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Blockchain as Talmud

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Blockchain as Talmud AbacusWell-nighBlockchain as Talmud Jan 11, 2016 The Talmud The Jewish Talmud is a remarkable object. It is the product of hundreds of years of intense, rigorous, and highly formal debate and scholarship. It has served as the windrow of the Jewish people. The trunk of the tree. The Talmud has a very interesting property, the inspection of which will prove illuminating. First, one of the fundamental rules of Talmudic scholarship is that a recent scholar cannot contradict, reject, or overrule an older scholar. If a recent scholar takes issue with an historical analysis, the only thoroughfare misogynist to them is to reinterpret the intention of the older scholar. This uniting of interpretation goes back, in an unbroken chain, to the first commentaries and ultimately to the old testament and the ten commandments. As such, one can in theory unchangingly trace a current value, decision, or opinion when through history. Further, a concept or idea cannot be introduced arbitrarily, but must be rooted and stem from an existing concept or idea. Similarly, once an idea has been accepted, it can never be fully rejected, only reinterpreted. The quality of the interpretations, as well as the intention of the interpreters, is a subject of ongoing debate and, well, interpretation. But this property in unstipulated holds. This has several important implications. First, there is no possibility of well-constructed revolution. A “revolution” in Judaism, specified as a well-constructed rejection of what has come surpassing and the struggle to institute a new faith on entirely new foundations, could never occur. If such a thing were attempted, those individuals would be seen as a new sect, ultimately shredded from primary Judaism. The cadre of Judaism, specified as those who pinion to the teachings of the Talmud and associated texts, is fundamentally unfluctuating to this canon. Jews hold the Talmud as the primary authority. No one is forcing the Jews to respect the Talmud; it is simply that the study of the Talmud and its instruction is the worldwide denominator for the Jewish identity. Any individual Jew is, at any time, self-ruling to completely reject the entirety of the Talmud. Such a person, however, would closure to be wonted by their community. In this way, the Talmud coordinates the self-identifying polity of Jews. Second, the faith is capable of substantial dynamism. Interpretations can be fanciful and radical. Although new work must be based on historical scholarship, it is often the specimen that scholars will not stipulate with their contemporaries. In this way, the faith subdivides into movements, each respecting a particular strand of interpretation. Third, there is no need for a inside authority. The extent to which any individual person holds themselves subject to these laws and interpretations is, of course, a personal decision. Orthodox Jews take these laws very literally, and yet various schools of the orthodoxy have varying interpretations of some of the increasingly zipped implementations of the faith. The Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist, and other increasingly progressive flavors permit increasingly liberal unstipulated interpretations – interpretations which are, of course, rejected by the orthodoxy. The key here is that this is a single canon, to which all Jews can be seen as stuff in relation. Particularly relevant is that while inter-movement relationships are undefined and may be nonexistent or plane hostile, the overall coordination of the movements is implicitly achieved. Fourth, the faith as a whole can never be destroyed, as the Talmud functions moreover as a memory. Regardless of what may occur to some or plane a majority of the adherents of the faith, the survivors will be worldly-wise to rebuild the polity to within an wrong-headed precision. This implication is well-documented by historical experience. Fifth, the Talmud is “bigger” and “wiser” than any individual. Considering Plato’s “Philosopher King”, we observe that individual humans are insufficient for the task. A shared, dynamic history of thought, however, might be. As the product of a history of reason and debate, the Talmud represents a cultural history orders of magnitude larger than any individual person. It has a fundamentally different, unique, and very functionally-relevant ontology. Sixth and relatedly, the Talmud then exhibits “maximal intelligence”, in the sense that the unbroken uniting of interpretation represents increasingly overall wits than any record which unliable for erasure and editing. Democracy Let us transiently consider the similarities and differences between Talmud-based governance and the kind of Democratic governance exemplified by the United States. In both cases, we have the principle that decisions must occur within set boundaries. In the specimen of the Talmud, those boundaries are historical scholarship and foundational texts. In the specimen of the United States, those boundaries are the Constitution and Bill of Rights. In both cases, there are established mechanisms for making changes. In the specimen of the Talmud, changes are made via extrapolation and interpretation of past work. In the specimen of the United States, changes are made via a legislative process. A salient difference is that in the specimen of the United States, future changes are shredded from past changes; if the vital boundaries are respected, then anything goes. It is technically possible to “reinterpret” the vital boundaries by amending the constitution, but this seems highly unlikely. As such, we see the Talmudic process as having increasingly gradual changes, while the US process sways increasingly hands in waffly political winds. Of course, much of this difference can be rooted in the fact that the United States must secure territory, and relies on the use of gravity to enforce rules. As a faith, the Jews permit less well-defined borders. The United States and the Jewish people, like all states and religious communities, are entities