“Say ‘I Love You’ Again”: How to Rekindle the Romance in Your Relationship

As we know, no one at first associated Shepresa, a legendary scientist, ethologist and cetacean biologist, with issues like “the future of humanity” or “the human mind”—at first, she just The “person who can talk to cetaceans” is nothing more than that. The starting point of her life does not seem to be special: in 2106 AD, Shepresa was born in an ordinary middle-class family in Connecticut, USA. Worked in the research and development departments of Connecticut State University and Pfizer. She is the only daughter in the family. When she was ten years old, her parents divorced for some reason, and she was once diagnosed with severe post-traumatic syndrome-during seven months, she kept silent, refused to speak, and rejected all previous interpersonal relationships; not surprisingly, she also rejected any relatives, friends and psychological Concerns of counselors. Fortunately, she recovered immediately. According to her later account, it was the dolphins that saved her – her grandmother took her to see a dolphin show at the Sea Amusement Park. That seemed to have an irreplaceable healing effect on Shepresa, who was going through the first major trauma of her life at the time. It was also then that she asked her parents to make her a vegetarian (and she succeeded) and wondered, if she herself felt rejected by fate, could animals feel abandoned, too?

Do animals have emotions like humans? It’s an age-old debate; it was also the original intellectual inspiration of Shepresa, who would later be seen as a radical animal activist. The second moment of enlightenment soon followed – the story of Richard Russell and the female whale J35. This is no longer news, because countless readers have already heard through the media that Shepresa herself mentioned this historical event many times. She claimed that the true story that changed her life——August 10, 2018, a man on the west coast of North America In the evening of midsummer, Richard Russell, a 29-year-old ground staff member at Seattle Airport, walked to the tarmac alone, broke into the cockpit of a small airliner, and drove it into the sky without the permission of air traffic control. Apart from Richard himself, the small ninety-seater Bombardier propeller plane did not have any other passengers; in other words, he had stolen and hijacked an airliner with himself as the only hostage. During the seventy-five-minute flight (relying on the limited knowledge he learned in flight simulator video games), the gentle and sad hijacker kept friendly calls with the control tower-in fact, because of these call records, Only then did people understand the reasons for his hijacking. The tower air traffic controller called him by his nickname Rich, and continued to comfort him patiently, trying to guide Richard Russell, who had never received formal flight training, to a successful landing. However, he obviously had no intention of coming back alive. Some reports excerpted from their conversation:

Tower: We just want to find you a safe place to land.

Rich: I don’t want to land yet. Omg the oil used up so fast–

Tower: Alright, Rich, turn left if you can, and we’ll direct you southeast.

Rich: I deserve a life sentence like this, right? But that’s okay too. I don’t want to hurt anyone.. I just want to hear some nice crap from you guys.. Do you think Alaska Airlines will give me a job as a pilot if I can land successfully?

Tower: I think they’ll give you any job-

Rich: I know a lot of people care about me. They must be very disappointed in me. I should apologize to them. I’m just a broken man…maybe there are a few loose screws somewhere?

According to Shepresa, a cetacean expert, she still clearly remembers the first time she heard this story: In the early winter of 2117, when she was eleven years old, she was in the fifth grade at Shetty Lane Elementary School in Connecticut, USA. Officially divorced a year ago. She had just made a vow to herself never to talk to Miss E. Bonowitsky, the math teacher again—she pointed out the mistakes in her calculations in class the day before yesterday, but she felt that Miss Bonowitsky did not give her the respect she deserved. This oath lasted only three days. But she was not idle during those three days: she cracked the network password of the classroom by herself; every math class, she held resentment and refused to listen to the lecture, while staring at the implanted display projection on her retina with wide eyes, Browse the web secretly.

“That’s when I read the story about Richard Russell and J35…” In January 2148, in an exclusive interview with the Taiwanese media “Labyrinthos”, Shepresa mentioned this matter again. She and the interviewer are returning to Shetty Lane Elementary School in Linhai, Connecticut; the awning grassland is blowing with the sea breeze, changing lights, waves and large snow-white awn flowers fill the space, and the sea water rises under the jagged rocks Rises and breaks into rose-coloured foam. For Shepresa, who would later be regarded as a controversial figure for a long time, it was an extremely soft moment; because in the call with the control tower, the hijacker Richard Russell unsolicited the orca. Yes, killer whales, also known as orcas or killer whales. That was another piece of news at the time—a marine zoologist discovered that a female whale, numbered J35, carried its dead baby on her back after it died just after birth, and accompanied it in the vast northern part of the world. Swimming back and forth in the Pacific Ocean for a full seventeen days, after a journey of more than 1,600 kilometers of mourning, he let go, allowing the body to sink into the deep sea and disappear into the darkness without light. During the final voyage of the hijacker Richard Russell, he expressed to the control tower that he wanted to see the sad female whale.

