Nick Land, Blockchain, Spacetime

Land posits a flawed argument that has yet to be unpacked until now.

an opinion by Kenny Peluso

This device allows its user to simultaneously synchronize their watch and understanding of Immanuel Kant. Source: https://rlv.zcache.com/kant_on_time_wrist_watch-r545e78543bb8482ba5754e8f25cf3a56_zd5ip_540.jpg?rlvnet=1

Back in 2015, Land argued for the impossibility of a post-Kantian modernity given the implications of blockchain:

Land argues that “blockchain makes it impossible to be a post-Kantian¹.” He isn’t given the chance to fully explain what he means, but I think what he means is this: The issues marring synchronization between points in spacetime mirror those marring synchronization between network nodes on a blockchain. Time (and information) must be “spent” in the former case to prove that any number of points are synchronized to the same reference frame, and this introduces a potentially dangerous relativity (it’s a pun because the relativity of physics applies in this context), which is particularly caustic to Kant’s transcendental aesthetic. Land reviewed a foundational aspect of Kant’s aesthetic, Euclid’s Parallel Postulate, which assumes the existence of a “timeless” or time independent geometry. Clearly this is impossible if clocks at scattered points are deeply tied to their positions along a geometry relative to any other frame of reference. Blockchain “solves” this issue, negating a post-Kantian possibility, by introducing a synchronization procedure across all nodes such that a blockchain’s state is consistent across all nodes. The implications are paramount for Land:

The blockchain is post-spacetime and that means that we’re not post-Kantian because the Kantian Transcendental aesthetic is not disrupted by Einstein-Minkowski spacetime, instead it is blueprint, it is precursor for the spacetime by the blockchain … so we have now artificial, absolute spacetime for the first time ever in human history.

This is flawed for many reasons. 4 such reasons entered my mind:

#1

There is still no “absolute spacetime,” for the blockchain ecosystem is still faced with many dialectical issues preventing the rise of any “absolute,” namely a glut of inferior or scam blockchains that will collapse (if they haven’t already) and barriers to visibility, adoption, and funding.

#2

Simply put: There exist things that update successively, and thus have some notion of succession (time), and thus are “ledger-able,” but are far too complex for current blockchain technology to actually record in its ledger.

Complexly put: Many things not recorded by the multitude of blockchains (e.g. identity) and thus many forms of “successive existences” still beat to the ticks of an infinitude of clocks. Take the specific case of identity: One’s personal identity — as defined by one’s name, gender, location, one’s human body or genes — evolves successively (“I was a man, but now I’m a trans-woman, a succession atop what I once was,” “I was a human, but now I’m a mind uploaded to a computer,” etc.) but has yet to be robustly “solved” (reliably recorded in a synchronizable ledger) by blockchain technology².

#3

Even if a single blockchain were to satisfy all our needs by recording everything and attaining universal adoption, there will still never be a completely guaranteed “absolute spacetime” for many reasons especially because of 51% attacks, a risk that can never be completely averted. To quickly summarize 51% attacks: If most nodes of a blockchain agree to say whatever you want (e.g. if you buy them or pay to create many other nodes), then reality is yours for the manipulating. Click here to see how cheap it is to launch a 51% attack for various cryptocurrencies.

#4

The most damning error incurred by Land is mathematical. Blockchain technology did revolutionize “synchronization” (as “distributed computing”) by creatively employing incentive schemes to reach consensus (blockchain’s analog for temporal synchronization), but the costs necessary to achieve consensus were never averted, merely transformed into a productive format.

When clocks are being synchronized (or a proof of their synchronization is being communicated) between points in spacetime, Land is correct to point that time must past³ — a cost must be incurred. Special and general relativity are two different theories that each provide different means of computing the temporal cost of a single communication⁴. When a blockchain’s nodes reach consensus (or prove that they’re acting within some consensus), they must also incur a cost, though the nature of that cost depends on the type of consensus mechanism; In Proof-of-Work, computational power must be exerted and publicly broadcasted, and in Proof-of-Stake, miners must stake their own money on the truth (a speculative financial cost but a cost nonetheless) and publicly broadcast their stake.

The cost of synchronization has not been averted but mapped from the temporal to the computational and financial. The existence of such a cost highlights the nonconservative relation between geometry and time, and thus a dependency between the two. This implies that the time-dependent nature of geometry has not been averted, and thus the post-Kantian world is still possible.

Footnotes

1. Disclaimer: I’m far from a scholar of Kant.
2. This is a surprising error given that Nick Land is an expert in cybernetic theory.
3. Land forgot another cost — that information must be sent — but we’ll ignore that.
4. Here are 1 source, 2 sources, 3 sources explaining the temporal cost of a single communication for synchronization as determined by special relativity and 1 source explaining such temporal cost as determined by general relativity.