This article was submitted last year to Babit, and may have been included in a new book published by Babit. But so far I still haven’t seen it published. Recently, while writing an article, I happened to come across some related content, and remembered that this piece still hadn’t been made public, so I might as well publish it first~
In the earlier Southern Metropolis Daily Bitcoin interview questionnaire, when I reposted it on Babit and Bitren, I added the title “Bitcoin as a Paradigm Revolution.” After all, having a title makes it seem as though it will spread better. But in fact, as a paradigm revolution, it was only mentioned in passing in the final question of the interview questionnaire. Now it would be better to expand on this question specifically.
Paradigm revolution is a concept proposed by the historian and philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn. This concept is rich in meaning, but it also contains many ambiguities and controversies, so I need to spend some time here explaining it.
Kuhn’s insight began with an encounter with Aristotle’s physics. At the time, Kuhn, as a physicist, needed by chance to give an introduction to Aristotle’s physical theory in the history of physics, and he discovered that Aristotle’s physical theory seemed utterly absurd and incomprehensible. But Kuhn did not, like many arrogant modern people, content himself with a sense of temporal superiority. He clearly recognized that Aristotle was one of the most learned and wisest people of that era, and that his IQ was obviously no lower than that of an ordinary modern university student. So why did he make those mistakes that seem unimaginable to modern people? Why did countless ancient sages hold Aristotle’s physics in such high esteem? After further thought and research, Kuhn concluded that this sort of historical gap could of course not be attributed to the ancients’ lack of intelligence, nor could it simply be attributed to the accumulation of experience, because for many everyday phenomena observable to both ancients and moderns, Aristotle’s way of understanding them also seems bizarre in modern eyes. In the end, Kuhn proposed the concept of paradigm shift. Broadly speaking, Aristotle and modern people, though possessing the same rational capacities, have different conceptual frameworks and modes of thought. Under different conceptual frameworks, people’s cognition is like a Gestalt shift: for the same thing, under one paradigm it looks like a rabbit, under another it may look like a duck. And the shift from rabbit to duck is not gradual accumulation, but a total revolution.
The theory of paradigm revolution does not merely help us understand the course of change in the history of science; it also enables us to rethink the shape of normal science. Science is not simply a collection of concepts and theorems one by one, and scientific progress is not merely the addition and subtraction of these items. Science has “structure.” What Kuhn discovered was not only the “structure of scientific revolutions,” but also the structure of normal science, and this structure is not mechanical. Clear doctrines are only the most superficial layer; the deeper connotations include complex elements such as worldview, mental set, and the spirit of the age. In my view, the lifeworld, or technical environment, is the core of a paradigm. The reason a Gestalt shift can be completed is not that the object being observed itself has changed, but that the background in which it appears has changed, and that background is our “environment.” Bringing about a mysterious Gestalt shift requires many prerequisites and preparations; for example, you need to already have some recognition of rabbits before you can see a rabbit. But the trigger for this shift may in fact be just a very small movement, such as the field of vision turning by a small angle, or the focal point of sight shifting ever so slightly.
Therefore, technological revolutions often allow us to identify certain key points: a tiny breakthrough in a specific field becomes the starting point of an entire transformation, such as Gutenberg’s movable-type printing press, such as Copernicus’s On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, and perhaps also such as Satoshi Nakamoto’s Bitcoin.
I regard the emergence of Bitcoin as the starting point of a paradigm revolution. To understand this revolution, we might as well compare it with the Copernican revolution:
1. Revolutions occur on different historical scales.
What is called the continuity and discontinuity of history actually depends on the distance from which we observe history. On the microscopic level, these breakthroughs look only like technical improvements within a specific field; on the macroscopic level, these breakthroughs are only one small link in a chain of dramatic changes. But indeed, from a certain angle, a certain event has milestone significance, and the possibility of the entire revolution is hidden within it. Copernicus of course did not complete the entire Scientific Revolution, and it is even hard to say that he initiated the revolution—on a larger scale, the Scientific Revolution as a whole was also part of the sequence of historical changes from the Renaissance to the Reformation. The Scientific Revolution was one side of the great transformation from the old to the modern world; the astronomical revolution was one link in the Scientific Revolution; and Copernicus was in turn one endpoint of the entire astronomical revolution. Yet in Copernicus there already lay a microcosm of the entire age. On a larger scale, Bitcoin is only one side of the entire Internet revolution, and the Internet revolution in turn belongs to a link in the age of electronic media, but Bitcoin projects a microcosm of the transformation of the entire era.