Tower: If you want to land, your best options are the runway ahead on your left, or Puget Sound – you can also land on the sea.

Rich: Did you talk to the people there? I don’t want to make a mess in there.

Tower: Yes. I, and none of us, want you or anyone else to get hurt. If you want to land—

Rich: But I want to know where the orca is. do you know? It’s the killer whale with the baby on its back. I want to go see that guy.

In math class, eleven-year-old girl Shepresa learned the story of Richard Russell and the female whale J35. It was more than a hundred years ago, at the beginning of the 21st century, and human beings’ understanding of such marine animals was completely different from what it is now; but Shepresa took the trouble to describe the shock of this incident to her young heart: she told this story in the classroom Looking into the fundus of the eyes, there was silence everywhere, the tears blurred the light, and the surrounding scenery faded infinitely like a pencil sketch, but the phantom on the retina was as clear as a mysterious mental image, as if someone was talking about it in the deep sea of ​​her mind. she whispered. Over the years, she has quoted a netizen’s comment in this old report many times in public: “We always have unfulfilled dreams, love that cannot be given” – “I can be sure that is the case.” In the “Labyrinthos” interview, Shepresa emphasizes: “Yes, ‘dreams of the future, love that can’t be given—I totally agree. No, that’s not sadness… It’s not just hijacker Richard Russell’s pity or sympathy for the mother whale, no. It’s some A kind of joy, a kind of tranquility, a kind of happiness. I don’t know when people will have such emotions…” The sea breeze blew her thick black hair, and countless grains of sand peeled off from her voice. “We always face all kinds of harm in life: birth, old age, sickness and death, emotional gratuitousness, guilt, guilt, facing random, violent and unreasonable encounters alone… We will always be sad, resentful, hesitant; or on the contrary, because Temporary joy at the dissolution of these negative situations… Of course, I must say, animals do too – many people are slow to admit this; but I know that’s not the case. Rich…Richard Russell Joy at the momentary relief of panic…that’s superficial. I know his crash was the most beautiful and happy death in the world…yet it’s because of human arrogance that we refuse to admit such emotions head-on, refuse to admit that it actually implies the best possible, final destination of the human or animal mind…”

What is “the best possibility” and “the final destination of the mind”? In this regard, the little girl Shepresa does not seem to doubt for too long. Many serious scientists argue that certain ritual behaviors of animals should not be taken lightly as evidence of consciousness or emotion, because there are inevitably too many links that have yet to be verified. However, Shepresa has always scoffed at such claims. “I’m not saying their ‘rigor’ is wrong,” she repeated on various occasions. “Science has to be rigorous. But this is not so much a scientific debate as it is a matter of language. Of course animals have consciousness— —Isn’t it enough that humans have witnessed so much evidence for thousands of years? The most we can say is: yes, the consciousness or emotion possessed by animals is not necessarily the same as that of humans… So, it is really inappropriate for us to directly conclude that they have ’ the same as human emotions. But even then, when we knew far less about animals than we do today, we should have admitted that there is no doubt that animals have minds of their own…”

“Like… the language problem discussed by Wittgenstein?” In 2169, shortly after Shepresa’s sixty-three-year-old birth, and twenty-three years after she first published the five papers that shocked the world, I was in Berlin, Germany. When I first met Shepresa’s only son, Mike Morant, in the suburbs, and heard him relay his mother’s early views, I asked this question: “Concepts similar to Wittgenstein—many philosophical problems are actually just language problems?”

“Yes. Some scientific problems are essentially language problems.” Mike Morant smiled brightly. “Your reaction was exactly the same as mine… I mean, I asked my mother the exact same question. And she said, she thought about it when she was in elementary school. And then she said, come to think of it, how long has Wittgenstein People from the past? So many people are still arguing about this issue…” Mike glanced at me. “She said, look, humans are so stupid, how could they be smarter than cetaceans?”

