[p2p-research] essay with a smattering of P2P

[Michel Bauwens]

Hi Matt,

thanks for this,

one quibble: you associate polytheism with democracy, and monotheism with
the divine rights of kings, but there's another way to read this:
monotheistic religions also aimed to limit the absolute powers of king, to
subsume them to a higher spiritual order and community, i.e. the
church/ummah etc... Of course non-monotheistic religions such as Buddhism
aimed at the same effect, so what I'm saying is that your linkage may not be
direct,

Michel

On Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 5:46 AM, Matt Boggs <matt at digiblade.com> wrote:

>  One of life's lessons is that those in charge are the ones who write the
> rules. Usually this just means that might makes right and the powerful set
> the standards. Often to their own benefit. On a more fundamental level
> though, it means the opposite. Those who figure out what the rules are, set
> the standards by which society functions. Rather than spend my life trying
> win according to rules which often seem incomprehensible, contradictory and
> tilted towards those already possessing advantages, I set out to figure what
> really is going on. I did not seek answers to give me comfort, but truths to
> which I must answer. The following essay revolves around three
> interconnected observations about physical reality, spirituality and
> economics. It is not about how to win, because in life the finish line is
> death. It is simply about understanding how life works and how it might work
> better. The conceptual foundation is the cycle of expansion and contraction
> and the infinite number of interactions.
>
> In trying to make sense of life, there is a constant tension between moving
> forward and reviewing the past. We neither want to be stuck in the past, or
> miss any lessons it might have to teach us. There is no one guide to the
> future, so it is a constant process of adaptation. Often the corrections are
> so natural, we make them subconsciously, while other times they are the
> source of endless agonizing. The larger society goes through this process
> and political coalitions form to advocate for various propensities, such as
> conservatism looking to the presumed order of the past, or liberalism
> leaning to the formless energy of the future. That cycle of social expansion
> and civil consolidation.
>
> What is time itself? Is it a narrative path along which we travel from the
> past to the future? That is the common assumption on which thought,
> knowledge and the concept of history is based. It is Newton's absolute flow
> of time and Einstein's relative fourth dimension. There is a problem though.
> The past is a generally agreed upon series of events, while the future is an
> infinite number of possibilities, fanning out from the present. According to
> Relativity there is no absolute measure of time and since Quantum Mechanics
> says circumstance is not entirely deterministic, many physicists propose
> that multiple realities emerge whenever the laws governing the progression
> of events are not deterministic. Schrodinger's Cat is both dead and alive.
>
> Is nature really this inefficient? What if some basic logical error exists
> in our thinking? There are natives of South America who think of the past as
> being in front of and the future behind the observer. That is because their
> frame is the event, not the observer. Something happens, is observed and
> then is past. We, on the other hand, are a few degrees removed from this
> basic reality. For us, time is that series of events recorded in our minds
> and history books, so the future is in front of us and the past is behind.
>
> Consider that if two physical entities collide, it creates an event. While
> the material proceeds from past events to future ones, those events go the
> other way, from being in the future to being past. What is the real
> direction of time? Are we traveling this path from the past into the future,
> or does the activity of what is present create a series of events which go
> from being future potential to past circumstance? Does the earth travel the
> fourth dimension from yesterday to tomorrow, or does tomorrow become
> yesterday because the earth rotates? Is time really the basis of motion, or
> simply an effect of it? If it is an effect, than time has more in common
> with temperature, than space. Energy creates and replaces events. Time is
> the measurement, not what is being measured and that is why it is relative
> to the circumstances of the measurement.
>
> There is no such thing as a dimensionless point in time, as that would
> require a cessation of the very motion being measured. Such a state would
> have a temperature of absolute zero. The reason light is described as
> timeless is because it has no internal motion, since that would have to
> exceed the speed of light in order to happen.
>
> The past is information. The future is where the energy goes.
>
> Reality is composed of energy manifesting structure and information. While
> the energy is neither created or destroyed, its constant activity is
> creating and consuming the information. The timeline of energy is from past
> events to future ones, while the timeline for information and structure,
> being created and consumed, is from future possibility to past circumstance.
> While this structure is constantly evolving, it does so at varying rates, so
> that change can be rapid or slow. As long as structures can absorb as much
> or more energy as they lose, they continue to exist, but this requires
> adapting to the information which the consumed energy manifests, whether it
> is an organism eating food, or an institution adjusting to changes in the
> larger culture. As institutions become more powerful, they tend to become
> less adaptive and insular, while provoking external reaction. As long as