2. Revolutions begin with technical breakthroughs in a small circle
Although astronomy has always occupied a central position in classical science, compared with the later all-round blossoming of the modern Scientific Revolution, astronomy was after all only a narrow specialized field. In fact, within this field, Copernicus’s work was also highly technical. Apart from the promise in the preface about the beautiful heliocentric world, the main content of On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres consists of specialized mathematical derivations. What the Copernican system initially influenced was only a small group of mathematicians who could grasp its technical details. But very quickly its influence expanded beyond the mathematicians’ small circle, and its philosophical consequences gradually replaced the technical content and became the focus of attention. Bitcoin, too, initially spread only within a very small cryptography circle, and those who first encountered it were also just a small number of geeks capable of grasping its technical details. Is it strange that a revolution that changes the world begins in a rather marginal small circle? Quite the opposite: that is precisely how it makes sense. Because a huge revolution ultimately changes even the structure of society, the originally inconspicuous marginal people end up overrunning the main stage and becoming the backbone of the new world that leads the age. For example, the change in the status of scientists before and after the Copernican revolution. Through Bitcoin or the entire Internet revolution, the status of geeks or programmers will probably also be reversed, becoming the dominant force of the age.
3. Revolutions are often a kind of revival
What is called the Renaissance was the rediscovery of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, and the Scientific Revolution at the outset was in fact also part of the revival. Copernicus and the scientists of his time were deeply influenced by the revived Platonism. Compared with medieval philosophers, Copernicus in a certain sense was closer to Plato. Copernicus believed that Ptolemaic astronomy was a deviation from Plato’s perfect cosmos, and he held that the greatest contribution of his heliocentric system was the removal of the ugly “equant” in the Ptolemaic system. In the early Scientific Revolution, and even up to Newton, many scientists believed that the ancients had long ago grasped the truth of the world, but that it had either been lost or distorted. And many early supporters of Bitcoin were supporters of Austrian-school classical economics, and at the same time supporters of the gold standard. In the eyes of many mainstream contemporary economists, Bitcoin is a regression in monetary theory, whereas Bitcoin supporters believe they are merely discarding the parts of mainstream economics that have gone completely off course, and restoring the original source.
This phenomenon is not strange either. No innovation can arise out of thin air; people stand on the shoulders of their predecessors, and progress becomes possible only by continuously unfolding the possibilities embedded in tradition. But revolution differs from ordinary innovation in that, in addition to continuing the path of its predecessors, it also launches a certain rupture. Yet this rupture can hardly be said to descend out of nowhere; ancient wisdom always becomes the foundation of innovation. But what is called revival is not simple parroting. Revival is inherently selective. Every age contains diverse possibilities, and only some specific possibilities are revived; these possibilities were once forgotten or distorted by history, and through reinterpretation in a new context, they reveal a new path. Early Bitcoin supporters believed that mainstream economics had gone astray and advocated returning to classical economics. But in the later stages of the revolution, a newer economic paradigm will gradually mature. This new paradigm will be a certain rebirth of classical economics, yet its form will also be completely different.
4. Revolutions begin in the crisis of normal science
Since there are revolutions, then between revolutions there is often a period in which paradigms are relatively stable: this is what Kuhn called the period of normal science. During the period of normal science, the paradigm itself is generally not questioned; the main task of scientific research is “puzzle-solving,” that is, to solve certain problems in a standardized way. The solution of these problems will push forward the domain of science, but will not overturn the basic scientific paradigm. For example, when people inferred the orbit of Uranus according to Newtonian mechanics, they found that observation deviated from theory. Solving this deviation was a task for normal science. People proposed various hypotheses, among which the hypothesis that another planet existed beyond Uranus was the most anticipated. In the end, the discovery of Neptune confirmed the guess and solved this problem. This constituted a confirmation of the power of Newtonian mechanics rather than an overthrow. But what if Neptune had not been discovered for a while? People would not immediately deny Newtonian mechanics; rather, they would check the observational conditions, look for neglected variables, or try other hypotheses. But some problems are destined to never be solved under the old scientific system, such as the anomaly in Mercury’s orbit, which was eventually proven to be a relativistic effect and thus beyond Newtonian mechanics. But before the new science succeeds, when can people be certain that a problem that has remained unresolved for a long time will constitute a counterexample to the current scientific system? The fact is that people have no clear method for foretelling this. Before the new science appears, unresolved problems are always still being strenuously handled within the old system. Once, after a long effort, the problem is solved, the old scientific system will still receive glory. But more and more unsolved problems cast a shadow over the old paradigm; this is “crisis.” Faced with crisis, some people disappointed in the old paradigm become more likely to try to jump out of the ready-made framework.