I thought of the debate between Hao and Liang. It was a debate between the ancient Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi and his friend Huishi. You are not a fish, how do you know that a fish is happy? You are not an animal, how do you know whether animals have their own “mind”? But I think the essence of many things is the same-the sensory experience of individuals cannot be shared with others after all; and a greater gap exists between humans and animals. Here’s the thing: because we’re not animals, we can’t experience what animals feel in the first place, and we can never be sure that animals have what is called a “mind”—at least I thought so.

We all thought so. Yet we were all wrong. A whole generation of people are all wrong. But allow me to defend myself: it was not my fault that I was not able to visit Shepresa in person – there was clearly some force majeure involved. As a cetacean biologist, she shouldn’t have gained such a reputation. In 2123, the seventeen-year-old Shepresa was admitted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; in 2129, at the age of twenty-three, she was awarded a doctorate for her research on the evolution of the central nervous system of killer whales. Her school career has been nothing short of smooth sailing—in addition to being appreciated by her teachers for being gifted, she also seems to have perfect relationships. She treats people with kindness and enthusiasm, does not hesitate to share resources with others, and is optimistic about any setbacks. Almost everyone who comes into contact with her has a positive opinion of her. As far as we know, at least at the time, the seven-month period of childhood silence and aphasia did not seem to have left any traces in her later life. The strange thing is that this is quite similar to Richard Russell who inspired her to get close to cetaceans and go to the ocean that year – there is no doubt that the suicide Richard Russell is a “good man” in all aspects: he is gentle and kind to others, and he is eager to help others; A normal social connection. His colleagues unanimously stated that he was serious and responsible in his work, was kind and upright, and had never shown any negative emotions before the incident. His family said that he and his wife had a close relationship, a happy marriage, and no signs of cynicism or depression. He is a loyal and responsible husband, a warm and generous friend, and a good neighbor in the neighborhood… However, none of these can stop him from self-destructing romantically and decisively; just as no one can stop Shepresa’s paranoia and love for cetaceans . In 2134, she married Bertrand Morant; in 2136, at the age of 30, she gave birth to her eldest son, Mike Morant, and at the same time transferred from Rodriguez College in Illinois to teach at the University of Washington in Seattle on the West Bank. Ten years later, in 2146, Shepresa, a scientist who was not yet 40 years old, published the first research in her life that shocked the world-she claimed that she had deciphered the language of killer whales.

“‘Maternal love is a concept that makes me feel very contradictory…” Mike Morant, Shepresa’s only son, has been working as an English teacher in a middle school near the site of the Nazi concentration camp in Sachsenhausen in the northern suburbs of Berlin, Germany for many years; in the first interview, he talked to me about his Mother Shepresa. “Yes, I didn’t see her often when I was a child. She is indeed the kind of workaholic that most people imagine… She leaves early and returns late every day; many times she has to go out to sea to track whales and dolphins, and she will go for at least a few months.” Mike’s eyes dimmed. . He is thin, with a pair of nervous eyes on his bony face and cheekbones. He always has a habit of stooping when he speaks, with ambiguous sadness. We are walking on the country road outside the concentration camp, the barbed wire is climbing on the gray stone wall, the gravel is rubbing under our feet, and the cold and transparent light passes through the surroundings. “She didn’t spend a lot of time with me. Yes, of course I hated her. She didn’t care about the marriage either. I think she was mostly responsible for the failure of her marriage to my father. But I knew she was a ‘good person… …her research partners, her students, all loved her…” He smiled wryly, “of course, I’m sure the cetaceans—her other ‘children—loved her too…”

Can a mother really read her child? For Shepresa and her orca calves, that’s no problem at all. Her five papers on the language of killer whales were published in three authoritative journals including “Nature” and “Cell” between 2146 and 2147. This is the first time in human history that someone has claimed to have successfully deciphered the language of another species. Unsurprisingly, the language of killer whales presents meaning in a combination of waveforms and frequencies, but it is impressive that Shepresa first successfully distinguished the “singing” of killer whales from “general language”, and then parsed out in general language Reliable grammar rules. And this set of grammar rules actually includes the variables of seawater temperature and sea current speed. “It’s unbelievable at first glance.” Li Yulin, a zoologist who was a chair professor at Beijing Normal University in China at the time, said: “I remember that the academic community was very skeptical at the first time; because this is equivalent to telling you that when humans speak, they can respond to the air. Changes in humidity and temperature change pronunciation in order to convey accuracy. How is this possible?” The Chinese evolutionary biologist recalled his favorite student when he was teaching at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology: “But when the anatomical evidence appeared, Many have turned from skepticism to wonder. It’s an amazing achievement.”