> structures grow and adapt, the future is an evolving continuation of the
> past. When they can no longer adapt, the future becomes a reaction to the
> past. Evolution and revolution.
>
> While our brains are of the physical reality that goes from past to future,
> our minds are the record of events which scroll away into the past.
> Eventually though, our lives are units of time that begin in the future and
> ultimately recede into the past, as the larger process of life moves onto
> the next generation.
>
> This dichotomy is analogous to the top down order, vs. bottom up process of
> Complexity Theory. Order is the linear information receding into the past,
> while process is the non-linear energy expanding into the future. As with
> cosmology, where the gravitational structure of matter is contracting, while
> the various forms of energy expand.
>
> Space, on the other hand, isn't simply three dimensions. Dimensions are
> really just linear projections. Lines. Three dimensions are simply the
> coordinate system of the center point. While relativity tried to model time
> as an additional dimension, based on the narrative series, it did succeed in
> showing that space cannot be considered an absolute three dimensional grid,
> as the perspective is distorted from one point of reference to another. This
> is evident in basic political terms, since everyone has their own view of
> reality and they often clash, yet both points of view are serially coherent.
> You could say the Arabs and Israelis use different coordinate systems to
> define the same space. There is no universal perspective, as the more
> universal a concept, perspective, or point of reference is, the more
> generalized and inconsequential it is to any particular situation. It's the
> infinite dimensionality which makes life dynamic, since there is no ultimate
> pattern into which it can settle. The mind feeds on chaos and turns it into
> order. Without that constant stimulation, it stagnates. Then again the
> opposite effect is that if we cannot discern order in the chaos, we would
> fall to pieces, intellectually and emotionally. That's why we constantly
> make up stories and other explanations to piece together what we do not
> understand, rather than just accept that we do not understand. We have to
> move forward, or we will fall apart.
>
> When you have large numbers of points moving about, the one concept which
> does define the overall situation is temperature. The scalar level of
> activity. In fact the same logic which uses the speed of light to say time
> is a fourth dimension of space, could use a given amount of energy to say
> temperature is an additional parameter of volume, since a change in the
> volume of this energy would have a proportional effect on its temperature.
> Volume and dimension are the scalar and vector of the vacuum, while
> temperature and time are the scalar and vector of the fluctuation.
>
> So time and temperature are actually quite similar, as emergent effects of
> motion. They describe the conceptual dichotomy of narrative and the larger
> network of activity from which we distill the narrative. This relationship
> between temperature and time manifests in the two halves of the brain, with
> the parallel processor of the right brain functioning as a thermostat, that
> perceives the multiplicity of the present moment, while the serial processor
> of the left side records the linear cause and effect of time, from which
> rationality emerges.
>
> Physics is trying to solve a problem arising from our intellectual distance
> from reality, not a problem with reality. Other disciplines, such as
> biology, neurology, computer sciences, etc. are working around this
> conundrum in their own fashion.
>
> Since thinking is conceptual reductionism, we tend to be focused on the
> contrasts, rather than the connected medium. With morality, this is the
> conflict between good and bad. The popular assumption is of a conflict
> between two extremes, but the attraction to the beneficial and repulsion of
> the detrimental is the primordial biological binary code, of which we are
> complex manifestations. It evolves from the bottom up, rather than
> proscribed from the top down. What is good for the fox, is bad for the
> chicken, yet there is no clear point where the chicken ends and the fox
> begins. Life is a bootstrapping process of creation and consumption, just as
> time needs to consume information in order to create new information.
> Success is being the foundation of what comes next, while failure is being
> fodder for it. Both are necessary and all are part of the larger organic
> process. While we like clear and easy answers, rather than hard and painful
> truths, it should be remembered that between black and white are not just
> shades of grey, but all the colors of the spectrum.
>
> We think of God as an all-knowing absolute, but the universal state of the
> absolute has no division and therefore is both everything and nothing, while
> anything not absolute is relative to everything else so defined. The
> distinctions of knowledge are relativistic feedback loops of information and
> judgment. It is a process, not an object. The essence of interpersonal
> morality, to treat others as you would have them treat you, is moral
> relativism. A spiritual absolute would be the raw essence of consciousness
> from which complex organisms rise, not an all-knowing moral ideal from which
> humanity fell. When society does prescribe moral absolutes, it is often
> contradictory, since the linear presumption is that if a little is good,
> than a lot must be much better and if anything is at all bad, than it must
> be all bad. There is no conceptual regard for reciprocity, reaction,
> balance, laws of unintended consequences, silver linings, etc. Ambiguity is
