We have created permanent, evolving, living digital substrates upon which we can inscribe economic code and data to tell global, inviolable stories. We have truly begun to create our shared history, written as a result of our actions.

Before we get to the stories we might tell, we should examine the substrate — not because it is of greater worth than the stories, but because it is a prerequisite for telling them.

I am imagining informational infrastructures — some might call them hyperstructures — that serve to shepherd symbols through processes. These symbols — formed of collections of bits — carry meaning, are meaning. This is the conceptual domain, the facet of our experience composed of ideas and thoughts and words and numbers and feelings and images.

For humans, this is a fuzzy domain: symbols morph and shift into another in a continuous fashion. We can conceive of structures, logical pathways through which we can send strictly qualified symbols — logic and reason, mathematics. Fundamentally, though, we experience the world in full analogue, the universe pouring into our selves through all channels at every instant.

The substrate we’ve created does not live primarily in the minds of people, though. It exists in a shared mind, of computing nodes connected on a network.

The mind of a computer depends similarly on matter and energy — mass. Mind emerges from matter: the synthesis and manifestation of thought is only possible in connection with some “living” being. (Though I suppose I could never either prove nor disprove this idea ...)

We are quite early in our technological capability when it comes to computing. Rudimentary synthetic computers necessarily have depended on the most basic of phenomena situated at the intersection of the physical and conceptual domains. Mass itself behaves in logical patterns. Specifically by this I mean energy flowing through a properly consider configuration of atoms behaves in predictable ways. Binary gates could occur in nature.

And with this, the creation of machines (physical or electrical) that accurately implement an informational infrastructure we can conceive of in our minds, we have discovered a powerful tool: a parallel mind. This new species of synthetic mind has evolved over the millennia and centuries and is beginning to show it’s true face.

Minds hold meaning: in the spotlight of our attention we conjure informational objects (which might be called concepts). These fragments of imagination are almost always (if not always) triggered into coalescence by some physical stimulus, from within or outside our physical bodies.  These descriptions apply equally to the organic minds of sentient creatures and synthetic minds of copper and silicon.

What is the lifecycle of a thought? How does a symbol experience time? It clearly does exist in time — it begins, strikes, sustains for as long as the attention is placed upon it, then fades into the background, just beneath the surface of our active awareness, out of the spotlight. This process seems to occur in patterns. Pathways are worn, based on our physical and informational composition and in response to our experiences.

It feels it may be a significant point: symbols are holons. They are most typically thought of as unique, discrete individuals, but things that are composed of an infinite number of parts, and in turn is parcel of an encompassing “thing”.

This means we can conceive of multiple symbols at once — sets of ideas, flowing parallelized into our awareness and accessible to the metamind, which sees patterns and relationships. Curiously, a pattern or relationship is itself a symbol-holon, so maybe the metamind collapses into a single mind. These are the lenses through which our witness absorbs our world.

Can we take the perspective of a computer? Can we emphathize with an operating system, imagine our spotlight as a blinking cursor? If we did, what would we discover?

Our age offers the individual the opportunity to reclaim power from centralized loci of control.

This potential redistribution of control is enabled by the asymmetries inherent in the informational domain. The ubiquity of computers installed with cryptographic algorithms is enabling this redistribution by empowering individuals to “resist even state level actors”: an informed person can operate as an equal with nation-states and major corporations in cyberspace.

Governments and corporations are often entrusted to maintain accurate records for the public. Their role as custodians of information is the source of much of their power. They face a principal-agent dilemma, and often neglect — or abuse — their responsibility to the data subjects represented in their records.

Interestingly, the tools required for individuals to reclaim sovereignty over their “online” life and personal data are being developed just as such institutions are fortifying their positions of power — and as public trust in them is eroding. The functionality, usability and availability of privacy-respecting computing technologies is improving rapidly and viable alternatives to the services provided by trusted third parties are emerging.