Key anatomical evidence appears in the fifth paper. Shepresa cooperated with the manufacturer to implant a customized neuro-like organism into the central nervous system of the killer whale, and successfully obtained key evidence: when the killer whale makes a sound, the neurons in the language area of ​​the brain and the part of the ocean current detection function are connected. Frequent and fixed-pattern linkages. She summarized such fixed patterns into thirty-nine types, and pointed out how these thirty-nine patterns are related to the waveform, frequency and grammar of language. The conclusion is that the language complexity of an adult killer whale is roughly equivalent to that of a fifteen-year-old human teenager; unfamiliar emotional responses), and its language level can almost be confirmed to be far beyond human. “Please look at your hands.” She even sarcastically said in the notes to the paper: “Please treasure and cherish your hands—if it weren’t for these hands, if killer whales had hands instead of fins, humans would almost certainly not be able to Dominate the planet; for the mental abilities of an orca may well surpass yours. They are superior to us.”

Overnight, Shepresa became famous. Countless invitations flew in like snowflakes, and her follow-up actions pushed her to the cusp. This is actually quite surprising, because she has never been labeled as a “radical animal activist” or “radical vegan” before; in fact, she has not publicly proposed any political initiatives related to this. “Everyone was petrified,” said Shepresa’s only son, Mike Morant, “yes, including my father. Later my father told me that the only relevant statement he had heard from her before that was an understatement.’ Cetaceans are indeed smarter than humans…”

Mike Morant was nine years old at the time. He still had a vivid memory of his mother appearing on the hologram in an image he didn’t recognize at all. Because he didn’t spend much time with his mother, he was never close to his mother. Even though he was still young, he was sensitive and had already noticed the gap between himself and his mother. “I later had a saying,” he laughed at himself, “I said that the relationship between me and her was either ‘gentle alienation, or ‘polite intimacy…'” But even so, his mother was still in his heart. Maintaining a positive and gentle image, not to mention that he is only a nine-year-old child. But what Shepresa said in the media completely frightened him. “My father and I watched her interview on TV at home. She actually said that the ‘meat eater society’ of human beings has completely spoiled all children, and human civilization should have been punished by massacres or genocide…”

Why do humans need to be punished? Because punishing human beings is good for civilization and good for the planet; and the children raised by this low-quality culture deserve no sympathy at all. This is one of Shepresa’s basic arguments. Some of her arguments were not new at first—for example, she argued that human cannibalism was an act of uncivilized cruelty, comparable to the Holocaust. “Of course animals have minds. I won’t repeat those old arguments from a hundred years ago…” Shepresa emphasized, “What I want to say is that now, we now understand the language of killer whales, we can even , and should also communicate with them, with these animals that are not my kind.” Under the white light of the studio, Shepresa’s expression was flat and stern: “The so-called ‘not my kind, tell me… yes, look at my Eyes: Do you think we have the right to house them, butcher them, and eat their carcasses as if nothing happened?”

Shepresa’s attitude unsurprisingly caused an uproar; but she didn’t back down. For several months, she continued to speak out, and her sympathy for animals seemed to gradually extend into hatred for humans. “Some people think that the central nervous system of lizards is extremely crude, and the central nervous system of fish, pigs and chickens is too simple, so simple that it only has the functions of survival and reproduction, and it is impossible to have so-called emotions or consciousness…” In an interview with the British BBC In an interview with the news program “The Biggest Computing”, Shepresa made an astonishing statement, obviously embarrassing the host: “I will not repeat my criticism of how self-centered this view is. What I want to say is that the central nervous system of a human baby or embryo is fundamentally They are more rudimentary than too many animals, and they simply lack more consciousness than pigs. However, killing pigs is okay, but killing infants is the biggest taboo. Why? It’s very simple, it’s just the self-protection of the human species. Humans have developed out of such a self-serving culture…” she says after a pause, “but on the other hand, it’s not surprising at all—remember Freud’s Totem and Taboo?” She further Provocative: “Of course, such darkness and selfishness also exist within human groups. Remember the feeling of being framed by your colleagues last time? Remember those who fought openly and secretly, took advantage of others, and didn’t care about hurting others? Remember those who belittled and bullied the innocent Bloodthirsty people who please others? Remember those human monsters who instigated genocide and destroyed a whole generation? Human beings are simply to blame. If this kind of civilization is extinct one day, I will definitely celebrate…”

