Arthur Clark, an Englishman born in 1917, was one of the greatest science fiction writers of the twentieth century. His works have cutting-edge scientific theories as the core, imagination and delicate and beautiful descriptions, which are the enlightenment of many people's science fiction. Chinese science fiction writer Liu Cixin once said: "All my works are poor imitations of Clarke." ”
This time, I will solve the problem of reading Arthur Clark's most famous science fiction novel, "2001: A Space Odyssey".
The novel was written in a special way, starting with director Kubrick wanting to make a science fiction film, so arthur Clarke was invited to write a screenplay and discuss screenwriting, and the film 2001: A Space Odyssey was released in 1968 and the novel was subsequently published. At that time, it was a few years after the implementation of the American Apollo moon landing program, and a year after the publication of the novel, the Apollo 11 manned spacecraft landed on the moon for the first time, and the human footprints first set foot on the land of outer space.
The story of this novel revolves around three themes, namely the evolution of life, cosmic exploration and alien civilization, and the deep connotation of the novel is three philosophical questions that human beings have ancient and existed, who are we? Where do we come from? Where are you going? These questions have never been answered standardly, but they have always been the driving force that motivates human beings to explore and seek knowledge.
The novel is divided into three parts, each of which takes place in a different era and is connected by a mysterious "black stone".
<h1>Where did I come from</h1>
On the African continent, where humans have not yet appeared, Wangyue is an ape-man who goes out hunting during the day and inhabits their burrows at night. When they hunt, they fight ferocious beasts, and when they drink water by the river, they scream and mock another group of apes for swearing territory. Mochizuki's father was injured and died while predation, but they apes have no concept of time, no long memory, less sad about the loss of their father, they have more important things to worry about, that is, to fill their stomachs.
One day at dawn, Moonwatch and the other apes discovered something novel, a rectangular crystal plate that they touched with their hands and licked with their tongues, and finally thought it was just a newly grown stone, just as trees would grow out, and they thought that the stone would grow too. At night, the stone slab suddenly made a continuous sound, and The Moon and the other apes began to dance with the sound. What they don't know is that their bodies are being measured, their brains are being spied on, their potential is being tapped, an ape-man knotting a piece of grass like a marionette, and Looking Atukzuki is also manipulating to pick up the stone and smash it towards the bullseye displayed on the stone slab...
Mochizuki never knew how the slate had affected them, he only knew that he had encountered a leopard on a hunting expedition, so he picked up the stones and bones on the ground and hit and killed the leopard. On this planet, for the first time, there are tools and weapons, and a new animal is gradually breeding on Earth...
The plot of the first part seems simple, but it explores one of the most concerned questions for human beings, where do I come from?
At that time, the theory of evolution had been proposed for more than 100 years, but many people, including scientists, had doubts about evolution, for example, the evolution of biological functions could be understood, but could the complex minds of human beings really rely on millions of years of evolution? If evolution is true, why did only humans evolve intelligence? Now, evolution has more evidence and theoretical branches, and in this story, the mysterious black stone on the African savannah opened the evolution of human intelligence and laid the groundwork for the later chapters.
<h1>Who am I</h1>
The second story takes place in the era when humans had established a lunar base, and in order to alleviate the population pressure, a part of the human race had moved to the moon and gradually adapted to life on the moon. At this time, a base on the moon was suddenly isolated, and all the circumstances were strictly confidential. The inhabitants of the earth have speculated that there is a plague on the moon...
Professor Freud, one of the few who knew the truth, was sent to the moon for a secret conference, but the subject of the meeting was not the plague, but a mysterious black slate. It turned out that near the quarantined base, a black slab buried deep underground was found, and the ratio of length to width of the black stone was 1:4:9, that is, the square of the first three natural numbers 1, 2, and 3.
Although there are language barriers between different civilizations, the laws of mathematics are universal and symbolic of wisdom. The most astonishing thing is that the black stone has been buried here for more than three million years, and there were no humans at that time. It can be said that the black stone is evidence of the existence of an alien civilization, not only that, the wisdom of this alien civilization may be much higher than that of humans, because no matter how accurately people measure it with instruments, the ratio of black stone's side length is accurate 1:4:9, as if its makers are showing off their superb technical level.
While Professor Freud and others were observing the blackstone, the moon ushered in the sunrise, and when the first rays of dawn shone on the slab, people around the slab heard a continuous scream of electrons, and space probes in the solar system also recorded this interference. This electronic interference is a signal from the day after Blackstone reappears, and it is also the answer to a question: human beings are not the only intelligent life in the universe.