Consensus networks and their virtual machines have created a data storage and computing platform unreliant on any third party. Here, we can build transparent, reliable governance structures. Self-sovereign identities and smart contracts enable a global demos and mechanos of autonomous, coordinated individuals. In constructing these governance architectures we will define the justice and sustainability of the noosphere in the 21st century and beyond.

Code is law because its rules are unbreakable. By definition, logical operators behave consistently: 1 + 1 = 1 0, and 1 ⊕ 0 = 1, across virtual machines. If the fundamental rules of logic are consistently enforced, algorithms are agnostic to the environment where they are executed.

This is evident by the fact that identical algorithms can be implemented in various programming languages for execution on computers with different characteristics — and pure functions will return the same output if passed the same inputs. Logic is global, whether in the mind of an educated child or of a programmed processor. 0 + 1 = 1 regardless of the execution environment.

Code is simultaneously information and that which through information flows. Binary information has meaning — it is meaning — and properly configured code can manipulate this meaning — invert it or tesselate it or duplicate it or aggregate it. Code is created by autonomous minds to govern information systems. Code enforces policies according to how it is formed. Code is used to extract insight from information, and can act upon it.

Code is executed in the mind of a computer — within a computer’s awareness.

https://twitter.com/lessig/status/1236596655337725953?s=20&t=PcGixJXmUi72-_jS2Y-ViA

In the first era of digital computing, the spaces in which algorithms and data sources were stored and executed were controlled by individual actors. This resulted in a fragmented, localized sovereignty over code. The logical laws of the land were ironclad, but the scope of the law was local, enforced on turf governed by the local authority.

A level of trust was essential for computers to be useful. Servers were owned by someone. Closed-source operating systems were written by someone. Data existed somewhere — often unencrypted — and could be seized. Trust in the people or organizations managing the hardware and software resources, and in the rule of law of the territory in which the computers were located, was necessary.

Centralized authorities transitioned to digital record-keeping. As a result, the potential for them to abuse or neglect their responsibilities as the custodians of private details was exponentially magnified. This abuse of power was often legal, approved by legislatures.

In architecting these cathedrals of logic, programmers have built a policy infrastructure that enforces their worldviews: who gets access to what information when, who is entitled to write or destroy information, and so on.

We have stumbled into this, unenlightened explorers in an immense cave — the informational domain — a cave full of opportunity and danger, lit by a single candle held in front of us illuminating our immediate environs.

We have built these policy infrastructures before developing a strong ethical foundation to inform their design. Software developers and service providers allow the “consenting” public to roam their spaces, capturing information about their actions — about them — about their very nature. Programmers and policy-makers can be forgiven for abusing users’ rights only because they could not have grasped the emergent dynamics of this complex adaptive system.

By configuring a group of computing nodes to find ongoing consensus on the state of a distributed database without relying on any trusted authority, Satoshi Nakamoto created a virtual machine autonomous of any controlling actor. Satoshi created a global and publicly-accessible machine mind. This innovation, and its child inventions, pose the first credible competitor — or complement — to trusted centralized authorities.

These authorities serving the public — by keeping custody of their records and funds — are being challenged by a transparent alternative that continues to prove its efficacy and security. Consensus networks and the blockchains they maintain are new forms of informational organisms, evolving and adapting to environmental pressures, strengthening over time.

Law is a tool used to govern. As a form of law, code is a tool used to govern. Smart contract platforms enable any member of the public to create policy infrastructures — data stores and algorithms that are indestructible and immutable. If configured properly, a constellation of consensus networks — public and private, permissioned and permissionless — enable truly global governance.

Wavering trust in our institutions threatens the safety of our society while motivating the innovations described.

Governance is a coordination mechanism. It enables us to coordinate in pursuit of some ideal. Throughout history, if people have not seen the benefit of a system of governance, they have rebelled in an attempt to form a new system — a better system — a system that more capably promotes their values and is less likely to subvert them.

In reclaiming autonomy over our informational selves and reimagining the nature of these coordination mechanisms, we can create a just, secure and balanced system to govern human existence.