of a fundamentally variegated nature. As such, they seem to necessitate fundamentally variegated approaches to transpiration and control. Religion is currently (although not historically) an opt-in experience; citizenship typically is not. Yet, we see some shared principles in both forms of governance. The differences towards to be in large part necessary differences coming from the fundamentally variegated natures of these entities, in particular with regards to group membership. As such, we should not necessarily finger obligated to reconcile them. The Blockchain The Talmud, its properties, and role in Jewish life provides a crucial specimen study for those interested in constructive ways of coordinating large groups of people woolgathering a inside authority. The fundamental mechanic is the strict requirement that future transpiration emerges from past work, prohibiting both the introduction of the completely novel and the rejection of any history. The historical wits of the Jews has shown that, if put in motion upon unobjectionable foundations, such a mechanic is sufficient for the decentralized coordination of the worriedness of millions of people wideness time and space. Recently, we have seen the emergence of technology which shares this property. The Blockchain, first described in the 2008 paper “Bitcon: A Peer to Peer Electronic Cash System”, is in essence a decentralized public ledger, in which anything can be recorded and made publically available. The principal mechanic of the Blockchain is that future entries must build upon past entries, and that any entry in the chain, once accepted, can never be deleted. In the words of the author, Satoshi Nakamoto: The only way to personize the sparsity of a transaction is to be enlightened of all transactions. In the mint based model, the mint was enlightened of all transactions and decided which arrived first. To succeed this without a trusted party, transactions must be publicly announced, and we need a system for participants to stipulate on a single history of the order in which they were received. The Blockchain is thus a decentralized validity in which all new changes must be a continuation of past work. As such, the example of the Talmud suggests that such a tool could be used for the constructive decentralized coordination of large groups of people wideness time and space, without the need for a inside validity or any force. In order for the Blockhain to be used in this way, it will be necessary for a large group of people to regard the Blockchain as an validity on a wide variety of issues. As in the specimen of Jews and the Talmud, the Talmud is an validity considering Jews see it as an authority. In an important sense, this is arbitrary. Fortunately, this sense suggests that there is no fundamental shortcoming which prevents a Blockchain from serving a similar purpose. This leads us to some interesting questions: What kind of information should this Blockchain contain? How should this Blockchain be updated? What content, if any, should be placed at the wiring of the Blockchain? As a first pass, it would seem as though this Blockchain should function as a repository of social values. As the polity specified by the Blockchain adapts, and external circumstances change, these values would be updated. At any point, any member of the polity could inspect the history of these values and the reasoning for their changes. As time passed, this record would wilt a deep and strong foundation for that community, and a trusted validity on the values and purpose of that community. Coordination without an authority. Updates to this Blockchain would occur on a rough consensus basis, permitting for the possibility of a split of the Blockchain at some point if there emerged a major disagreement over the direction of the community. Given the older discussion of Democracy, it does not seem at this time that the Blockchain can be used powerfully to govern a state; issues of tenancy and security seem to preclude the rational, gradual, consensus-based transpiration process we are discussing. However, it does seem as though the Blockchain could serve as an constructive validity and memory for a self-selected polity with shared values and without borders. One could point to other self-selecting communities with rough consensus-based decision-making processes, and observe that they succeed while employing very variegated decision-making systems. The Python community, with BDFL and a PEP-based system of improvement, has been pretty effective. Yet a series of shredded proposals is ontologically dissimilar to an unbroken uniting of decisions. The importance of this dissimilarity is to be determined. It would be very heady to be a part of such a community. Update (Feb 1) I shared this post with a few friends of mine with relevant domain knowledge. They gave valuable feedback and raised spare questions. Their responses are replicated below. From a Professor of Political Economy: Interesting read–but I wonder well-nigh practicality. The eyeful of many societies is stuff worldly-wise to effect rapid change. The way you lay this out, suggests that this may be a lot increasingly difficult. It may be a way to insure calmer legislation, etc. But it doesn’t move really seem to me to lead to faster movement of anything. From a Rabbi: This was fascinating. Thanks for sharing. You know, I think the question I’m sitting with is, given decentralized systems of law or commerce, what role does the organizer or covener have, and how much validity is in that role. The Talmud, for example, is a hodgepodge of many voices, but someone did the collecting. The work of that someone, the editor (or likely, editors) is what academics are particularly fascinated with these days. So, too, with any wiki. There is someone who hosts it. How much tenancy do they have? And I imagine that there are moreover decisionmakers with a Blockchain. What does it mean, then, to be at the part-way of a decentralizes system? Comments Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. Abacus Abacus kronovet@gmail.com kronosapiens kronosapiens I'm Daniel Kronovet, a data scientist living in Tel Aviv.