Many existing communication protocols and platform architectures are built on implicit classical worldviews or moral assumptions that become encoded into their foundational design. These may include assumptions about identity (e.g., real-name policies), trust (e.g., reliance on centralized authorities), legitimacy (e.g., content moderation norms), or truth (e.g., algorithmic ranking of “authoritative” sources). While often well-intentioned, these embedded axioms inevitably reflect the values, norms, and power structures of their creators—leading to systems that enforce a particular worldview or authority dynamic. As a result, they tend to privilege certain actors—institutions, governments, corporations—while marginalizing others, particularly those with alternative perspectives, identities, or epistemologies.
This bias is not necessarily the product of malice; rather, it stems from starting at the wrong level of abstraction. When systems begin with assumptions about what is good, true, or acceptable, they lose neutrality and inevitably shape discourse to reflect those assumptions. To address this, one must dig deeper—beneath cultural norms, institutional paradigms, and even classical notions of reality—to identify more fundamental axioms: authorship, intention, uniqueness, and accountability. By anchoring protocol design in these deeper, morally neutral principles, it becomes possible to build communication systems that do not encode hierarchy or ideology, but instead empower all agents equally to express themselves, verify one another, and construct social meaning on their own terms. This shift doesn’t eliminate disagreement or conflict, but it does eliminate the structural inequities imposed by systems that quietly take sides from the start.
This approach to intentional communication—grounded in cryptographic signatures and verifiable authorship—quietly reflects deeper insights from both consciousness theory and quantum theory, even though it does not explicitly depend on them.
From consciousness theory, it borrows the recognition that entities capable of expressing intention—by signing events—can be treated as having subjective experiences, at least within the system. Each signed event is a declaration of perspective, a trace of volition, not unlike the minimal signal of awareness.
Similarly, from quantum theory, it takes inspiration from the idea that events are inherently unique and only become meaningful when observed or measured in relation to a broader context. In this model, the social layer—where trust, meaning, and truth emerge—is akin to the classical world: a macroscopic phenomenon arising from many discrete, probabilistic actions aggregated and interpreted by observers. Social reality, then, is not embedded in the protocol but arises on top of it, as an emergent, intersubjective construct.
Importantly, this model makes no claim to being a theory of consciousness, nor does it presume to implement or simulate quantum mechanics. Rather, it acknowledges these frameworks as metaphors that help us respect the boundaries of what such a protocol can and cannot do. It does not assume anything about the moral value, truthfulness, or reality-status of the messages it transports. Instead, it provides a neutral, accountable substrate where such judgments are left to intentional agents operating in the social domain. In doing so, it reinforces the principle that integrity of expression—not interpretation—is what a communication protocol should guarantee.
In the context of Intentional Theory, an identifiable agent is defined as any process—human, organizational, or automated—that possesses a private key and can use it to sign events in a verifiable manner.
This cryptographic capability establishes accountability and authorship within the system, enabling the agent to make intentional declarations that can be traced to a consistent identity (represented by the corresponding public key).
The agent’s identity is not determined by external attributes such as name or origin, but by its ability to produce signatures that can be publicly verified. This definition ensures that intention is always anchored to a persistent, accountable source, regardless of whether the agent is a person, a group, or a machine.
The Nostr protocol uses public keys based on BIP340, the specification for Schnorr signatures over the secp256k1 elliptic curve. This cryptographic scheme enables what can be described as algorithmic accountability—a form of verifiable authorship grounded in mathematics rather than trust in institutions or intermediaries.
Each event in Nostr is signed with a private key, and the corresponding public key acts as a persistent, pseudonymous identifier. Because Schnorr signatures are deterministic and non-malleable, anyone can independently verify that a given event was authored by the holder of a specific private key, without revealing that key or requiring third-party validation.
This form of accountability is algorithmic because it does not rely on identity verification in the traditional sense (e.g., real names, biometrics, or centralized certificates), but instead on cryptographic proof. The system ensures that only the agent in possession of the private key could have authored the event, providing a robust foundation for intentional communication. It also ensures that identities cannot be spoofed or forged, as signatures that do not match the public key are invalid.
In this way, Nostr provides a substrate where intention and authorship are inseparable, persistent, and computationally verifiable—enabling decentralized trust without reliance on external authorities.
The Ten Axioms of Intentional Theory
The following axioms establish the foundational principles of Intentional Theory, a framework for understanding communication in decentralized systems where authorship, intention, and agency are primary.
Unlike traditional models that focus on the transmission of data or the objective content of messages, Intentional Theory begins with the assumption that meaning arises from the intentional acts of identifiable agents.
These axioms define the conditions under which events are considered authored, verifiable, and socially meaningful, providing a neutral substrate upon which subjective truth and collective understanding can be constructed without interference from centralized platforms or artificial intermediaries.
1. Axiom of Intention
Every meaningful act of communication originates from an intentional agent.
2. Axiom of Expression
An intention becomes an expressed event only when it is made externally observable by the agent.
3. Axiom of Authorship
An event is considered authored when it is cryptographically signed by the agent who expresses it.
4. Axiom of Uniqueness
Each signed event is uniquely identifiable and immutable by virtue of its content and cryptographic signature.
5. Axiom of Subjective Truth
A signed event constitutes a subjective truth for its author; it is a verifiable declaration of their intention, not necessarily an objective fact.
6. Axiom of Rumour
An unsigned event, or one lacking verifiable authorship, is a rumour—it exists without intentional accountability and cannot be treated as a fact.
7. Axiom of Interpretation
The truth-value or meaning of an event is determined outside the system, through human interpretation and social context.
8. Axiom of Agency Integrity
The system must preserve the integrity of agency, ensuring that each identity corresponds to a persistent and verifiable source of intention.