As mentioned earlier, Shepresa was originally a very successful person in terms of interpersonal and social connections; and because of this, her extreme hostility towards human beings is even more surprising. She quickly became famous, and her words and deeds involved all those close to her in an unexpected storm—including her husband B. Morant and her son Mike. “We began to feel that someone was always watching us.” Mike Morant recalled that at that time, in addition to the paparazzi blatantly waiting near the house, he also obviously felt the strange eyes of other people around him. This frightened and confused him when he was still young. It was also at that time that his relationship with his mother deteriorated rapidly – because she did not give him any sense of protection. “I’m too fragile.” His eyes were flushed, “Yes, I was scared. But my personality prevented me from asking my father too much for help. I was too depressed. But I was still a child after all…” Mike He mentioned that his mother left early and returned late as before; the newly opened battlefield (animal rights) severely compressed the time he spent with his mother. He felt like a lonely boat in a storm, utterly abandoned by his mother. One time, he was attacked by a nightmare in the early hours of the night. He woke up and got out of bed. He opened the door and happened to see his mother coming back. He hadn’t seen her for more than three months, and he called mom timidly. Although the latter’s face was full of fatigue, his consciousness still didn’t know where his mind was wandering. He just glanced at him and turned back to the room without saying a word. .

“I know some mothers who are more intense. I know.” In December 2169, at the Tempo e amore cafe in Berlin, Germany, shadows lurking in the side light outside the window, I saw Mike Morant with tears in his eyes, a face full of There are many pains of varying shades, “for example, those mothers who locked their children in closed vehicles and turned away because they were too tired to be absent-minded; Their mother… I know she wasn’t that kind of mother. I don’t hate her anymore now. But then, somehow… I think her attitude made me feel worse…” Mike choked up, lips Trembling, bloodless: “I would rather she scolded me violently or physically punished me… At the moment she turned and left, I think I already knew that between me and her, all intimacy is over.”

Of course, Shepresa, always driven by a great sense of mission, did not stop. In November 2148, she held a press conference and announced the launch of the “Teresias Project”, declaring that the research team would achieve the goal of “dialogue and communication with killer whales” in stages over a period of five years. Tiresias is a figure in ancient Greek mythology. Zeus, the god of heaven, gave him the ability to understand the language of birds, so he could foresee the future. “We have understood their language.” Shepresa emphasized, “then it’s time to talk to them. This will be a re-validation of the statement about ‘killer whale linguistics. In the history of evolution, our ancestors have been extinct continuously. Other races such as Homo erectus and Neanderthals have established the hegemony of homo sapiens on the earth, which continues to this day. If the barriers between humans and animals and other species can be removed, it must be a new era in the history of human civilization. page.”

Today, history must admit that what Shepresa said is true. The results of the “Teresias Project” almost shook the entire human civilization; it is not an exaggeration to say that no one can stay out of it. It is inevitable that historians, philosophers, cultural studies scholars and other humanities circles will have many discussions on this, and there are also heated discussions within the scientific community such as biology and evolution scholars; the follow-up will further inspire artificial intelligence and mathematics, Logic, quantum mechanics (yes, about “observer” consciousness: does an orca have “consciousness”? If the orca sticks out its flipper to open the door and see inside, then Schrödinger’s cat in the box Is it life or death? Or is it still “both life and death”?) and other fields have been researched and discussed. However, before this follow-up effect was fully fermented, it was her personal affairs that made Shepresa’s name occupy the media space again. In 2150, during the Tiresias project, the forty-four-year-old Shepresa ended her sixteen-year marriage, and B. Morant, the father of the only son Mike, obtained custody. Even though it has been extremely low-key, the media still discovered the matter and followed up and reported it. Unexpectedly, however, this made her involved in several intimidation cases—in the following months, several criminals with different names sent out threatening emails, claiming that they would “execute the ruthless anti-human beings.” Shepresa”.