> derided and people are expected to line up with the good and against the
> bad. The result is endless chaos as masses of people are herded around
> complex situations by simple minded assertions of good and bad. The irony is
> that relativism provides a much more comprehensive moral code, since one's
> actions are weighed against the rest of the universe, as opposed to whatever
> definition of God you happen to abide by. Karma means that for every action,
> there is an equal and opposite reaction. What goes around, comes around.
>
> Monotheism began as an idealization of social hierarchy and the wisdom of
> elders, but it overlooks the more fundamental process by which society
> regenerates this order, as each generation dies off and is replaced by the
> next. The top down order is periodically replaced by bottom up processes.
> Those higher up the evolutionary and social ladder are emergent layers of
> evolution that depend on those below them, far more than those below depend
> on those above. In fact, in nature, emergent levels tend to be predatory for
> the purpose of controlling the growth of those they depend on, just as
> emergent layers of society control those from which they rise. If they
> succeed in destroying the health of those below them, then these higher
> levels are no longer necessary.
>
> It was polytheists who developed democracy, as tribes and cults interacted
> and had to compromise, while monotheism gave us the divine right of kings.
> It is necessary to have a common set of goals and standards for any group to
> coexist, but it is more effective to have one built on a sensible foundation
> of common goals, than one chasing after abstract ideals. That is because the
> perfect is often the enemy of the good.
>
> Polytheism weaves a tapestry out of individual threads, while monotheism
> braids a rope out of individual strands. Each have a purpose.
>
> Even though our religions remain monotheistic, our political institutions
> are largely democratic because they need the ability to regenerate from the
> bottom up, as old ways and leaders get stagnant and rigid. Now our social
> hierarchies are not so much a matter of political power, but economic
> weight, as wealth accumulates to those most adept at controlling the flow of
> it. It is becoming increasingly obvious this situation is both unstable and
> destructive to both society and the environment. The question is how to
> institute a system which combines healthy bottom up growth, with effective
> top down leadership and the ability to adjust both to changing
> circumstances. The old system of adolescent greed and fear, constrained by
> government regulation and protection, becomes less effective as the level of
> economic and social complexity increases.
>
> A potential solution might lay in a reconsideration of money, that
> institution of collective trust on which our mass society is based.
>
> Money functions as both a store of value and a medium of exchange. These
> work at cross purposes, because as a store of value it is a form of private
> property, while as a medium of exchange it is a form of public utility,
> similar to a road system. Most people focus on their own wealth in
> comparison to others and thus think of it as private property. The reality
> is that the system belongs to whomever guarantees its value. We do possess
> the money we hold, in the same way we possess the section of road we are
> driving on. You own your car, house, business, etc, but not the roads
> connecting them. Money is a similar medium. It was one thing when money
> signified some commodity you had stored or traded and its value was entirely
> based on that underlaying commodity, but now the money supply far exceeds
> the underlaying value of the real economy and so its value is maintained by
> the ability of the government to support it through taxation. This means it
> has become an illusionary bubble of value into which ever more resources are
> needed to support and so is only functional as a medium of exchange. While
> this is potentially catastrophic, it presents an opportunity to change the
> basic economic equation.
>
> Believing money is private property encourages people to hoard it. The
> problem is that capital is subject to the laws of supply and demand, with
> the lender as supply and the borrower as demand. Since the supply of capital
> must be balanced by demand for it, there must be sufficient borrowers for
> this notational wealth, or its value will collapse. The problem is that
> political power is on the side of those with money, rather than those
> borrowing it and this lack of balance regularly creates situations which
> swell the supply of money, while depleting the abilities of those borrowing
> it. This results in periodic credit collapse, as masses of borrowers
> default. We are at an extreme state of this particular situation, since the
> government has borrowed massive amounts of its own money back, loan
> standards were left in the dust and enormous bubbles of excess circulation
> were blown up by the financial services industry to hold this surplus
> notational wealth. Now that the bubble is collapsing and its value
> evaporating, the powers that be are engaged in more destructive behavior by
> issuing ever more debt and currency to keep the bubble from imploding. Since
> the only way to prevent this additional money from being seriously
> inflationary is to monetize ever more value out of society and the
> environment in order to support and pay interest on it, to the increasing
> detriment of world health. The situation is analogous to high blood
> pressure. As bad debt clogs the arteries, increasing pressure doesn't clear
> the clots, but damages healthy tissue and causes it to harden and burst in
> weak points. When that happens, a person dies, but an economy flooded with
