Transcendent values
Transcendental values are values which are not captured by any formal description.
The study of DAOs requires an understanding of general human groups. What keeps a group stable and coherent? Centralized organizations can rely on an efficient power structure which protects its membership. Open decentralized organizations can only exist if their members share common purpose. This requires a common set of values that are specific enough to direct the group toward a common goal and identify behaviors which threaten that purpose. The Transcendental Values Thesis explains why these values must not be formal, rigorous, and explicit if a DAO is to persist.
Transcendental values are impossible to explain formally. Some examples of transcendental values include Goodness, Beauty, Truth, Wisdom, Freedom, Harmony, and Love. Different DAOs will have different transcendental values and also differ in the importance which they are ascribed. Thus transcendental values can be contrasted with universal values.
Background
There is an inherent tension in the idea of a DAO. On one hand, a DAO is necessarily decentralized. A DAO must be decentralized in the ownership or control of the power of the group. This allows it to incorporate diverse perspectives and talent and knowledge--to incorporate information at the edge. On the other hand, to remain coherent--to stay organized--these diverse individuals must be united in a common purpose, a common goal, they must share a common set of values. They must agree on a set of acceptable behaviors and standards. A DAO's protocols must be centralized.
The protocols around which the DAO is centralized must be extremely explicit, rigorous, formal. These rules are encoded in programmed smart contracts. The regulation and execution of the protocols are automated in implacable programs. Code is law.
The reason these protocols must be so crystalized in a primary DAO is that justice for a group of pseudonymous participants from diverse backgrounds requires objectivity. Fairness requires that everyone's actions must be judged equally regardless of their idiosyncratic motivations.
The primary[1] problem with making the protocols perfectly rigorous is the inevitable potential to game the rules. The Folk Theorems of Game Theory suggest that whenever a group makes formal rules for acceptable behavior, an adversary can follow those rules to the letter and profit at the expense of the majority. Therefore the letter of the law, though necessary, is not the ideal protocol to follow. Following the spirit of the law is more important for maintaining long-term cooperation in a primary DAO.
Thus DAO governance cannot merely consist of a static set of programmed rules. There must be an evolutionary structure of governance that allows review of past behaviors, in order to review past behaviors and punish behaviors that harm the DAO. The very existence of the ability to punish those acts, serves to prevent harm to the DAO.
"Harm to the DAO" is a subjective judgement that depends on the values of the DAO. To know whether something is harm requires us to know what is bad, which requires us to know what is good, which requires us to know what we value. Thus a DAO must express their values. However, if they formally express their values, that is equivalent to explicitly setting the rules, which again allows an adversary to game the system.
Therefore, to maintain long-term stability, harmony, and collaboration, a DAO needs to have a common set of informal values, values which are not capably of being made rigorously explicit, values which transcend any formal rules. Transcendental values.
Transcendental values thesis
Game theory argument
Consequences
This thesis gives a motivation for the necessity of the existence of religions, which are universal throughout human groups.
All groups need values that transcend the human ability to formally capture in rigorous symbols. The thesis also explains the failure of any formal religion to be universal and eternal. Religions are formal protocols for behavior. Religions inevitably collapse. Their centralized protocols lead to hierarchies of power which are then gamed, corrupting and destabilizing the group.
Therefore the protocols of a long-term stable religion requires transcendent principles--principles which transcend any formal description. The experience of transcendent values are of a "know-it-when-you-see-it" nature. We cannot define absolute good, but we recognize what is good and bad when we are honest and observant.
DGF transcendental values
Main page: DGF transcendental values
- Decentralized organization
- Individual power and freedom
- Group harmony
- Decentralized knowledge
- Individual privacy
- Group transparency
- Open decentralized ownership
- Equity control of essentials
- Meritocratic competition for inessentials
SGF transcendental values
Main page: SGF transcendental values
- Seek Truth.
- Share Knowledge.
- Govern Wisely.
See Also
Notes & references
- ↑ A secondary problem with making the letter of the law the ultimate dictate of control is that it necessarily ignores the motivations of the actor, which are crucial for determining any fitting reward or punishment. A tertiary problem is that it ignores the background of the individual in the explanation of their motivations.