Synergetics looks at "lagging media" (previous post) through the lens of the Doppler Effect. RBF has passages about events happening all over, but our news of them is coming in somewhat out of order relative to some more absolute calendar timeline.
The way history shows things panned out is not necessarily the order in which any one particular person received news of them at the time, i.e. the so-called objective viewpoint obtained by history is not one inhabited by any contemporaneous human.
In the est Training they told a story about some old couple out in front of the trailer, perhaps a luxury travel trailer or a destination model, with a missile already launched in their direction. Subjectively, they're oblivious, enjoying an adult beverage, and yet it's already certain, by the laws of probability, that they're gonna be hit.
It's a troubling picture, designed to remind us of our own obliviousness. Worse than the tree falling, with no one to hear it, is the one that hit by surprise.
I'm reminded of a giant walnut tree falling behind me in my neighbor's property and not hitting my or anyone's dwelling (could have been so much worse); I watched the action reflected in my computer screen.
The bitcoin algorithm faces the same issue: how to develop a trusted verifiable narrative or sequence of what follows what, without needing any objective viewpoint for a human being. Accomplish the objective by means of cryptography. We call it the blockchain.
Solution: many blocks chronicle what happened, in terms of transactions, each of them possible continuations of existing threads in previous blocks. Think of ferries set to cross the river, which one gets to go next? It looks somewhat random.
How do we pick a bitcoin block at random? Pick one that wins a little 10 minute mathematics contest requiring brute force approaches, and reward (in bitcoin) the more muscular processors. These would be the bitminers, those who strive and also drive the blockchain forward by expending brute energy.
There's a kind of particle physics analogy wherein we chain Feynman diagrams together regarding what actually happened, imagining a benignly simple particle zoo of expected transformations, Tao of Physics style.
One doesn't actually need a specific cast of deterministic players to show off partially overlapping scenario processing. The atomic objects might be entirely software creations.
We might be watching a game of chess. The rules of chess constrain transitions from state to state. The rules include winning as an objective, providing a probability gradient into which strong players have deeper insight (we might say “by definition”).
Around my rain forest region (Cascadia) the controlled flood of water is such that excess capacity remains, which grid management doesn't mind trading for paying clients i.e. it's still often affordable to bitmine in regions with cheap power, as long as bitcoin itself remains worth harvesting.
Again, the point here is we're looking at a generalized Doppler Effect, wherein broadcast sources are coming and going, changing frequency, leading any given "me" to really have to puzzle through a lot of accounts, many storylines, to gain sufficient perspective or overview.
How much overview is enough? You tell me. I'm not in the business of gratuitously imposing upper limits. "Let's find out" is a better answer.
