Blockchain, decentralization, and natural law

In fact, these two issues are deeply related. The seemingly formal understanding is more of a methodological understanding, which is close to ontological significance to some extent. It is nothing more than what center is decentralized? What is the content structure achieved in terms of method (blockchain)? Undoubtedly, the decentralized structure of Bitcoin and its blockchain system has a highly consistent consensus in terms of technical form. The controversy over Bitcoin itself is mostly limited to its understanding in the monetary sense.

Blockchain is self-existent

As blockchain technology emerged from the concept of Bitcoin, people's understanding and discussion of Bitcoin structure has long gone beyond the scope of digital currency. The discussion of pure blockchain concepts and the speculation on the meaning of decentralization are the best examples of this transcendence. But what exactly is blockchain technology or blockchain system? Many people who participated in the discussion explained its meaning based on their own knowledge structure and actual experience, which is beneficial to promoting the progress and development of blockchain methods and concepts. Especially when looking forward to and describing the application prospects of blockchain technology, people can gain a constantly updated understanding of blockchain from it. However, such cognition based on application methods is mostly based on the actual application effect and local potential of blockchain, and its value foundation is based on the conceptualized concept of decentralization. In the end, it is impossible to form a real consensus on value in terms of expression and cognition.

Recently, the industry has discussed the term "notarization chain", "account chain", "public trust chain" and other terms for blockchain, mostly out of practical cognition. In February 2014, Yang Xiaochen and Zhang Ming of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences published a research report entitled "Bitcoin: Operating Principles, Typical Characteristics and Prospects" ^[1] , and Yao Yong's earlier widely circulated article "Easy to Understand Bitcoin Working Mechanism Explanation" ^[2] , both of which refer to blocks as ledgers. Recently, when discussing the application prospects of blockchain, the notarization, public trust and other characteristics of blockchain have been more recognized. We know that all these terms or translations actually imply a certain basic consensus on blockchain. The reason why notarization, public trust or public account is established is the public consensus. Although this public consensus is based on purely technical settings, when this technical setting is transformed from technology to technical rationality, it becomes almost purely rational, and consensus has been formed. The originally meaningless 50 or 25 on the Bitcoin block is called Bitcoin. It is under public consensus that it becomes a symbol of wealth and rights. So we can be sure that this public consensus is based on its self-existence.

Simply put, when Bitcoin was first born, although people could basically accurately grasp and recognize the key role of Bitcoin blockchain in its infrastructure, they still did not recognize the universal significance of blockchain. As a "concept", blockchain is a "freedom" that transcends phenomena, and its significance is limited to Bitcoin. Even the "imitation" of many subsequent Bitcoin blockchain architectures is almost a simple copy of the human consciousness imprint on the blockchain. As blockchain is highlighted in a large number of media reports, seminars and exchanges, and on the desks of a large number of eye-catching large corporate offices, blockchain has unknowingly surpassed the scope of Bitcoin, and the latter has also "become" a practice of blockchain. The concept and application prospects of blockchain, as well as the emerging practices of blockchain technology, quickly turned blockchain into a phenomenal "fact". From Melanie Swann's "Blueprint for the New Economy of Blockchain" translated by Mr. Han Feng to the recently published research report "A Spark Can Start a Prairie Fire" by CITIC Securities Research Department ^[3] , from blockchain research salons and exchange meetings all over the country to the Global Blockchain Summit hosted by Wanxiang Group in October 2015, the concept, practice and prospects of blockchain have been intensively announced and demonstrated at different levels and to different degrees. In fact, this highlighting process can be understood as a kind of consciousness. The self-existence of blockchain has transformed into self-determination, that is, blockchain has thus transformed into a self-existence. Conceptually, self-existence is the self-existence presented by human rationality. Here, we can regard the blockchain applications that have been expressed, expected and practiced as not only an advancement in the understanding of blockchain technology, but also a formal expression of people's rational consensus on the existence of blockchain. In a familiar way, it is not very appropriate to say that it has already achieved objective social existence. But we still emphasize its self-existence. The characteristics of blockchain such as the block chain generation method and data irreversibility can directly represent this property. In this way, the concept of blockchain must contain a more important and ontological nature, that is, freedom. Here, we do not intend to make a detailed philosophical explanation of this, but when we can determine that blockchain is a kind of self-conscious consciousness, it is free, which is almost another expression of a concept. At the level of representation, we can already agree that the blockchain system is an open system. Obviously, openness is not a form, but a proposition. The basis of this proposition is the freedom of blockchain, and decentralization is originally the structural expression of the meaning of blockchain freedom.

Blockchain is originally decentralized

Since the birth of Bitcoin, the decentralized nature has always been the most important principle of digital currency and even the blockchain system. It is Bitcoin that interprets the most complete form of decentralization. Even the inventor of Bitcoin has been lost in the vast sea of ​​people and cannot be found. It is also the principle of decentralization that directly touches the current economic system and even the general rules in a broader sense, directly or indirectly proposing demands for institutional change, which will naturally cause disputes at different levels. The real impact of digital currency and blockchain technology comes from this, and it is far from being explained by technical rationality alone. On the other hand, the decentralized "consensus" is also accompanied by more or less different understandings in discussion and practice.

