Is bitcoin an emergent phenomenum?

[grondilu]

Ok according to the wikipedia definition, the short answer would be no.  Because bitcoin is just not complex enough:  it was designed by one person and it now works exactly as it was designed for.  It is not complexity emerging from multiple and simple interactions.

But let's give this idea a second chance, based on this:  no one can stop bitcoin.  Satoshi can't.  Gavin can't.  Justin Bieber can't.  Even Chuck Norris can't.

I believe this is not a trivial statement.  Bitcoin is an unstoppable machine.   It takes its root in human greed:  miners want the block reward and hoarders want to become filthy rich in a thousand years.  Human greed is not something you can get rid of easily so yeah, imho bitcoin is here to stay.

This count number is the start of something that will stick to humanity for a while:  an unstoppable clock used to synchronize economic transactions worldwide.

And as it is something that is beyond the will of any single human being, I believe it is in some way something we can consider "autonomous" and somehow, emergent.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Ok according to the wikipedia definition, the short answer would be no.  Because bitcoin is just not complex enough:  it was designed by one person and it now works exactly as it was designed for.  It is not complexity emerging from multiple and simple interactions.

But let's give this idea a second chance, based on this:  no one can stop bitcoin.  Satoshi can't.  Gavin can't.  Justin Bieber can't.  Even Chuck Norris can't.

I believe this is not a trivial statement.  Bitcoin is an unstoppable machine.   It takes its root in human greed:  miners want the block reward and hoarders want to become filthy rich in a thousand years.  Human greed is not something you can get rid of easily so yeah, imho bitcoin is here to stay.

This count number is the start of something that will stick to humanity for a while:  an unstoppable clock used to synchronize economic transactions worldwide.

And as it is something that is beyond the will of any single human being, I believe it is in some way something we can consider "autonomous" and somehow, emergent.

Hell, the way I read it, emergence could explain everything in this universe and dimension, as well as any other of both. I emerged upon Bitcoin while researching the practicality of hoarding US pennies/cents for its copper content. See what I did there?

~Bruno~

[grondilu]

Hell, the way I read it, emergence could explain everything in this universe and dimension, as well as any other of both. I emerged upon Bitcoin while researching the practicality of hoarding US pennies/cents for its copper content. See what I did there?

Yeah...  It was late and I wrote that because I was kind of bored.  Now I realize it was not very pertinent.  Sorry.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Hell, the way I read it, emergence could explain everything in this universe and dimension, as well as any other of both. I emerged upon Bitcoin while researching the practicality of hoarding US pennies/cents for its copper content. See what I did there?

Yeah...  It was late and I wrote that because I was kind of bored.  Now I realize it was not very pertinent.  Sorry.

I didn't mean to diss you. It was just my assessment, and I enjoyed the Wiki read.

~Bruno~

[cbeast]

Bitcoin can be fairly labled as an emergent technology. It does to finance what uranium. Does to boiling water. Pardon the tautology, but  there are axioms in the math that we don't really understand. Money doesn't really exist and Bitcoin exploits the conundrums that comprise it's reified nature. Emergent complexity is spontaneous order from chaos. The fact that people are trading gold for an integer speaks of a properties that defy our understanding of numbers. I suppose that one might argue that prime numbers and proofs also can have value, but Bitcoin does this at trillions of times a second. It is a new element in our limited imaginary economy.

[herzmeister]

This thread is OT. 

[jimbobway]

Someone argued a while back, I forgot who, that Bitcoin natually had to emerge from the Internet.  It was inevitable that Bitcoin had to exist.