Money as Memory: In a Global Social Computer? | Blockchain as Memory in a Social Dispersed Computer?
Money as Memory = Blockchain as Memory
@Karov has a common saying which I agree with. He states: "Money is Mnemonics". It's a form of memory. Fair enough because in the journal of economic theory a paper by Kocherlakota pretty much makes this exact same statement. Money is really just a means of storing numbers to quantify who owes what. In the memory storage we call money we have the function of "credit" and of "debit". To credit is to "insert" and to debit is to "delete". A database essentially requires create, read, update and delete which are essentially the four basic functions of all persistent storage. Money is simply memory as ram is to a computer.
The next question arrives which is if money is memory then what is the computer? And this is perhaps where we can refine how we think about the word "economy". An economy can do what is known as "social computations". What function does an economy serve? Is it merely a satisfaction generation algorithm?
In one of my blog posts I even called society a computer: "If Society is a Computer, what is the Social Operating System?". In a technological context we can think of a blockchain as a data structure which provides for the memory capacity of a social network.
Memory is not enough
And if memory is not enough then money is not enough. Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin give us money (memory) but do not even do this well due to issues with scaling. Assuming cryptocurrency does scale then we still only have memory which simply isn't good enough. In computing terms it is akin to having only the RAM/Persistent Storage and while this may be all we need for basic functions of external memory (think of Memex) it is not going to be enough for a full fledged exocortex (external mind). A mind is more than simply having the ability to store but it also involves having the ability to to compute. Blockchain by itself does not compute and transactions by themselves are not going to be enough unless we can apply logical operations.
The debate between @Karov and I
The debate between myself and him is based on what the nature of computation is. When I say memory is not enough I mean it in the context of going far beyond money. I mean it in the context of building a decentralized computer in the sense that humans and machines combine to produce a global mind of sorts. We can call this global mind an exocortex or we can simply call it "society" but it's essentially a means of thinking and problem solving by leveraging external resources. Memex was mentioned because it highlighted the possibilities in the original breakthrough essay As We May Think. From here we get to the Ray Kurzweil talks on Exocortex, Singularity, etc.
References
Kocherlakota, N. R. (1998). Money is memory. journal of economic theory, 81(2), 232-251.
- Tauchain: The Social Dispersed Computer introduced as a Social Network?
- If Society is a Computer, what is the Social Operating System?
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_computing
- https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/07/as-we-may-think/303881/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Create,_read,_update_and_delete
@dana-edwards sir!
You have raised a very difficult question. Money is memory, then computer should be a means of collecting money. Social operating system is a storage of various types of memory, which displays the memory capacity of the social network as a data structure.
In theory an algorithm on a computer can be designed for the purpose of consuming as much memory as possible but what do we usually call such an algorithm if it consumes unlimited memory and does nothing else?
So the algorithm if efficient will consume the memory necessary to solve the problems. A task on an operating system is to consume enough to efficiently solve the problem the task is to solve. Interesting question you raised which should be explored further but my current thinking is that because resources are not unlimited (and are scarce) the memory capacity of real computers is finite. So this means in the real world resources are indeed finite and no amount of printing unlimited money changes this resource constraint from being physical reality.
Yes sir, the capability of Computer is limited. After all, such situations will be created when calculations exceed the capabilities, we will need to restore it. In a way, the human brain is not less than any computer storage which is filled with various types of data, even if Unable to make exact calculations at all times, we still need rest to refresh the brain. If the computer's storage capacity is filled in the exact same way, it needs to be restored or enhanced in data capacity.regards
https://steemit.com/tauchain/@karov/tauchain-and-the-cost-of-trust - check this out for illustration of costs ...
Computation==communication==transportation. To flip a bit 0/1 or vice versa is just the same as to move a bit in space. Computer is computer and does not matter if you move a bit across nanometers grid or over millions of meters or ... light years. computer==network. Which is the computer which memory software the money is? It is obvious - the network computer which the society (human beings and their artefacts) is. In few weeks I'll issue a distilled to purity and almost unhuman concise level :P essay on that. Will include this is resources.
If humans and machines by way of communication can merge into a collaborative processing unit, how do you view the influence of cyborgization (augmentation) on these humans and the feedback loops which may emerge from this inter-communication between them?
Humans are not the only possible economic agents. Human is also technically the most limited entity in the social network. The machines can process way more, and the cyborgs are the humans who adapt to merge/ with or augment toward the machines to improve productivity. Artilects are the cosmists who seek to completely digitize themselves (this could be considered the religious camp).
Hugo de Garis communicates the nuances of this. Robin Hanson also communicated on similar topics.
That's why I said society = humans + artefacts. Cyborgization / augmentation -- must be viewed in ''mankind as the life's way to break the CHON jail'' - expansion of life into other substrata. Will cover that too in an essay. I have 100+ modular one idea at a time puzzle bits on the assembly line...
... and what any computer computes or in general any system outputs? - nothing bit its own next state. brain outputs thought, economy - wealth.
Other way around, thought operates brain operates body, mind>body, as seen in neuroplasticity and as evidenced by telepathy, telekinesis, remote viewing beyond any doubt.
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there ain't any evidence for what you enumerated, sir. other way around would mean against the arrow of time :)
http://www.opensciences.org/blogs/open-sciences-blog/232-consciousness-why-materialism-fails
Time in a simply linear nature, I think there's plenty of reference that such isn't the case along with what I mentioned.
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wish u all the best.
Sorry, did I offend you by posting that article which references what you said there's no evidence for while coincidentally also giving several references contrary to your remark about time?
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