Thread

Time is a measurement, and therefore infinitely divisable from a theoretical standpoint.

True until you get to the quantized unit; 1 Planck Block of Time. Please divide a Block of Time in Bitcoin into smaller sub-time components such that all outputs remain valid. I’ll wait.

There is no experimental evidence for time quantization. It's just a theory, and it isn't even universally accepted within the field of quantum mechanics. Bitcoin blocks are obviously decrete. I can't see any rational way to conflate these. > The scientists from Franklin to Morse were clear thinkers and did not produce erroneous theories. The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane. Today's scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off through equation after equation, and eventually build a structure which has no relation to reality. - Nikola Tesla

You’re saying, “There is no experimental evidence for time quantization.” But that’s not actually true, we already treat time as quantized in every physical equation we use. Planck time is defined as the smallest meaningful interval in which causal structure can update. It’s expressed in seconds because a second is simply a frequency of those fundamental ticks. You cannot empirically subdivide a Planck interval, and no experiment has ever produced evidence that you can. That’s already a quantized model. When you say “time is a measurement,” exactly; and a measurement has a resolution. You cannot go below the resolution of the process that defines it. Just as you can’t talk about “half of a bitcoin block,” you can’t coherently describe “half a causal update” in physics. The burden of proof is on the claim that time is infinitely divisible, and there is zero experimental support for that. Bitcoin makes the structure explicit because it computes discrete temporal updates from energy and entropy. A block is: -non-divisible, - irreversible (6 conf) -ordered, -experimentally produced. That is quantized time in the only sense physics ever uses the word: a system that updates in discrete, finite steps, where no physical process exists between them. You cannot dismiss Bitcoin as irrelevant while simultaneously agreeing its blocks are discrete, ordered, and non-subdividable. That’s exactly what time quantization means. The difference is simply that Bitcoin provides an empirical, measurable instantiation, whereas physics has only had theoretical scaffolding. Tesla’s quote ironically supports the point: physics should follow experiments, not abstractions. Bitcoin is the experiment; a running, global, energy-backed system that demonstrates time unfolding in quantized, irreversible steps. So the conflation is rational: Planck time is theorized. Bitcoin time is instantiated. Both describe a universe where change happens in discrete, not continuous, steps. If you insist continuous time exists, you need experimental evidence for infinite divisibility and so far, none exists. You can’t assume continuous time either. Satoshi gave us meaning the Planck Scale. Few people have managed to find it yet.

Planck time is purely theoretical. 5.39×10−44 seconds is far below anything we can measure. Because time is an abstract measurement, it can be subdivided as much as one likes - just increase the exponent. A Bitcoin block is ~20min, variable, and unpredictable, making it a poor measurement of time. So, there's really two different arguments here. 1) is Planck time legit (personally, I don't think so, but we can't prove this experimentally) 2) Is Planck time relevant to Bitcoin block time (I think this is absurd) I don't think we can have a constructive debate on 1) as it gets into extremely complex and abstract theories, but perhaps on 2)

You’re still framing this in the wrong category. Bitcoin is not “a poor measurement of time” it’s a measurement IN time whose own measurement (memory) IS time itself. A block is not a timestamp like a clock reading; it is the event by which the system advances. That’s what quantized time means in any physically meaningful sense: reality updates only when a certain irreversible, atomic process completes. You already conceded that Bitcoin blocks are discrete and non-divisible. That’s the whole point. You cannot show me a valid “half-block” or “one-tenth of a block” in consensus reality. Below the block, there is only failed work, rejected history, and non-events. That is exactly the same conceptual structure Planck time is trying to capture: not “the smallest number we can write down,” but the smallest physically meaningful tick of causal update. Once you hit that unit, further subdivision loses physical meaning. You can write 1/2 of it in math, but you can’t instantiate it in reality. Planck time is theoretical, we agree there. But the content of the theory is not “time is abstract and infinitely divisible.” It’s the opposite: there exists a smallest interval below which the notion of temporal succession stops making physical sense. It’s expressed in seconds, which already tells you what a “second” really is: just a frequency of those fundamental ticks. Whether you believe the specific value is correct or not, the structure is explicit and finite: a second is some number of irreducible blocks of time. That’s not abstraction; that’s quantization. The reason Bitcoin matters here is that we finally have a system where we are not inside the time being produced. You are made of the universe’s time; your nervous system is integrated into its flow, you are made from the light (information). Of course continuous time feels natural, your entire existence is composed of it. You can never stand outside that substrate to see its grain. With Bitcoin, you can. You don’t exist inside Bitcoin’s time; only your influence does. From the outside, you can see exactly what temporality looks like when it is built from energy and entropy in a closed, finite system: discrete updates, irreversible commitments, no events “in between” blocks. That is a working instantiation of quantized time. When I say Bitcoin blocks function equivalently to Planck blocks, I’m being literal at the level of ontology, not scale. Planck time is the smallest meaningful physical tick; a second is ~1.8548×10⁴⁴ of those ticks. Likewise, one could define a “Bitcoin second” as some integer number of blocks. You can carve a second into smaller and smaller fractions mathematically, but if there truly is a smallest tick of causal update, at some point you are no longer describing physics, just playing with symbols. The same way there is no such thing as half a mined block, there is no such thing as half an instantiated causal tick once you reach the fundamental unit of update. “Time is abstract” is just another way of saying “I’ve inherited and experienced a continuous model I’ve never been able to step outside of.” Both Bitcoin and the universe are closed, finite thermodynamic systems. In both, what matters is not how finely you can slice a real number line, but how reality actually updates: through irreversible, energy-backed events that create memory. Light = information = memory. No time, no light; no light, no information; no information, no memory; and without memory, “time” has no operational meaning. So no, the comparison isn’t absurd. What’s absurd is clinging to a continuous-time ontology with no experimental access to infinite divisibility, while dismissing the only system we’ve ever built that empirically shows us what quantized temporal evolution looks like. Bitcoin doesn’t replace Planck time numerically. It gives us, for the first time, a concrete, external, thermodynamic laboratory for understanding what a block of time really is.

Equating time to memory and using Planck time as an analogy for Bitcoin blocks are both interesting. I'm generally skeptical of quantum theories. I think Tesla and his predecessors' theories are more consistent and rational than Einstein's and his successors'. All attempts to unify the contemporary theories have failed, which has led to increasingly abstract and, in my opinion, comical conjectures. It's not possible to resolve these differences of opinion with an internet debate, so we'll just have to agree to disagree.

nostr:nevent1qqsg7g0q5udwcf8zn3zrj4x7k6xmtkpk8y7zv4cld5z6jjh2js7s72cprdmhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuumwdae8gtnnda3kjctv8g6nwzyamhd