Decentralizing The Truth and The Role of "The Truth" As a Trusted Third Party.
I will ask you: "Who the fuck are you?"
On the process to fully decentralizing our social contracts we will first have to decentralize our notion of truth itself and understand justice in a whole new way.
This article will deal with these notions we consider philosophical yet the development of civilization is reaching the point in which these philosophical ideas are put into practice and our man-made intelligent machines have to be design by these most fundamental ideas. Ideas which can be proven as true :) by these machines.
For the blockchain educated crowd it may be a little clearer the functional role of truth when I will refer to"the truth" as a substitute for a trusted third party. Bitcoin is named a trustless system. The use of the term trustless in the bitcoin ecosystem captures the essence of all that I will explain here regarding the concept of truth as being entangled with the concept of trust. However trust in the bitcoin ecosystem is not directly associated with truth but rather the entity which define what is the history which the nodes will accept at true. In fact bitcoin is not a trustless system but rather a decentralized system of trust. The trust is placed in the system's decentralization mechanism as a whole, which means that the truth is placed in that decentralized mechanism as well. Thus it is that truth setting mechanism which I will eventually want to activate as substitute for the linear logic driven truth in which only one truth and only the one truth that derived and agree with the history can be accepted as true.
Naming
Naming is the the foundation of any truth system.
let me quote naming as expressed by verse 1 in the Tao Te Ching :
1.0
The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named is not the eternal name
The nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth
The named is the mother of myriad things
Thus, constantly free of desire
One observes its wonders
Constantly filled with desire
One observes its manifestations
These two emerge together but differ in name
The unity is said to be the mystery
Mystery of mysteries, the door to all wonders
1.1
The way that can be spoken of
Is not the constant way;
The name that can be named
Is not the constant name.
The nameless was the beginning of heaven and earth;
The named was the mother of the myriad creatures.
Hence always rid yourself of desires in order to observe its secrets;
But always allow yourself to have desires in order to observe its manifestations.
These two are the same
But diverge in name as they issue forth.
Being the same they are called mysteries,
Mystery upon mystery —
The gateway of the manifold secrets.
1.3
The Tao that can be told of is not the eternal Tao;
The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
The Nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth;
The Named is the mother of all things.
Therefore let there always be non-being, so we may see their subtlety,
And let there always be being, so we may see their outcome.
The two are the same,
But after they are produced, they have different names.
They both may be called deep and profound.
Deeper and more profound,
The door of all subtleties
There are 175 English translation for that one Chinese verse, the first of 82 verses by the legendary LaoTzu.
Naming is the logical function which allows expansion. It start with giving name to objects but is goes further more to a concept that is very closely related to the hieroglyphs of a written language. A name that represent a full sentence or even a full story when used in a tightly knitted cultural content such as "the holocaust" or '9/11 ',
In written language, a logogram or logograph is a written character that represents a word or phrase. Chinese characters and Japanese kanji are logograms;
In alphabets and syllabaries, individual written characters represent sounds rather than concepts. These characters are called phonograms. Unlike logograms, phonograms do not necessarily have meaning by themselves, but are combined to make words and phrases that have meaning. Writing language in this way is called phonemic orthography.
Names as contracts
The function of naming itself can be played in two levels, one is the individual level in which I can name things to organize it in my own mind. Each of us is free to name anything they want how ever they wish at that level. The other function is name as agreement, a sort of a contract. In fact the most fundamental contracts between individual are the names. Logic is the rules by which the connection between the named ones is formed. however to form the rule one need to agree on some names first. These first name are the axioms.
Bitcoin transaction are in fact a process of renaming a coin according to the rules of the protocol, yet agreed on as a consensus.
The protocol alone can not decide and is not design to decide which is the right name out of conflicting two different names to the same coin's original name (hush name + wallet address) is the right name. The fact that the wallet address is part of the coin's name made this coin resilient to dabble spend.
The consensus thus is not about the truth as right or wrong,. it is all about the naming. In order to keep agreeing on the most basic sentence , A go to B (a transaction), we agree on what is B based on A. We let A name B. However if A gives two names for "B" B.1 and B.2 (BOB and Bill) we agree that B is what most nodes decide on, whether its B.1 or B.2 dose not matter. the nodes and our collective truth dose not care whether it is Bob who will get the coin or Bill. Our collective blockchain based truth don't ask or bother with justice!
