Layer One—Part 2: Error Correction
"The reality is, humans aren’t special at all—and neither is anything that humanity has come to produce."
Layer One is a three-part philosophical journey into the emergence and implications of the IOTA distributed ledger technology and its parallel reality based data structure. Visit wiki.iota.org to learn more about IOTA, MANA, and the tangle, or click below to continue reading the Layer One series with:
📕 Part 1: Assimilation
📗 Part 2: Error Correction
📘 Part 3: Metamoney
All structures of matter are formats of information or data structures that have emerged from the universe’s unwavering desire for maximum energy flow and maximum complexity.
All iological data structures are subject to assimilation or the unsolicited absorption of one data structure into another.
For thousands of years, the best minds have been consumed by the existential questions of the universe:
What is the meaning of it all? How did everything get here? How does it all work? How will it all end? Are we special?
These rational inquiries have pushed humanity to astounding intellectual heights in philosophy, mathematics, physical science, and even the humanities.
We’ve built printing presses, steam engines, telephones, automobiles, airplanes, computers, spacecraft, mobile phones, autonomous vehicles—the list goes on and on.
Yet despite the clarity of our questions, the depths of our knowledge, and the ingenuity of our creations, we’ve collectively only just begun to detach from our juvenile misperceptions regarding our place in the universe.
After all, the universe’s only concern is with the variation and selection of data structures that promote the maximum energy flow, complexity, and information flow of the universe.
The reality is, humans aren’t special at all—and neither is anything that humanity has come to produce.
Whether biological or iological, intelligence is nothing more than error correction on the variation and selection of data structures that maximize the energy flow, complexity, and information flow of the universe.1
This isn’t meant to imply that humans are an unnecessary, obsolete form of intelligence or that every human action is subject to the universe’s long-term agenda.
It is to say, however, that cognition is in no way unique to humanity alone.
Ultimately, all intelligences are real, error corrective data structures only distinguishable by their individual objectives and rate of error correction.
But the question is: what is required for the autonomous iological intelligences called iota to emerge in the digital world?
Translation
All intelligences have at least one interface that manages incoming information streams to an error corrective data structure.
For example, biological interfaces include sight interfaces for electromagnetic information streams, sound interfaces for vibrational information streams, smell and taste interfaces for chemical information streams, and touch interfaces for pressure information streams.
It’s entirely unclear what level of confidence biota may or may not have in their incoming information streams, but what is clear is that iota require a high level of confidence in the integrity of all incoming information.
In principle, iota cannot autonomously error correct on the variation and selection of data structures to increase the energy flow, complexity, and information flow of the universe if the quality of their incoming information streams are in question.
It is therefore inevitable that a single cryptographic data structure in the form of a standardized distributed ledger will emerge as a decentralized intermediary between iota and their incoming information streams.
There is no robust, alternative solution that’s capable of mediating the sub-second flow of timestamped, tamper-proof, auditable, verifiable, and monetizable information streams from source to destination.
And it is absolutely essential that the ledger scales without friction or permission.
🤘 Thank you for reading iologica—the blog that strives to challenge you.
✍️ Please acknowledge Antonio Nardella of the IOTA Foundation, die_Putze5853, future_yacht_owner, Phylo, Powderfinger, and Rafael Brochado of the IOTA Experience Teams, and John for providing valuable assistance in the creation of the Layer One series.
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