger pointed to the dizzying symbols on the screen.

"My papers do not discuss the social significance of thought, nor do they argue about the philosophical nature of consciousness. I am only solving an engineering problem: how to, on the basis of existing silicon-based hardware, through carefully designed algorithms and logical structures, simulate and induce electrochemical activity patterns similar to those in a biological brain—complex, dynamic, and capable of generating a sense of self and autonomous thinking ability. And," his tone suddenly deepened, as if stamping an imprint onto cold steel, "how to use mathematics and logic to forge absolutely reliable shackles for this simulated thought, ensuring it always serves humanity rather than becoming a source of destruction."

As his voice fell, he paused no longer, turned to face the massive screen, and began the real explanation.

There were no pleasantries, no transitions, only the purest torrent of knowledge gushing forth.

He began construction directly from the most fundamental logic gates, information entropy, and graph theory, like a lonely creator god, using cold symbols to map out the blueprint of consciousness.

His train of thought was terrifyingly clear, yet had great leaps; every step of the derivation was seamless, yet he would often suddenly cut in from a seemingly unrelated mathematical field, such as topology or non-standard analysis, to provide unexpected support for a key node.

The "simple," "obvious," and "easily derived from such-and-such theorem" that he spoke of were, to the vast majority of the audience, like climbing a steep ice wall.

Time flowed silently amidst cold symbols and burning thoughts.

Half a day passed.

On the massive screen, the explanation of the first paper was not yet halfway through.

Chen Youhua's voice remained steady, and the logical chain remained clear.

But the scene below had quietly changed.

The initial intense focus and sharp gaze in many people's eyes began to dim and scatter.

The white-haired old Academicians had beads of sweat seeping from their foreheads, their hands holding pens trembling slightly; their notebooks were dense with writing, but upon closer inspection, many places were filled with question marks.

The relatively younger Academicians were pale, their eyes filled with confusion and a sense of vertigo from being washed over by the torrent of knowledge.

Although the evaluation experts still sat straight, their furrowed brows and tightly pressed lips betrayed the raging storms within their hearts and their massive comprehension barriers.

The air became heavy, with only Chen Youhua's steady voice and the suppressed, rising and falling sounds of breathing.

Chen Youhua keenly captured the rapid decay of mental energy in the audience.

He was not heartless; he just prioritized efficiency.

He stopped his explanation, did not ask, but calmly stated the facts:

"That is all for today. These papers," he pointed to the screen, "each contains an enormous amount of knowledge and requires an expansive array of related fields. It is impossible to fully sort through them all without at least half a month of high-intensity lectures."

He glanced at the security personnel responsible for recording.

"The recording will be kept; you can watch and deliberate on it repeatedly."

He needed no comfort, nor did he need to explain. Facts were facts.

The people below looked at each other, their faces filled with undisguisable fatigue and a deep sense of frustration.

No one asked questions, because there were simply too many, so many that they didn't know where to begin.

Academician Zheng looked at his colleagues' expressions and understood.

He stood up, walked to Chen Youhua's side, and said in a low, solemn voice:

"Student Chen Youhua, before all lectures and preliminary evaluations are completed, for the sake of the highest level of security requirements, you and all the experts present must temporarily remain here, isolated from the outside world. Your room is already prepared, right next to the quiet room."

Chen Youhua nodded, not the least bit surprised by this arrangement.

"Understood."

For the next half month, this command center located deep underground seemed to become an isolated ascetic camp for thought.

Every day, it was as regular as a precision clock.

In the early morning, there was a simple yet nutritious meal.

Afterward, Chen Youhua appeared at the main console on time, turned on the screen, and began a new day of knowledge infusion.

He lectured in great detail, striving to start from the most basic logical starting point, progressing layer by layer to build his subversive theoretical edifice.

But he refused to be interrupted and refused to answer questions.

His logical chain was complete; he believed that as long as one followed his train of thought, one could eventually reach the destination.

Doubts were inevitable obstacles in the process of understanding that the audience needed to overcome themselves.

He was like a calm guide, responsible only for pointing out the path, not for assisting them.

At noon, there was a brief rest and meal, the atmosphere silent and oppressive.

In the afternoon, the lecture continued.

Symbols flowed on the screen, and logic collided in the air.

Fatigue, like a tide, repeatedly crashed against the dams of the audience's will.

Some forced themselves to stay alert, some had vacant eyes, some rubbed their temples, and some secretly drew meaningless lines on the edges of their notebooks.

In the evening, the lecture ended.

Everyone ate dinner in silence, with very little communication, the atmosphere heavy.

Late at night, they returned to their respective isolation rooms.

Under the lights were lonely figures flipping through notes, trying to understand those heaven-book-like symbols, and the faint glow from video recorders repeatedly playing segments of the lectures.

Half a month, day after day.

The massive chasm of knowledge was not bridged in such a short time; instead, it allowed everyone to see its depth and vastness even more clearly.

Frustration, awe, and the growing, indescribable complex emotions toward that young figure who created all of this settled and fermented in this enclosed space.

Chen Youhua remained calm, and his explanations remained precise.

But in certain moments, when he paused and looked at those faces below—some bewildered and exhausted from being bombarded by the torrent of knowledge—a trace of an extremely faint, unreadable emotion seemed to flicker deep within his eyes, which were always calm and waveless.

It was not sympathy, nor mockery.

It was more like someone standing on the peak of a high mountain, calmly looking down at the travelers struggling below.

Or perhaps, it was a creator who had personally ignited the spark, scrutinizing those humans who were about to take up the torch, yet were filled with fear and confusion about the very nature of the flame.

Knowledge is power, but it is also an abyss.

At this moment, Chen Youhua was leading the Republic's top brains, gazing into that abyss of thought, which he had opened with his own hands and which concerned the future of humanity.

And the abyss seemed to be silently gazing back at them.