> loose credit is distorted. In a Ponzi scheme, the money from later investors
> is used to pay off earlier investors. When an asset bubble builds up, due to
> easy credit, rather than improved earnings, the same thing happens, as later
> investors pay earlier investors, then lose their investment when the well of
> credulous investors dries up.
>
> Paul Volcker is credited with curing inflation in the early 1980's, by
> raising interest rates and reducing the flow of fresh credit into the
> economy. While inflation may be caused by loose monetary policy, the effect
> of higher rates is to reward those with money to lend, while punishing those
> wishing to borrow it. So how did he cure an oversupply of money already in
> the system, when his method of choice also significantly reduced demand for
> it? The difference between the Federal Reserve selling debt it is holding
> and the Treasury issuing fresh debt, is that while the Fed retires the money
> it collects, the Treasury uses the money it gets to fund public spending.
> Public spending doesn't compete with the private sector and generally funds
> projects that enable increased private investment. So not only does this
> deficit spending directly provide demand for credit, but has a multiplier
> effect in the private sector, by increasing both its size and profitability.
> Suffice to say, the rapidly increasing deficits of the early 1980's had a
> significant effect on bringing the supply of credit in line with demand for
> it. The reason a surplus of money increases the expense of borrowing it is
> because the tendency is to spend it, rather than lend it, so there is
> actually a shortage of money to borrow and the cost goes up. At the time,
> economists were concerned that increased government deficits would further
> raise interest rates for the private sector, but the opposite happened and
> rates came down. The supply of money is potentially infinite. The issue is
> keeping it in line with demand, so that its value is stable and people are
> willing to lend it at nominal interest rates. Or spend it chasing asset
> values upward, which is often just another form of inflation.
>
> Government debt is in fact one of the primary sources of demand for
> capital. Just think for a moment where all the money that all the
> governments of the world borrow would be invested otherwise? The stock
> market? Real estate? Derivatives? Emerging markets? Now that the economy is
> distressed and many are buying government debt as a safe investment, rather
> than houses or pets.com, this public debt has become the biggest bubble of
> all. Will it pop, like the dot com and housing bubbles? Can the government
> pay it back? Well, that depends on how its tax receipts do. Need I say more?
>
> Consider how it would change public perception of monetary wealth, if we
> were to come to the realization that the monetary system really is now
> entirely a form of public commons? The practice of hoarding excessive
> amounts would lack logical justification, so savings would be taxed
> progressively. This is not to discourage individual effort, but a necessary
> recognition of the effect of excess savings on a functioning monetary
> system. Too much of a good thing isn't always good. If people understood
> monetary value constituted public property, than they would be far more
> reluctant to drain value out of their social networks and environment to put
> in a bank in the first place. We all like having roads, but there is little
> inclination to pave more than we need. In this situation, the same would
> apply to monetizing our lives. Other avenues of trust and reciprocation
> would have the space to develop, which would strengthen communities and
> their relationship to the environment.
>
> Political power started as private initiative and eventually grew into
> monarchy. Monarchists railed against mob rule, but we eventually learned how
> to make it a public trust by allocating power where it was most responsive.
> Why not do the same with the banking industry? As the currency is a public
> utility, so profits from its administration could be public income. A public
> banking system would not be one huge behemoth, but consist of institutions
> incorporated at every level of governance, so that individuals could bank
> with the ones which funded the services they are most likely to use.
> Different communities would seek to provide the best services with these
> funds, otherwise they would lose business and citizens to other communities.
> As it is, banking doesn't need the inventiveness for which private
> enterprise is most suited, but the stability that is the strength of the
> public sector. Those running this financial system seem to think they have
> the right to drain off as much as they can, with other business leaders
> feeling the need to follow. What if the police, military, courts, etc. felt
> they had the same rights to exploit their responsibilities? When that
> happens, it's not a pretty picture.
>
> The lack of extreme amounts of monetized wealth might also reduce the
> potential for bloated regimes to develop. There will always be economic and
> political convection cycles of rising influence and power, which eventually
> cool off and settle back down after a few generations and in many ways that
> is healthy and normal, but what we have now is an economic hurricane that is
> sucking wealth out of the entire world as monetary abstraction has
> metastasized into this enormous bubble of illusionary value. Given the state
> of the world, it is a crisis we can't afford to waste.
>
> The only unit which fully defines humanity and life is the earth. Possibly
> humanity is the embryonic central nervous system of a planetary organism.
> Otherwise we are just top predator of a collapsing ecosystem.
>
> Matt Boggs
>
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