Gentrification of the Universe
By: Jon Gulson
Tags: Physics, Economics, Bitcoin

The seeds for this blog were planted by this work, here; while writing a general review of the writer at large, here.

I was kindly reminded of this review, here:

I noted this a welcome reminder to revisit the blog, because it sometimes feels like a trapped fly within a bottle [when] writing and observing Bitcoin.

Sentiment and Summary

The work referred [to] which planted the seeds for this writing, invokes duality and Adam Smith’s observations on propriety and sympathy (a prelude to the Wealth of Nations).

Smith speaks indirectly on the nature of gentrification — relevant today in how natural order guards us from radical social change, especially when faced with robust social scaling technology.

Relevant because it is shown how economics creates social welfare from non-cooperative scenarios; in other words, because of our own direct experience in competitive markets, we cannot actually experience another’s view (thus the duality).

As Smith’s work became re-orientated in equilibrium game based models, it demonstrated an evolution of non-cooperative markets — suggesting we are capable of rising above them; or at least able to consider the possibility of [non-duality] economics, which wouldn’t be economics in the traditional sense.

In this light, we have seen how money has become axiomatic in everyday life: it allows social cohesion and lubrication that possibly wouldn’t otherwise exist.

And we can also see how money and Banks become an extension of the people they serve; and that because of the finer complexities of money, we can contemplate it arising from natural order rather than reason.

Is Bitcoin Really About Bitcoin?

If money arose in this way [natural order] and the Banks are an extension of the people they serve, then similarly we’ll consider the universe along the same lines in that — it, too — is an extension of us [and] arising from natural order; where an eternal universe is probably in a continual state of re-invention or samsara.

This tweet brings background questions, to the fore:

The question is worthy, even if (re)emphasised: how can we be sure of the Bitcoin creator’s original purpose? It’s not just that we may have come to define Bitcoin too narrowly as a certain type of money; but more pointedly, how can we be sure [Bitcoin’s] original purpose was to be just a money?

The Apogee of Postmodernism

Returning to the tweet at the top of the page, there is the question of whether we can be sure Bitcoin is the prosaically described or purposely deliberated internet cash we’ve come to view it as?

It has been said that we’re the second generation of postmodernism — with the first [generation] most prominent in high energy physics, which went onto become the most successful theory in the history of science.

The postmodern method removes parameters, questions convention and challenges theoretical constructs:

“Our old gods in the postmodern era have been at least severely compromised or reconstituted or…deconstructed. Some struggle to protect and defend their ancient discourses, but the world has shifted under them. Shifts in ideological plate tectonics are often hard to detect. And when detected sometimes harder to accept.” Anon

During this period there were (re)quests for a unification of all the fields — due because of possible connections between language, history, economics, physics and so on. For example, we see how Adam Smith was made relevant again in digital markets with math based behaviour modelling. Monetary economics, however, remained relatively untouched.

Brute Force and Provable Conjecture

Bitcoin’s SHA-256 hashing algorithm is regarded as brutal because of its energy consumption, as articles like this testify; along with these tweets:

The same author of this tweet, also tweets here:

The tweets join up obvious thinking by conventional standards: that if Bitcoin was designed to optimise as consumer level money — for use in economic scenarios, as first imagined by Adam Smith — then its unrealistic to expect Bitcoin to work.

It’s easy to understand how this can be understood in economics 101: that economics is caused by scarcity in non-cooperative markets which create opportunity cost — but in a scarce world, the environment itself — we are led to believe — doesn’t have an opportunity cost because once it’s gone, it can’t be replaced.

So here is the conjecture: what if a new form of [non duality] economics would be capable of understanding energy and the environment in a different language (in say, an economics 102?)

This tweet observes:

The second law of thermodynamics certainly exists: and its a law where isolated systems cannot return to lower states of entropy. Which should be a consideration in formulating Bitcoin regulation and observing Bitcoin volatility.

Which then leads us back to Bitcoin’s brute force energy consumption: why did it’s designer implement non-Turing completeness, where processing units (miners) share an open network and singular memory field? These tweets may offer some clue:

The implication is the thermodynamic laws we understand, apply to isolated (or closed) systems; which then questions their relevance to the Bitcoin blockchain.

We can extrapolate from this a suggestion that such laws may not apply in the normal sense. And from this, extrapolate whether open or closed systems require external input to understand their reality and nature? Or if we were to get really carried away, question the nature of the source of our energy itself and whether this is isolated from other energy forms?

In this light, we can consider once again the natural order of discovery:

We can draw parallel with the physicists who first studied the new fields of sub-atomics, who realised they may be using the wrong sign signals — and that their calculus may be compromised.

And just as we have seen how Bitcoin has reframed inflation by conflating the axioms in [inflation] targeting — real and nominal values — through its proof of work algorithm (the proof being the work, being the price which gravitates to the cost); we can see how Bitcoin may be reframing trust at all levels and all forms through a new value network which permits contemplation of a non-duality economics — one which may resolve permanently the scarcity problem.

Whether there is life or energy beyond our solar system or not — and if there is, or were; would we summon the mental effort to seek it — is conjecture, along with the thought Bitcoin may allow us a meditative money to observe a meditative universe.

We should be open however, to such conjecture — as risible as it may sound — because one day, they may be provable by a hashing algorithm.