But for Shepresa and Mike Morant mother and son, it was an unexpected opportunity. “It’s kind of weird… but the truth is, knowing that my mother’s life is in danger, I feel closer to her,” Mike explained. I lived with my father at that time; but the police still sent staff to protect us. Of course my father and I were also affected when this happened…” “A lot of pressure?” “A lot. But seriously, It’s not more serious than before.” Mike calmed down, “Maybe it’s because I’m used to it. When they ended their marriage, all kinds of weird speculation and hurtful false abuse on the Internet… scolding her, scolding my father , Of course it also affected me. I may have been thoroughly ‘trained at that time?” Mike smiled wryly. The light in the cafe was dim, and the branches and leaves were sparse. The gray-haired, short-haired young man sitting next to him, who had buried his head in the pages of a book, suddenly raised his head and looked at us. “At that time, I suddenly understood one thing: my mother is an out-and-out brave man.” Mike Morant said hoarsely, “Of course, I still think so until now… Originally, after my parents divorced, I almost We’ve become strangers to my mother. We’ve even met a few times during their early separation, in response to her request to meet, but…” “How does it feel?” “Very, very awkward.” Mike stared The palm prints on his hands seemed to be strange faces, “I am uncomfortable, and she is also uncomfortable. I can feel her guilt, but that makes us both nervous. I am embarrassed.” Woke up and didn’t promise to meet again. I guess that was a relief for her too? But then the intimidation happened… I remember, at least for a while, I seemed to understand my mother’s words and actions better…”

The intimidation case was later dropped. However, as mentioned earlier, this accident brought a new opportunity for the mother-son relationship between Shepresa and Mike Morant. Mike took the initiative to contact his mother, and the two tried to mend their relationship. “Thinking about it now, I’m still too naive.” Mike Morant smiled wryly, “I think, after all, my mother is incomprehensible to ordinary people. Why do I have such a mother? And why, with such a mother, I actually How could it be so ordinary?” Tears welled up his cheeks. “She made me feel really good in the beginning too. She had sincerity and I could feel it. But then it got off the ground… No, I wouldn’t expect a real intimacy with her; we never had that moments, even when I was younger. But what happened? Then I thought, I was partly responsible because I grew up and I had my own things to do… I didn’t really think about it To live up to her expectations… I thought she was just busy doing research, busy with her ‘Tiresias project…” Mike covered his face with his hands and finally sobbed. “Would she rather try to talk to her killer whale than to talk to me? . . . all I want is just . . . just . . . ”

Mike said that Shepresa was obviously busy with research work and disappeared for longer and longer. Even if he tried to contact her, he could never find anyone. This once again dashed his hopes of mending the relationship between mother and child. Of course, it was completely impossible for him to know at that time that his mother was actually in that “state” alone. Shepresa is on the ropes, her Tiresian plan lures her into the risk alone, and her passion and paranoia lead her to make unimaginably extreme choices, even deliberately deceiving the entire research team. Afterwards, it was discovered that she was not just trying to imitate or reproduce the voice of the killer whale through the sound generator, using variables such as waveforms and frequencies. In 2151, she secretly ordered the language area of ​​the killer whale brain for the first time. A neuro-like creature, implanting it into its own central nervous system, and connecting its own vocal cords, inner ear cells and auditory areas of the brain with special neurons——

She became a guinea pig herself. She plans to speak to the orca herself.

No one really knows why she decided to do it. At first, no one found out about it. “I broke up with my first girlfriend that winter.” Mike Morant said, “I was so drunk on Christmas Eve that Fuzhixin called my mother. She said she could give me fifteen minutes. I ran to her laboratory , there are still two big Christmas trees lit up a block away, and groups of laughing young people and children singing hymns… But for some reason, the entrance of the laboratory is dark, the street lights are out of order, and there is a faint blue sky. The white shimmer was like a fog that was about to disperse. My mother came to me in the dark. She looked at me, but her eyes seemed to penetrate my face and my eyes. For the first time, I lost control in front of her and asked Why is she busy communicating with her animals but doesn’t want to talk to me. I broke down and shouted: I know those killer whales are your children, but I am also your child, your relatives…”