9. Axiom of Neutral Substrate
The communication protocol must act as a neutral substrate, transmitting events without modifying, filtering, or ranking them based on content.
10. Axiom of Social Construction
Collective understanding and trust emerge through social processes acting on signed events, not from the system itself.
Protocols based on Intentional Theory are absolutely critical in today’s digital landscape because they provide a neutral substrate for conveying human intentions—one that is resistant to manipulation by centralized platforms or adversarial artificial intelligence agents. In a world where our digital expressions are increasingly mediated, filtered, and shaped by opaque algorithms and corporate interests, the ability to assert authorship and intention in a verifiable, decentralized manner becomes essential.
Intentional Theory prioritizes the provenance and authenticity of communication: when an event is signed by a specific individual or entity, it carries with it undeniable evidence of authorship. This cryptographic grounding ensures that communication remains anchored in the will of identifiable agents, not distorted by invisible intermediaries.
Without such a substrate, there is a growing risk that our messages, identities, and even realities are co-opted—whether through AI-generated misinformation, content moderation bias, or subtle algorithmic framing. Protocols like Nostr, built on these principles, return agency to the individual and create a space where trust and truth can be rebuilt from the bottom up—one intentional event at a time.
Information Theory, developed by Claude Shannon, is concerned with the quantification and transmission of data. Its foundational unit is the bit, a binary measure of uncertainty that enables efficient and reliable communication across noisy channels. This theory abstracts away the meaning of messages, focusing instead on their structure, compression, and fidelity in transit. By contrast, an Intentional Theory—as applied in decentralized systems like Nostr—centers not on data, but on intention. Its basic unit is the event: a signed, uniquely identified message that represents a subjective assertion by an identifiable party.
Intentional Theory draws from a philosophical lineage that includes Franz Brentano’s notion that intentionality—the “aboutness” of mental states—is the defining feature of consciousness. It is further developed by thinkers like John Searle, who emphasized the role of speech acts and collective intentionality in constructing social reality, and Daniel Dennett, who explored how intentional systems behave as if they have beliefs and desires. In this context, intentionality is not merely a mental attribute, but a communicative act that carries significance within a shared social framework.
Whereas Information Theory ensures that a message is transmitted accurately, Intentional Theory ensures that a message is authored intentionally. A signed event becomes a verifiable fact in a minimal sense—proof that someone chose to say something—regardless of whether it is objectively true. Unsigned events, lacking authorship, are treated as unverifiable rumours. In this model, truth is not determined by the system itself but is constructed socially, through interpretation, context, and trust. Information Theory relies on the integrity of the transmission channel; Intentional Theory relies on the integrity of authorship and the surrounding social information. Together, they represent complementary but fundamentally different approaches to understanding communication: one technical, the other philosophical.
In Claude Shannon’s Information Theory, the bit is the fundamental unit of information—a binary distinction that quantifies uncertainty and enables the encoding and transmission of data across communication systems.
In a similar way, within the Nostr protocol, the event serves as the basic unit of intention between two or more intentional parties. An event that is cryptographically signed by a party is a declaration of subjective truth—it represents a fact in the minimal sense that someone intentionally authored and authenticated it.
In contrast, an unsigned event lacks attribution and accountability, rendering it a rumour: an unverifiable statement with no grounding in demonstrable intent. Importantly, the distinction between facts and rumours in this model is not about objective truth—truth lies beyond the protocol’s scope.
It is up to each intentional party, informed by social information and context, to evaluate which signed events they accept as true, which they reject, and which they disregard. Thus, Nostr provides a formal structure for recording intentions, while leaving the determination of truth to human judgment.
Being rugged > Being rugged
At a government office to transfer a vehicle ownership. They accept cash only.
Age verification seems to be a super efficient way to criminalize an entire population.
Zap test, please stand by
The hidden superpower of Nostr lies in its foundational guarantee that every event and every identity is cryptographically unique and verifiable. Each event is signed by a distinct public key and hashed into a unique event ID, making it tamper-proof and traceable. These elements become facts in a strict, technical sense—provable statements of authorship and content that exist without ambiguity. This cryptographic grounding creates a secure substrate on which social information—the human processes of interpreting, validating, and constructing truth—can flourish. Because there are no opaque intermediaries, centralized authorities, or invisible actors able to alter or obscure the underlying facts, Nostr enables truth to emerge through transparent social negotiation rather than hidden manipulation. In this way, it provides the structural integrity for bottom-up trust to be built without fear of systemic deception.
In the Nostr protocol, every event is a cryptographically signed message with a unique identifier, its event ID, derived from the event’s content and metadata. This event ID ensures that each event is a distinct and immutable fact within the system: a verifiable datum that exists independently of any interpretation or context.
However, the truth or meaning of that event cannot be fully resolved within Nostr itself. Whether a particular event is deemed credible, relevant, or aligned with reality depends on social information—the shared human understanding, trust relationships, reputational assessments, and contextual cues that exist outside the protocol.
In this way, Nostr records facts in a cryptographic sense, but the interpretation and truth-value of those facts are mediated by social processes external to the technical system.
Social information can be defined as:
Information about subjective experience—such as thoughts, intentions, emotions, and shared meaning—that arises through human interaction and exists independently of any formal technical system, data protocol, or computational process. It is embedded in social contexts, shaped by cultural norms, interpersonal relationships, and lived experience, and often transmitted through informal channels such as conversation, gesture, or shared understanding.
This definition distinguishes social information from machine-readable or protocol-bound data by emphasizing its origin in human subjectivity and its reliance on social and cultural context rather than technical encoding.
I'm calling it VIM now.