<h1>Where am I going</h1>
The third part of the story takes place on the spacecraft Discovery, which was originally intended to probe Jupiter, and after the discovery of Blackstone, discovery's exploration voyage increased, and it will continue to fly to Saturn with the help of Jupiter's gravity, orbiting Saturn, waiting for the next spacecraft to bring back several astronauts.
There are five astronauts on the Discovery, three of whom are in a "hibernating" state, and Captain Bowman and another astronaut Poole are guarding the entire spacecraft, which is called "guard" because the operation and monitoring of the entire spacecraft is done by the sixth crew member, it is called Hal, a super artificial intelligence system, and Bowman and Poole are idle most of the time.
One day, the artificial intelligence Hal told them that a component of the spacecraft's communication system had failed and needed to be replaced, and at this time, the astronauts were required to leave the spacecraft in the space capsule and carry out off-plane operations. During Poole's second out-of-flight operation, the capsule suddenly lost control and crashed into him, and he ordered Hal to stop the capsule, but without success. So Poole and the space capsule broke away from the spacecraft and disappeared into the vast space.
At this time, only the only awake human bauman and artificial intelligence Hal are left on the spacecraft, Bauman asks to wake up the other three astronauts, but Hal calmly refuses, saying that the two of them can cope with all the work of the spacecraft, and Bauman can only threaten Hal, if not to arouse the other three astronauts, cut off Hal's power. Hal could only open the hibernation capsule, but at the same time, it also opened the ship's hatch, and the spacecraft was momentarily in a vacuum, with Bowman hiding in the capsule and the other three astronauts losing their vital features almost immediately.
At this point, Bowman confirmed a problem they had never thought about: Hal had defected and murdered four astronauts.
Bauman can no longer trust Hal, he can't completely cut off Hal's power, because Hal is equal to the spaceship, and the spaceship still needs to run, he can only pull out Hal's memory board piece by piece, "language module", "cognitive feedback", "understanding feedback", etc., Hal's words and voice gradually disappeared...
Bowman traveled alone to Saturn on Discovery, and in Saturn's orbit he saw a floating black slate exactly like the one found on the moon. Bowman took the space capsule close to the black stone, at this time, the black stone opened like a door of time and space, the universe space-time seemed to turn out from the inside out, Bowman's space capsule passed through the black stone, he saw the birth and extinction of thousands of stars, saw the origin of the universe, and saw the end of life.
Bauman saw that the highest intelligence in the galaxy, once like humans, originated on a warm planet, they had gone through the stages of biological bodies and machine bodies, and they could now store knowledge in space, in the form of energy, and they were no longer bound by time and space, and could travel freely in time and space. Blackstone, the experimental tool they made, the earth, is their subject, the evolution of mankind, is their experiment to reproduce the process of intellectual development.
Finally, Bowman's cosmic cabin was docked in a hotel room, or rather, a space specially arranged to resemble a hotel, and he tentatively entered the "room," breathed in normal air, ate something, took a bath, and he had seen the mysteries of the universe, and finally fell into a deep sleep, in which he was reborn as a baby, a cosmic baby who knew all the mysteries. Bowman became the "moongazing" among humans, and in Blackstone's experiments, he evolved a higher level of intelligence.
<h1>We can't be the only ones in the universe</h1>
The third part is the highlight of the entire novel, not only space rescue, artificial intelligence rebellion, alien civilization, but also depictions that hint at crossing black holes and reincarnating souls. Every ups and downs of the plot is tied to a question: Where are we going? In space, can we break through the limitations of speed and distance and explore more distant outer space? In terms of time, we evolved from apes, and what kind of form will we evolve? Will our intelligence be replaced by artificial intelligence, or in some other form?
While modern science can't yet answer these questions, the imagination of science fiction writers can. Clark is good at predicting the future through history, he sees tools and technology replacing human physical energy, he sees population explosions and food shortages, he sees world powers checking each other through nuclear weapons, he predicts that artificial intelligence will defect.
Despite the uncertainties of the future, in Clarke's imagination, humans will evolve higher forms of intelligence, and human footprints will travel through the sea of stars.
In the movie "2001: A Space Odyssey", nearly half of the time there is no dialogue and background music, only pure silence and the breathing sound of astronauts, which makes people can't help but sigh how small and lonely people, spaceships, and earth are in the endless universe, but in this universe, human beings are still the only known intelligent life, is this not a miracle?
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