“She said something strange…” In February 2170, I accompanied Mike Morant back to the scene, and visited the Shepresa team’s laboratory in Oak Harbor, Washington State, on the west coast of the United States nineteen years after the incident. The laboratory itself has been abandoned, and the large pool that originally belonged to the killer whales and connected to the North Pacific Ocean has been drained. Looking down from above, fallen leaves and dust live in it, and the fine snow is slowly sinking, like a park suspended due to excessive silence. delusional dream. “She seemed absent-minded. She said, is talking important to people? Is love, or intimacy, important to human beings? . . . What is it that people have been asking for?” The footsteps echoed in the space, and the water light disappeared silently in Mike Morant’s pupils. “And then, on the side of the street that seemed to cast all the shadows of the world, she reached out and touched my face. I shivered suddenly, because the fingertips were so cold, lifeless, and almost utterly human… ”

Paper can’t contain fire. The incident came to light half a year later. The reason is, Shepresa has completely changed a person. Her external shape remained the same, but the long-term implanted neuro-like creature imitating the brain of a killer whale had apparently invaded and reorganized her original central nervous system. She has become farther and farther away from humans. She can speak, but the syllables or syntax are meaningless; she can speak, but what she speaks is no longer human language. No one can understand her anymore and recognize her meaning. Occasionally she may be able to speak correct English or Chinese, but only in phrases. However, when the research partner tried to reverse understand her based on the previous “basic pattern of the thirty-nine languages ​​of killer whales”, they were not successful. Having been unable to communicate with others, she has undoubtedly completely lost the possibility of leading the team. However, the researchers found that Shepresa was obviously closer to her orca calves-she often stared at them on the boat, on the shore of the large pool, or close to the channel glass at the bottom of the pool, and spoke to them sharply through a loudspeaker. And singing softly. And the killer whales also obviously responded: they either gathered in front of her, or swam around the side of the ship, or composed rhythms, sea water and waves with regular jets and jumps; or responded with the same gentle and noisy voice…

No human can speak to Shepresa anymore. But no human would suspect that she was talking to the killer whales.

No one could have predicted that the “Tiresias Project”, which had been placed with high hopes by everyone, would end in this way. In September 2152, the footage of Shepresa “talking” with killer whales was exposed, which immediately caused a sensation and jumped to the headlines. The whole world is in chaos and madness. The media dubbed them “mad scientists”, “whale women”, and “people who can talk to cetaceans”; talk shows were blown up, social networking sites were full of heated discussions, critics and scholars published long articles, and countries around the world Leaders are forced to respond under the pressure of public opinion. “This is a decisive event.” Cultural critic A. Chufurst said, “Six hundred years ago, Copernicus pulled the earth from the altar of the center of the universe; three hundred years ago, Freud destroyed man. The illusion that one’s own rationality is the absolute center. These are two major cognitive revolutions in human history. Now, Shepresa follows in the footsteps of Darwin, and once again ruthlessly destroys the delusion of “human beings are the center of the earth and the spirit of all things, and the relay is completed The third cognitive revolution in human history…”

Is this the success of Tiresias’ plan? Objectively, it is difficult for us to determine this. Today, however, we no longer know what Shepresa really thinks. She refuses to be interviewed, and she also refuses to communicate with others (like the seven-month silence of her childhood?)—both tasks, in fact, are beyond her reach. Her bondage with her cetaceans was short-lived, too—the implanted neuro-like organisms soon began invading and destroying the rest of her central nervous system; The way it eats away at her life. From 2152 to 2154, Shepresa, who gradually lost her memory and the ability to take care of herself, underwent a total of eight nano-robot surgeries in an attempt to remove the imitative tiger that was entwined with the human central nervous system in her body and entwined like climbing vines. Cetacean neurobiology, however, ultimately failed. In April 2155, Shepresa died at the University of Washington Hospital in Seattle at the age of forty-nine. And it was still her son Mike Morant who accompanied her through the last days.

“My biggest regret is not having the opportunity to speak to her again.” Mike Morant choked up, “but I’m grateful for those last days. I didn’t even really think about the course of her illness… I was kind of evasive? But that was Illness? No, that’s her madness, her paranoia, her beliefs, her own choice. She’s not sick, she just made a different decision than the average person. And of course we won’t know what will happen next Development…nobody in the world has ever had this disease, have they?” There is no doubt that in the final days of the legendary scientist and her only son, Mike Morant, outside disturbances no longer meant much to them. The heated discussion has been going on for years, and the discussion is in the ascendant; leaving aside the academic and scientific circles, social movements, political initiatives, and even new religions have sprung up in response to this event. At any time, someone commits suicide because of this, and at any time someone gains the courage to be reborn; some radical groups even advocate that the hybrid combination of animal and human minds is the correct path for the evolution of human minds, and it is the final and inevitable result. Yet amidst the uproar, we can’t even be sure that Shepresa really “knew” these “consequences” for her in the final days of her life.