Before Copernicus, Ptolemaic astronomy was by no means as solid as a rock. Its own cumbersome mechanisms and the various points of disharmony with natural philosophy had long been problems that scholastic scholars devoted themselves to solving. And some of these problems were better resolved under the new science, while others simply ceased to be problems at all.
The background of Bitcoin is likewise the crisis of contemporary economics/finance, but these crises are only the trigger for revolution in the eyes of new scholars who have grown tired of the mainstream economic paradigm. In the eyes of scholars under the old paradigm, these crises are still merely problems awaiting solution. They are still continuously exploring various schemes to resolve the crisis—QE, forward guidance, and so on—and these measures do in fact alleviate the tension to a certain extent. But new scholars are becoming increasingly impatient. In the final analysis, the solutions contemporary economics offers for monetary problems amount to nothing more than printing money, raising interest rates, levying taxes, cutting interest rates… much like the treatment plans of ancient Western medicine, which amounted to nothing more than bloodletting, inducing vomiting, and then bloodletting again. If the effect was poor, one would continue studying how to bleed more effectively, what techniques to use, and at which body part to bleed. Astronomical research under the Ptolemaic system was nothing more than how to set the positions and speeds of the deferent, epicycle, and equant. What contemporary economists strain themselves to study is nothing more than what technique to use to print money, and at what moment to print money… But after the revolution, people will very likely discover that “bloodletting” itself was the mistake, and that even many things previously thought to be illnesses were not illnesses at all (for example, homosexuality). That is to say, under the old paradigm, many scholars spend their entire lives meticulously studying improvements to inevitably ineffective solutions for imaginary problems. This is also why highly accomplished scholars under the old paradigm often resist the new paradigm with all their might.
5. Revolutions cause ecological upheaval
Although a revolution begins in some specific field, at any given time, any part of human knowledge is interconnected with others: astronomy is related to mathematics, natural philosophy/physics, and even ethics and political science. Once Copernicus set the Earth in motion, the physical model based on Aristotle’s finite universe was implicated and could no longer stand. But this was not Copernicus’s area of expertise, so Copernicus was not particularly concerned with the mechanical problems his theory caused. Natural philosophers, however, had to take them seriously, and only with Galileo and Newton were the split astronomy and physics eventually reintegrated. The further rift between physics and ethics that was thereby caused was ultimately never healed either. The interrelations among all domains of knowledge had to be rebuilt, and the fields of politics, economics, and law were also profoundly affected.
At the beginning of ecological upheaval, there may be new changes in certain environmental aspects. Certain species complete mutations ahead of others and adapt to the new environment. For the old ecosystem, these new species, like invasive species, proliferate recklessly, disrupting the originally stable ecological chain while simultaneously creating a new environment. Other species, if they cannot adapt to the new environment in time, are bound to perish or be marginalized.
The background for Bitcoin’s emergence is the Internet age; it is a new species born of the times. It will not only multiply wildly in the new environment as if in its element, but will also disrupt many ecological relations in the old environment. Relationships such as those between government and market, and even relations in international politics and diplomacy, will be challenged. Survival strategies better suited to the new world may well be at a disadvantage in the old world, but if one cannot adapt to the new world in time, eventual elimination is also unavoidable. Therefore, in this process of reshuffling the deck, it is very hard to find the optimal survival strategy; the best approach may simply be to let things take their course.
6. At the beginning of a revolution, new technologies are not necessarily easier to use
Since a revolution is an overall ecological upheaval, then in the early stage of a revolution, when the new ecological structure has not yet stabilized, some species that have mutated first may show no obvious advantage when viewed in the old environment, and are even often at a disadvantage.
For example, is a car more convenient than a horse-drawn carriage? This depends not only on the nature of the car itself, but also on the corresponding environment. In a place with no gas stations, no parking spaces, where one can only find carriage drivers but no drivers, and where the roads are also designed specifically for horse-drawn carriages, a car is probably not more convenient than a carriage. No technology is an isolated device; behind it there is always an entire ecological chain of interlocking elements. Steam engines, trains, electricity, and so on, when they first appeared as isolated novelties, were nothing more than baffling toys.
The Copernican system was similar. When it first appeared, its predictive accuracy was not much higher than that of the Ptolemaic system, and it severed its connection with the old physics, making it unable to explain many mechanical difficulties that had previously not been problems. The problem of stellar parallax and the problem of the apparent size of stars had to wait until high-magnification astronomical telescopes before being solved. Only after Galileo or Newton could the new science be said to make sense of itself; before that, there were quite a few “counterexamples.”
The newborn Bitcoin, as a currency, was often not very easy to use either. Technical barriers, price volatility, and so on meant that its function as money was not especially superior. But this is also perfectly understandable; we have to wait for the gradual improvement of the entire ecological chain.