Logic
The pre-order for the first order of any logic is naming. Logic itself is the mechanism by which everything can progress and expend without having to use the very expensive method of naming. Naming requires the energy of a consensus which involve getting all to know and agree. It is much more efficient to agree on the functions by which things will be allowed to progress and expend rather then use renaming for each step of the way. If we can agree on the names we will be able to go on using the mechanics of logic. and when contradiction will arise we will have to go back to the function of naming.
Truth
It is clear that for our social conducts truth is important on some basic level in order to establish a trust relationship. However truth is also essential for computers to operate as mathematics's logic is based on the notion of truth and on axioms as the fundamental contracts of names. Thus the truth is also essential to establish a trust relationship with computers. However computers do not know to use the function of renaming unless act as a network of choices. The only problem which we need to deal with once we have that network of choice is that for any choice to be made logically one have to have an incentives and a sort of moral (which is nothing but a very elaborate incentive mechanism rooted in social behavior) set up. So our computer will have to develop a will, thus an awareness to needs from basics such as energy to social function such as morals.
However we don't really have to use logic LOL. And we don't need or even want to involve justice in order to allow the basic function of trust that is needed to be created. We can simply operate on the decentralized based mechanism of the blockchain and make the choice a matter of the operators not the computers themselves. A choice driven by incentives to the operators .
Dear Nili Lerner, you seem to be using a sudden heightened sense of philosophical awareness to elucidate the concepts in a way that have yet not been fully decoded in blockchain world. You are truly working as a speculative philosopher of the cryptoworld. I am happy to find the one but there is a catch. You are so excited about your writings that it does not seem to be passing through either edits or second rewriting. I have committed myself such things a lot in my life. If i forget the gender, i regard you as my alter-ego. You do what i aspire to do but what i aim to tell is that you are writing a landmark text of a new world. Here, minor mistakes may go a long way in ruining the beauty of the word. I have just one suggestion if you don't mind. Please re-read it and do the needful editing.
Totaly agree :) will edit the mistakes. But somtimes i need to just press "publish " knowing there is more work to do. These which are let out that way are far more close to my work as an artist than a philisopher. Who ever manage to get through iit that way is the one who know it himself. :) Its a bit of a test ...which you seems to pass. :)
Dear sunil. let me now try and answer the interesting points which you brought up and will explain you here in public some crucial facts : It is something that you have noticed but most do lack the intelligence to see it. Its not about being smarter it is about a cretin ability to see through the vale of socialization and into the essence of the unformed existence of what we will later name reality and truth. As a social creature and a very complex one, our own survival depends largely on our ability to assimilate and mimic that social behavior. Often that will collide with our own wishes and will . It is the mammoth battle in everyone's life to follow the soul yet maintain the necessary level to sustain life itself. My life made me know about it far more than most people but more so something made me be able to become totally aware of it to the point of able to structure it in words. Most of the things I do and say here come from that knowledge, I study formally very little, I refuse to get to know anything before I realize it through my own work (as an artist) and dreams . However I do have an extreme strong logic sense and thus I am able to translate most mystical expressions into a mechanical logical ones. I know the part of our consciousness which are making these transformations and I do know now much about how it work. Most of the things I try to convey are far too complex to explain in details and yet complete a full picture that can tell the full story. I do that in chapters . It comes to me as I go through each practical point that need to be addressed. and it is all so very concrete though at some point it may seem philosophical. The reason I do publish these entries some time quite raw it that it is enough defined for myself to go on to the next one. Getting it out and communicating in is very very important, but rewriting to the point it could be clear to most people would take too much of my creating time and energy. I let go knowing that it is only one part of many on the way to define that which I know. That which we all know yet not in our aware mind. I do extremely appreciate thous who are whiling to put the time and energy to read and understand, and comment. and I really don't expect many to do that in that raw state. English is my second language so it is even more of an effort to understand what I mean if I do not spend the time rewriting again and again. But sometimes I just let go and let it be hoping to get it better the next time I will try to convey that idea. All is just like a working draft for whatever is it that I try to do in life. I do feel like on that platform ,steemit, I can work that way (unlike on linkdin) . it is my art , and these all are sketches. sketches of the a real thing I am trying to build with many many others who are going on the same rode as myself