At present, the arguments for the pre-technical part of the understanding of decentralization are mostly sought from the discussion of the decentralization trend in "Out of Control" and the ontological discussion of Adam Smith's "invisible hand". This is nothing more than the expected cognition of the changes in social structure in the information age and the confirmation of the basic principles of the market economy. In fact, it is not enough to accurately support the decentralized "consensus", especially when many cognitions directly point the practice of decentralization to "de-intermediation", the meaning of decentralization is distorted and narrowed to some extent. According to the simple cognition explained above, the self-existence of the blockchain structure originally excludes the possibility of adding any additional meaning to it, and then reveals its free nature. Decentralization is only decentralized in this sense. Any subject in it is homogeneous and equal, and its homogeneous quality and equality are not externally attached, but determined by the intrinsic nature of the blockchain system itself. Human cognition only expresses these characteristics, which is the so-called self-existence. Therefore, centralization is not removed, it is originally decentralized.

But the cognition of decentralization is still meaningful. The practice system of blockchain structure is in the same society as the practice system of traditional structure that we are familiar with. The comparison between the two can easily show the differences. The concept of decentralization is directly pointed to the specific drawbacks in the traditional structure, including intermediary privileges in transactions, centralized rent-seeking due to excessive concentration of administrative supervision power, and monopoly of super power in currency issuance, etc. Therefore, blockchain technology and its practice system are naturally injected with the tendency and willingness to "remove" centralization. So how can the meaning of decentralization be interpreted more reasonably at the practical and realistic level? In general, blockchain applications involve the positioning of meta-factors in a specific blockchain structure, that is, the "role" nature presented in the blockchain structure. In particular, when blockchain technology is applied at the economic and social level, according to the autonomy and technical regulations of blockchain, any specific system actually places these "roles" in a homogeneous meta-factor position. Whether it is an individual, an enterprise "organization", or even a government, the nature relationship between these "roles" is reset, that is, homogenization; in the words we are familiar with before, in the blockchain structure, the relationship between people or the subjects involved is adjusted to a new level based on a certain standard. Naturally, we already know that we can use concepts such as equality, initialization, and decentralization to express this relationship. At the application level, we can also show the actual effect of the adjusted structure based on efficiency improvement and more reasonable relationships. The key point here is actually the "new standard" mentioned above. What is this "new standard"?

The blockchain system is a restoration of natural law

To put it another way, is this "new standard" based on the technical rationality presented by technology, or is it based on the rationality that is rooted in our consciousness? As early as the end of the 18th century, the great German classical philosopher Fichte discussed the idea of ​​"natural law" and the principle of its presentation in the real economic society in his "Foundations of Natural Law" ^[4] . Fichte believed that as a being with limited rationality, man unified the subjective and objective in himself and first made a self-definition. The result of this self-definition was that man strengthened the consequences of his intuitive activities and will activities into the existence of limited rationality. In this way, the same self-definition must inevitably set up an independent "non-self" sensory world, in which there are "many people". Fichte proved that the existence of human freedom and utility must be based on the homogeneity of human and "many people"'s limited rationality, that is, they are all freedom in the sense of consistent freedom and utility and their freedom limitation. Based on this, the relationship of mutual restraint and interaction between man and "many people" is the legal relationship between them, and they constitute a rule of law community based on legal relationship. In Fichte's theory, this legal relationship and the rule of law community are the basis for the deduction of the real world system. Here, we must note that Fichte's construction of the idea of ​​natural law that originates from both rationality and the sensual world of "non-self", freedom and freedom limitation, the community based on legal rights and their co-governance relationship, are basically the technical rational orientation of blockchain and the basis for people's current cognition and expectations of blockchain structure.

From the characteristics of the blockchain technology architecture, the technical community of co-governance that it can achieve must actually be based on the basic identity of the "role" subject, which is both the legal identity of the relationship between people and "many people" mentioned by Fichte, and the self-limitation of the non-self world. When the blockchain structure restores its self-existent characteristics, natural law must be its rational cognition of "new standards". The blockchain community based on natural law for co-governance actually restores the initial relationship consensus at the most basic level of the relationship between people. It's just that when modern technology has developed to this day, people have been able to realize this initial natural law relationship through the technical presentation of blockchain through a certain technical rationality.

In this way, we can clearly and simply understand that the essential content of the "decentralized" characteristics of blockchain systems, including digital currencies and digital asset systems supported by blockchain structures, is "depowerization", or the removal of all power attachments beyond natural law rights. The most typical manifestation in the blockchain transaction structure is that it only recognizes definite property rights and does not support fuzzy property rights and rights attachments beyond property rights. In any other blockchain structure, it is manifested as the blockchain "role" based on the identity, freedom and freedom of natural law rights in the basic protocol of the blockchain architecture.

Although blockchain practice is still in its infancy, it is still unknown to what extent people can interpret blockchain practice. But in any case, the development potential shown by Bitcoin and blockchain systems is far more than just practical. The formation of blockchain consensus will inevitably present more and more ideas and a colorful spiritual world.

Author: Sand Dollar
Source: Babbitt Information (http://www.8btc.com/blockchain-natural-right)