"The beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms." - Socrates (or Antisthenes, or neither of them)
When a ball is thrown, how fast does it travel? At the speed at which its movement can be measured on the ground? Perhaps we need to add the rotational speed of the Earth? Or maybe the speed at which the Earth orbits the Sun in free fall? Or the speed at which the solar system moves around the center of the galaxy?
The answer is that everything is right and nothing is right; there is no answer before defining the terms.
I am neither a mathematician nor a physicist, but Bitcoin theory and quantum theory fascinate me. When I bring up these topics with acquaintances who are not mathematicians, physicists or professionals in these fields, I encounter confusion and reactions along the lines of "let's see if it works", "it's complicated" or "you're wrong."
Meaning, the initial intuition is that if a theory undermines the familiar theory or "school of thought", then it will probably be complicated, illogical and difficult to understand.
But this is incorrect. it is a paradigm shift, a change in terms that are not actually that complicated and understanding them will create additional order, not confusion.
Meni Rosenfeld, a mathematician and one of the first to understand Bitcoin's potential, said that in order to understand Bitcoin, one must understand two things:
That there is a problem with our money - a statement I will call "The beginning of wisdom". Analyzing this in other terms, I would say it isn't necessarily a problem with our money, but rather that the time is ripe to delve deeper into existing monetary theory. If the current terms do not give us the complete picture and we have unanswered questions, we have to adopt new terms alongside the existing ones that don't always align with what we knew until now.
That Bitcoin is the solution - a statement I will call "The definition of terms". In other words, Bitcoin provides us with an additional layer of understanding. The time is right to define and explore new terms and decode a new theory that will help us better understand what money is.
What I am trying to say in this text is that the theory behind Bitcoin, much like quantum theory, is a theory that creates a new order and it is incredibly precise. The question is not whether the mathematics of Bitcoin or quantum theory add up or not; they add up better, or at the very least, no worse, than the previous theories we knew. The question is whether we are willing to accept new terms so that the new theory can bring us order rather than chaos.
And I have an important clarification here: when I write "Bitcoin theory", I am not referring to Bitcoin as the specific technological application, but rather the theory behind it, which touches on philosophical, social, economic and scientific realms (Austrian economics, Cypherpunk values, digital scarcity, physics and mathematics). In quantum theory, the parallel term would be "quantum computing" or a specific quantum computing project.
This begs the question: how can "Bitcoin theory" coexist alongside the existing monetary system ("Fiat theory", money managed by debt, inflation, and trust in governments)? My answer is that it does so similarly to how quantum theory coexists with the contradictory theory of relativity, an unresolved tension based on a separation of powers and bridges attempting to be built between the theories. Much like the very first question in this text: how fast does the ball I threw travel?
I want to clarify my position: Bitcoin theory, much like quantum theory, is not going anywhere. Digital scarcity that is free of third-party intervention, censorship resistant, decentralized, global and permissionless, featuring peer-to-peer value transfer and equal rules for all participants is no longer just a theory, but a developing established fact.
Fixating on price, momentum and the dangers regarding the technological applications of these two theories misses the bigger picture. These genies are not going back into the bottle.
"The beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms."
- Socrates (or Antisthenes, or neither of them)
When a ball is thrown, how fast does it travel? At the speed at which its movement can be measured on the ground? Perhaps we need to add the rotational speed of the Earth? Or maybe the speed at which the Earth orbits the Sun in free fall? Or the speed at which the solar system moves around the center of the galaxy?
The answer is that everything is right and nothing is right; there is no answer before defining the terms.
I am neither a mathematician nor a physicist, but Bitcoin theory and quantum theory fascinate me. When I bring up these topics with acquaintances who are not mathematicians, physicists or professionals in these fields, I encounter confusion and reactions along the lines of "let's see if it works", "it's complicated" or "you're wrong."
Meaning, the initial intuition is that if a theory undermines the familiar theory or "school of thought", then it will probably be complicated, illogical and difficult to understand.
But this is incorrect. it is a paradigm shift, a change in terms that are not actually that complicated and understanding them will create additional order, not confusion.
Meni Rosenfeld, a mathematician and one of the first to understand Bitcoin's potential, said that in order to understand Bitcoin, one must understand two things:
If the current terms do not give us the complete picture and we have unanswered questions, we have to adopt new terms alongside the existing ones that don't always align with what we knew until now.
The time is right to define and explore new terms and decode a new theory that will help us better understand what money is.
What I am trying to say in this text is that the theory behind Bitcoin, much like quantum theory, is a theory that creates a new order and it is incredibly precise. The question is not whether the mathematics of Bitcoin or quantum theory add up or not; they add up better, or at the very least, no worse, than the previous theories we knew. The question is whether we are willing to accept new terms so that the new theory can bring us order rather than chaos.
And I have an important clarification here: when I write "Bitcoin theory", I am not referring to Bitcoin as the specific technological application, but rather the theory behind it, which touches on philosophical, social, economic and scientific realms (Austrian economics, Cypherpunk values, digital scarcity, physics and mathematics). In quantum theory, the parallel term would be "quantum computing" or a specific quantum computing project.
This begs the question: how can "Bitcoin theory" coexist alongside the existing monetary system ("Fiat theory", money managed by debt, inflation, and trust in governments)? My answer is that it does so similarly to how quantum theory coexists with the contradictory theory of relativity, an unresolved tension based on a separation of powers and bridges attempting to be built between the theories.
Much like the very first question in this text: how fast does the ball I threw travel?
I want to clarify my position: Bitcoin theory, much like quantum theory, is not going anywhere. Digital scarcity that is free of third-party intervention, censorship resistant, decentralized, global and permissionless, featuring peer-to-peer value transfer and equal rules for all participants is no longer just a theory, but a developing established fact.
Fixating on price, momentum and the dangers regarding the technological applications of these two theories misses the bigger picture. These genies are not going back into the bottle.