The birth of the internet is undoubtedly one of the greatest inventions in human history. Claude Shannon's information theory laid a solid theoretical foundation for the internet. Shannon believed that information is used to reduce uncertainty and is unrelated to the meaning represented by the information itself. This view emphasizes the transmission and encoding of information, allowing any information to flow freely on the internet, constructing the information age we know today.
However, with the rapid development of the internet, we have gradually realized that information is not just meaningless bit streams; it also carries value, trust, and emotions. Norbert Wiener's information theory focuses more on the role of information in human society, emphasizing that information is an important component of communication between people, containing rich meaning and value.
How to transform Shannon's meaningless information internet into Wiener's meaningful trust-value internet has become a difficult problem in front of us. Fortunately, the emergence of Bitcoin provides us with a possible pathway.
Bitcoin is essentially a system based on Shannon's information theory. It transforms unordered computational power into an ordered blockchain structure through the Proof-of-Work (PoW) mechanism and converts meaningless information into meaningful information. The Unspent Transaction Output (UTXO) in Bitcoin is such a form of meaningful information, recording the transaction history and ownership relationships of Bitcoin, becoming the foundation of trust.
Satoshi Nakamoto cleverly utilized the UTXO structure in the design of Bitcoin, combined with the PoW mechanism, to achieve the transformation from a meaningless information internet to a meaningful trust-value internet. UTXO is similar to currency in the real world, where each transaction must have a clear source and destination, ensuring traceability and transparency of transactions. At the same time, the PoW mechanism guarantees the uniqueness and immutability of UTXO through the competition of computational power, thus establishing the foundation of trust.
Satoshi Nakamoto's design philosophy points us in a definitive direction: how does a trust-value internet emerge based on Shannon's meaningless information theory?
To achieve this goal, we can draw on the following ideas:
Utilize technologies like blockchain to convert information on the internet into UTXO structures with clear meaning and value. For example, transforming digital assets, identity information, intellectual property, etc., into UTXO, giving them traceability, verifiability, and tradability.
Through PoW or other consensus mechanisms, ensure the uniqueness and immutability of UTXO, establishing the foundation of trust. In addition to PoW, other consensus mechanisms can be explored, such as Proof-of-Stake and Delegated Proof-of-Stake, to improve efficiency and security.
Build an open, transparent, and secure network environment that allows people to freely exchange and use these meaningful pieces of information. This requires strengthening network security, protecting user privacy, combating cybercrime, and creating a healthy network ecology.
Through 'thermodynamic work', transform the meaningless, unordered Shannon information theory internet into a meaningful, ordered, and vibrant value network of Wiener information theory. This requires designing incentive mechanisms to encourage users to participate in network construction, contribute valuable information, and earn benefits from it.
Furthermore, BEVM introduces self-directed modeling and perceptive automata into the construction of the trust-value internet through the BitAgere network.
Self-directed modeling: Endow the network with intelligence, enabling it to learn autonomously, evolve, and adapt to environmental changes. The network can automatically adjust its structure and parameters based on user behavior, transaction information, etc., optimizing resource allocation and improving efficiency.
Perceptive automata: Introduce perceptive capabilities into the network, allowing it to sense information from the physical world. For example, collecting environmental data, user behavior data, etc., through IoT devices, and adjusting network behavior based on perceptual results to achieve interaction between the network and the physical world.
Through these efforts, BEVM can transform Shannon's meaningless information internet into a meaningful information internet full of trust and value, achieving a genuine trust-value internet. In this network, information flows freely and is valuable, allowing people to conduct various transactions and interactions safely and conveniently, creating a better future.