Bitcoin introduces laws of physics to society

In the history of society until the establishment of Bitcoin, a certain obvious pattern of relationships has been preserved. The laws of physics that we discovered were used to develop various technologies, and only these technologies directly influenced and affected society. There was no direct relationship between society and the laws of physics.

We had the privilege (or curse) of floating in our own imaginations when it came to building social relationships. Therefore, we could try to introduce economic systems that contradicted the laws of physics (such as communism), which could never be implemented because of this fact. But we could fool ourselves, because there was no direct connection between how the world works and how a system of human relations would work on that basis. We were convinced that by building a civilization we were creating something new, or at least different.

An analogy can be made that our social constructions were like precarious, capsizable floating rafts moved by the tides or the current of a river, rather than like permanent and rigid houses built on stilts driven into the ground - the immovable foundation of reality that physical relationships represent.

The emergence of the Bitcoin network makes it possible, for the first time in history, to change this. We already have the ability to connect (our rafts of) social relationships directly to the foundation (the ground) on which they rest. As strange as it may sound, the Bitcoin network introduces the laws of physics into society. I will give two such examples below.

The Conservation of Quantum Information

In classical physics, information can be arbitrarily altered or blurred, irretrievably erased. We have known for about 100 years that this is a flawed representation. In the quantum understanding of reality, information cannot be removed because of the principle of conservation of quantum information.

Bitcoin introduces absolute freedom of speech into social relations, i.e. the ability to write any information on a block. Someone might think that we had this before, because it was possible to write any characters on a piece of paper. However, such a piece of paper could be written on a new and similar piece of paper and then claim to be the original. Physically recorded information is always distorted years later by the problems of proving which version was the source. Any content recorded in the annals of the Internet can be altered, replaced, blurred, or censored even more easily.

Even the Bible, intended to be a duplicated and unchanging record of God's words, has been altered over thousands of years. This has not been prevented by the central institution of the Church, which is supposed to ensure that none of the content has been altered or misrepresented. The purity of the original message has not been preserved, even in such key passages as the Ten Commandments.

For example, the content of the Fifth Commandment has been changed to a version that is inconsistent with the original: "Thou shalt not kill," making every Catholic a sheep waiting to be slaughtered. The true and original Old Testament version used the word rasah (murder), not harag (war killings) or hemit (death penalty). Long ago, the Bible said in this commandment, "Do not murder," meaning do not kill the defenseless. It did not forbid defending a country against an enemy and shooting at attacking soldiers who want to conquer our country. It did not forbid the physical elimination of murderers from society through capital punishment.

What is written on the Bitcoin block, on the other hand, cannot be changed and is theoretically eternal in a social sense. The mathematical nature of the checksum makes it possible not only to prove that not a single comma in the original message has been changed, but also to ensure the purity of the copy by separating the wheat from the chaff. For the first time in history, human-generated information can be as immutable as quantum information.

We may, after hundreds of thousands of years, lose the ability to understand words in the same way they were understood in the 21st century when the content was written on the block. But the content will be the same as when it was written. Modern technology makes it possible to write data into blocks of crystals using a laser, and sooner or later the Bitcoin block will be there. This guarantees error-free transmission for the next millions of years. Much longer than the natural evolution of species. This means that the same information will be read by a completely new intelligent species that will come after us. Over the course of millions of years, humanity will evolve into a new form, even without the evolutionary acceleration technology we are likely to have soon.

Of course, every piece of information can be interpreted, and the content of a block will be interpreted differently, but at least the source material will still be the same for everyone, and it will be easy to prove that it has remained the same over all these years.

The information content of Bitcoin blocks will soon be considered the only indisputable source on any topic. With its help, we are already reaching a consensus on the most important: to whom a given pool of money belongs. In time, the data stored on the block will allow us to reach social consensus on many other important issues.

The Law of Conservation of Energy

Bitcoin introduces the first law of thermodynamics into social relations. This is the law of conservation of energy. Energy cannot be created for free because it cannot disappear or come into existence on its own (until we build a string between galaxies using the expansion of the universe itself to stretch it). This means that whoever has the most of it has credibility in society. Even the knowledge of how to use energy efficiently cannot be learned without effort. It requires the right technology, which requires intelligence, discipline, and perseverance. Therefore, whoever has the most energy and uses it most efficiently has more credibility in society. This is how users of the Bitcoin network objectively assess the social credibility of miners.

The essence of the way to prove that one is a good source of information in the Bitcoin network is based on the amount of work done. This work is closely related to the ability to perform certain calculations, and these, in turn, to the ability to use energy wisely. Whoever uses energy the most efficiently and has the most energy will be a reliable source of truth about the world (it carries information about the last transactions and, in practice, about the contents of the last block).

This makes it possible to create an energy barrier, even an encrypted energy barrier, between fraudsters and reliable sources of information. Anyone trying to provide information to the Bitcoin network has to do most of the work (Proof of Work) to be legitimate in their claims. It is this work that builds his authority in front of users, and no other social authority matters.

It is not enough to be an authority or to have formal authority. In the relationship between rulers, all formal titles are irrelevant; all that matters is actual ability and the historical record of work done. The revolutionary development that makes this new kind of honest relationship possible is the ease with which work done can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. This is provided by cryptography. Such proof of work cannot be forged, so we can be sure that we are trusting a confirmed source. This is why the Bitcoin network is so secure. It is the largest computer network in the world.

By securing the network through work, you earn money. This introduces incentives into the system of social relations in three key areas that objectively develop civilization. To build new energy sources, to use them better (new technologies) and to increase computing power (new processors).

The Bitcoin network links the earnings of individuals to the goals of the whole, which are not imaginary, but fundamentally linked to the laws of physics.

Zbigniew Galar, PhD

Post Scriptum

This is not investment advice. The author does not encourage the purchase of Bitcoin, nor does he discourage the purchase of Bitcoin; instead, he encourages education about Bitcoin and strongly discourages the purchase of any other non-decentralized cryptocurrency.