“I still remember that day…” In February 2170, in the winter of Oak Harbor on the east coast of the North Pacific Ocean, Mike Morant and I walked to the seaside. The back and forth of the tide, the noisy echo like a torrential rain, the water and the waves are smashing into pieces nearby, and in the distance, the night sea hidden in the darkness is showing us the huge and dark power of nature with pure hearing. “That morning, I seemed to have a feeling in my heart. I woke up suddenly and found that my mother on the hospital bed had sat up by herself, and her empty pupils were staring at something outside the window. I felt that she seemed to want to look outside, so I slowly supported her. Walking through the promenade, I came to the French windows facing the light at the end. The clouds were high and heavy, the sky was white and bright, and the dead branches of the trees and trees were so abstract and beautiful. I saw her staggering to the window, putting her ears on the window Glass, as if listening intently to something…

“There was no sound at first. But then I knew the answer – it was a lone plane. Weird, I had seen the plane, but my mother didn’t seem to want to ‘see. She just kept listening to it. …listening to things I couldn’t possibly hear, couldn’t possibly understand. I thought to myself, is that similar to the language of killer whales? I saw her smile on her face, mesmerized; Overwhelmed by the incomparable tranquility or happiness that I have never experienced in this life… I suddenly remembered what she mentioned again and again, the hijacker more than two hundred years ago, the Richard Russell who had ‘inspired her… ”

Rich: I’m ready to land. I’ll do a few rolls first. If successful I will start descending. That’s it for tonight.

Tower: Rich, if you can, please keep the aircraft as close to the water as possible.

Rich: I’m a little dizzy. The scenery changes so quickly; I want to take a good look at them and enjoy the moment. Everything is beautiful.

Tower: Can you see your surroundings clearly? Visibility okay?

Rich: Fine, no problem. I just flew around Mount Rainier and it was so beautiful. I think there is enough oil left to fly me to Mount Olympic to check it out.

Rich: I don’t know how to land. Actually, I didn’t intend to land at all—

These were the last words of the 29-year-old hijacker Richard Russell. One hundred and sixty years ago, after roaming alone in the sky for 75 minutes, at about 9:20 on the night of August 10, 2018, Richard Russell and his small propeller plane crashed on a deserted island off the coast of Seattle. The island is completely uninhabited, so there were no casualties except the driver himself who died as he wished. It was summer on the east coast of the North Pacific Ocean, and the dusk in Seattle was long. The air and moving clouds reflected the thin sunlight in the high latitudes, making the sky colorful and changeable like an unfinished dream. Richard Russell would not know how his last voyage affected a little girl born more than a hundred years later, let alone how this maverick little girl shook the development of human civilization. “After the plane disappeared, it seemed like a long, long time…” Mike Morant said, “She turned around and said the last words to me in this life…”

“what did she say?”

“Of course I don’t understand.” Mike Morant smiled, fascinated, “but she repeated it several times, so I frantically recorded it…”

“what is that?”

“I love you.”

“What?”

“‘I love you.’ means ‘I love you.’ The water licks the gravel shore beneath our feet. Mike Morant has tears in his eyes. I saw countless tiny snowflakes, or phantoms of snowflakes, melting slowly in his eyes. “That actually made sense…I showed the recording to her researchers afterwards…they checked the paper and told me it was ‘I love you’ in orca language…”

That was also Shepresa’s last words. On April 18, 2155, after saying those words, a generation of legendary scientist Shepresa smiled and calmly stopped breathing. Is talking important to people? Is love, or intimacy, important to humans? What is it that people are constantly searching for? I don’t know; I believe that many people throughout the ages have never known. However, I seem to be able to see that scene with my own eyes: the snow-white silence in front of the hospital window, a plane that came from nowhere, a long voyage that lost its destination. “Dreams in the future, love that can’t be given.” I seem to see the young man in her heart soaring alone in the gorgeous dusk of Seattle. The youth has never died, he has survived in another way; and we will continue to travel in this world changed by Shepresa, like a bird that never lands, like a lonely plane.