7. The earliest followers are not all very rational
Those who resist revolution are not always stubborn old reactionaries. In fact, those who resist revolution are often more rational than those who throw themselves into it. As mentioned above, at the beginning of a revolution new technologies do not appear to be more superior, and the revolution begins with a crisis in which people become increasingly impatient with the old paradigm’s inability to solve problems. But exactly when one should abandon the old paradigm and seek other options is itself something for which there is no rational standard of judgment; “impatience” is often quite emotional. In fact, in most cases, a rational person really should not abandon efforts to solve problems within the normal paradigm too early. If one were to think of overthrowing the foundational theory at the first anomalous phenomenon, science would be unable to develop and accumulate at all. The same is true in the technological sphere. Most technological innovations are merely minor adjustments within the existing technological framework, such as how to make postal delivery a little faster, telephones a little clearer, cars a little more fuel-efficient, and so on. As for overturning the entire postal industry or completely changing the meaning of the telephone, that is after all rare. If everyone were single-mindedly obsessed with inventing “new things” and had no patience to slowly improve existing technologies, technological development would also lose its momentum.
When revolutionary new science first appears, it often looks more like mysticism; when new technology first appears, it often looks more like a toy. The people who throw themselves into it are not necessarily all making serious rational calculations, and it is not strange that some non-rational fanaticism is involved. For example, Bruno was a typical person who championed Copernicus because of fervent heretical belief (he was burned at the stake for religious heresy). These people may not in substance have had a sufficient understanding of Copernican doctrine, but this group was also an important force in the early spread of the new theory. The Bitcoin circle may have been a little more straightforward, but it too was inevitably a mixed bag. Extreme anarchists, Anonymous, hackers, drug dealers, and so on—the “heretics” of today’s world—became an important force in its early dissemination.
8. Old and new paradigms are incommensurable
Incommensurability, also translated as inconmensurability, is another important concept in Kuhn’s paradigm theory. It refers to the difficulty of finding a common standard of measurement between different paradigms. Science values facts and reason, but what counts as an accepted fact, and how to argue most effectively—these underlying standards themselves belong within a certain paradigm. For example, Copernicus removed the equant, making the mathematical structure seem more concise, but he gave up on completeness and harmony in natural philosophy. Even up to Newton’s Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, the breach in natural philosophy had still not been resolved; instead, natural philosophy was ultimately replaced by mathematical principles, and the question of How replaced the question of Why. Even now, it is difficult for us to say in an absolute sense that the new paradigm is definitely superior to the old one. We can only say that under certain standards the new paradigm is superior, and those standards are broadly accepted by people today.
The dispute between Bitcoin and the fiat-currency system is just the same. The supposed advantages the fiat system boasts of—such as legal tender status and state credit—are precisely the defects, in the Bitcoin world. The idea that the government can intervene in the market through monetary policy is also taken for granted in the fiat world, whereas the Bitcoin world believes it is not needed at all. But is government intervention in the market necessarily a good thing, or necessarily a bad thing? On this point, it is hard to produce any objective verdict that transcends the various paradigms. We think freedom is the basic principle, while others think stability is the paramount issue, and that it is only natural for the government to maintain stability. But if the fiat system is on the verge of collapse and the market has instead become unstable, does that prove the government should not intervene? Of course not. Believers in the fiat system will only think that the intervention policies before were not good enough, and then consider how to formulate a more effective intervention policy next, and will never think of simply abandoning intervention altogether. It is like the succession of dynasties in antiquity: no matter how miserable the people are, one only thinks about how to replace the emperor with a good one, and never thinks of whether it might be possible to have no emperor at all. Even if no new system arises without an emperor, by the standards of ancient people, this chaotic age of ritual breakdown and moral collapse, with desires running rampant, is not necessarily any better than the previous dynasty.
Bitcoin believers think that state intervention in a free market through monetary policy is simply unnecessary, but in fact we have no absolutely objective evidence to support this point. First, this new free market has not yet taken shape; and in the early stages of its gradual formation, because the entire ecological chain is not yet sound, it is very likely to be inferior in many respects to the original system. Even by the time it finally takes shape, it may not be superior under any standard.
Of course, incommensurability does not mean inability to communicate. Different paradigms can of course also communicate, and even be compared. Bitcoin enthusiasts can point to the “crisis” of the fiat system, while also defending against others’ doubts about the Bitcoin idea. But every dispute has its corresponding context and standpoint; if one detaches oneself from the position one stands in and enshrines one’s own perspective as objective, mutual understanding often becomes difficult.
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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