If time is money, what is space and what is spacetime?
If general relativity is analogous to modern monetary theory and quantum thermodynamics is analogous to double-entry bookkeeping or Austrian economics, there should be a straightforward answer to this question.
In general relativity, something looks like space from one vantage point and it looks like time from another vantage. In modern monetary theory, something looks like money from one vantage point and it looks like debt from another vantage.
Thus, if time is money, then space is debt.
Money circulates when debt is created and when money and debt meet, debt is destroyed. Thus the system requires the continuous generation of debt to support a steady circulation of money.
However, the picture gets more complicated if we consider that in quantum thermodynamics, something looks like matter (circulating clockwise) from one vantage point and it looks like antimatter (circulating anticlockwise) from another vantage. Likewise, in double-entry bookkeeping, something looks like money from one vantage point and it looks like debt from another vantage.
Thus, if money is matter, then debt is antimatter
When money is created, a debt is created at the same time and when the same type of money and debt meet in an individual account, they annihilate.
If you compare the two frameworks, you’ll notice that they don’t define space and time or money and debt in the same ways.
In modern monetary policy, the amount of debt can expand indefinitely and the expansion of debt is responsible for the flow of money which, in general relativity would be viewed as responsible for the fundamental forces of gravity and electromagnetism — the forces that make life possible and drive us forwards.
In double-entry bookkeeping, the amount of debt represents energy usage and since we have a finite amount of energy on our planet, by expanding debt beyond our ability to extract energy from the planet, we create an unsustainable expansion which will eventually collapse after we’ve wastefully used energy which could’ve been used more efficiently by our great-grandchildren.
The theorized big bang will eventually turn into a big crunch which will converge to a golden mean in a steady-state oscillation and it will eventually become clear that when some people talk about physics, they are really talking about economics.
Most physicists know that it is impossible to truly unify general relativity and quantum thermodynamics because they are written in independent, yet self-consistent languages which define space in different ways. They know that they created the concepts of dark energy and dark matter to make a bridge between the two languages, but it is really just a patch that makes their work sound mysterious enough to justify asking for more research dollars.
Meanwhile, most economists know that it is impossible to truly unify modern monetary theory and double-entry bookkeeping because they define debt in different ways. They created dark debt (inevitable bankruptcy) and dark money (eaten by silverfish in a drug dealer’s cave) to make a bridge between the two languages, but it is really just a patch that makes the future seem more mysterious than it really is and justifies asking governments to create more debt.
I personally dislike the obfuscating qualities of general relativity and prefer the language that ties the system to an absolute reference — i.e. energy production, but in light of the realities of bankruptcy and drug dealer’s caves, perhaps having both languages can serve a useful purpose.
In a perfect world, there would be no bankruptcy or drug dealer’s caves and there would be no such thing as dark energy or dark matter, but until that day comes, we are stuck with inflationary monetary policy, an inevitable, deflationary bust, and a slow convergence upon a golden mean.
Glossary:
Space, as defined by general relativity, is the gravitational interaction distance between two moving objects and it is not the same thing as space, as defined by quantum thermodynamics, which is the distance between two objects on a Cartesian grid.
Debt, as defined by modern monetary policy, is relative to the velocity of the flow of money and it is not the same thing as debt, as defined by double-entry bookkeeping, which is relative to the amount of energy which has been extracted from the earth.
Spacetime represents the efficiency of a particle’s ability to extract energy from the vacuum. As long as it expends less energy than is required to extract energy, spacetime expands.
Debtmoney represents the efficiency of our ability to extract energy from the Earth. As long as we expend less energy than is required to extract energy, debtmoney expands.
Entropy tells us that there is a finite supply of energy in a given region of space and that things tend towards disorder without an external energy supply.
History tells us that there is a finite supply of energy within the Earth and that things tend towards disorder when the sun produces less energy.
Originally published at http://quora.com.
