Satoshi's paper defines an inter-block ordering of transactions, not an intra-block ordering. Within a block transactions can come in any order as long as the entire block of transactions as a whole are valid.
Can you quote where in the Bitcoin paper cites what you are saying? I'm reading the exact
opposite of your statement.
Mind reading Satoshi about "being easier to code" is a fallacy and has no relevance here, let's leave that out and focus on the actual behaviors and evidence. Of course it's easier to code because it is the ONLY ordering that preserves the nature of being a "distributed timestamp server" (based on PoW).
Obviously it's easier to code because causality is not violated. When you order transactions out-of-causal/chronological ordering then
by definition you must do more processing and it's more complicated of course.
Imagine coming to this forum and everything is laid out in lexicographical ordering of a hash of the post content. That would be absurd and impose a processing overhead on all agents seeking to access the data in causal/chronological order.
Let's dive into the specific quotes and evidence that Satoshi really did intend to build the system in the manner he did.
Primary source used:
https://www.bitcoin.com/bitcoin.pdf
From Abstract:
"The network timestamps transactions by hashing them into an ongoing chain of hash-based proof-of-work, forming a record that cannot be changed without redoing the proof-of-work."
It clearly says "into" and not "outside of". Minor and pedantic, but it's supporting my point nonetheless.
From Page 1, Section 1: Introduction
"In this paper, we propose a solution to the double-spending problem using a peer-to-peer distributed timestamp server to generate computational proof of the chronological order of transactions."
This is where it gets interesting.
Bitcoin system is fundamentally a timestamp server. If you read many of Szabo's writings you will realize that the double-spend problem is intrinsically linked to the question of the agreement of "time".
The transaction ordering is itself the ordering of spacetime events. There can be no appeals to outside time because all those timestamps are not supported by PoW and can be faked.
Bitcoin
transaction ordering is the global consensus time in this region of smooth spacetime.
“The most valuable property of the bell tower time was not its accuracy, but its fairness. Even if it broadcast the wrong time, it broadcast the same wrong time to everybody.”
“The productive synchronization of human relationships funded the bell towers; the bell towers would provide a ready market for public clocks. Thus did in Europe emerge a“virtuous circle” that would advance both its timekeeping technologies and time-dependent institutions beyond those of the other continents.” — Nick Szabo, "A Measure of Sacrifice", 2002,2005
http://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/rob/Courses/InformationInSpeech/CDROM/Literature/LOTwinterschool2006/szabo.best.vwh.net/synch.html
On "chronology" and its importance:
https://qcpages.qc.cuny.edu/writing/history/considerations/chronology.html
From Page 2, Section 2: Transactions:
"To accomplish this without a trusted party, transactions must be publicly announced [1], and we need a system for participants to agree on a single history of the order in which they were received. The payee needs proof that at the time of each transaction, the majority of nodes agreed it was the first received. The payee needs proof that at the time of each transaction, the majority of nodes agreed it was the first received. "
The key is 'single history of the order in which they were received'. Each miner is it's own inertial frame of reference and as long as causality is preserved (ie: dependent child tx's come after their parents) then chronological/causality is not violated.
From Page 2, Section 3. Timestamp Server:
"The solution we propose begins with a timestamp server. A timestamp server works by taking a hash of a block of items to be timestamped and widely publishing the hash, such as in a newspaper or Usenet post [2-5]. The timestamp proves that the data must have existed at the time, obviously, in order to get into the hash."
From Page3, Section 5. Network:
The steps to run the network are as follows:
1) New transactions are broadcast to all nodes.
2) Each node collects new transactions into a block.
3) Each node works on finding a difficult proof-of-work for its block.
4) When a node finds a proof-of-work, it broadcasts the block to all nodes.
5) Nodes accept the block only if all transactions in it are valid and not already spent.
6) Nodes express their acceptance of the block by working on creating the next block in the chain, using the hash of the accepted block as the previous hash.
Read step 5) again:
5) Nodes accept the block only if all transactions in it are valid and not already spent.
Let me ask you: Can you spend a transaction (ie: is it "valid") where the inputs do not exist yet? Remember, we cannot appeal to "outside" or "true time" because any other timestamps are faulty and not backed by PoW.
All we have are the Tx's backed by PoW. We must use the transaction ordering itself to track time - it's the only thing we can rely on.
Page 8, Section 12: Conclusion:
To solve this, we proposed a peer-to-peer network using proof-of-work to record a public history of transactions that quickly becomes computationally impractical for an attacker to change if honest nodes control a majority of CPU power
The key here is "public history of transactions". The key word is "history" because it relates the
cause and effect of events to each other.
See "History"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_History?#IV:_Causation_in_History
Quote:
"Carr talks about causation in history. He believed that everything that happened in this world happened because of cause and effect."
Cause and effect are important at the non-quantum scales to make sense of things. Cause and effect is fundamentally about chronology.
In summary...
Satoshi set out to build a "distributed timestamp server", one that does not need a trusted third party. Any appeals to "outside" or "real time" is appealing to clocks that are not backed by PoW.
In Bitcoin, the transaction order itself (inside and between blocks) is the consensus time. The only thing we can trust since it is backed by PoW.
With Bitcoin Cash, we lose this very precious property of being able to tell what time it is on inter-planetary and inter-solar scales. Bitcoin Cash cannot be used to solve the double-spend problem efficiently at these scales.
Here are the most eye opening sections on 'geometric proportions' and 'time' from Einstein that will help in thinking about this problem:
Physical Meaning of Geometrical Propositions
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/5001/5001-h/5001-h.htm#ch1
On the Idea of Time in Physics
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/5001/5001-h/5001-h.htm#ch8
The Relativity of Simultaneity
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/5001/5001-h/5001-h.htm#ch9
On the Relativity of the Conception of Distance
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/5001/5001-h/5001-h.htm#ch10
