[alboaie]

The consensus problems is like a space in wich each "cell" have a different distance from other cells and this translate in different clock and differrent perception of time for each cell. And the cells can have random locations in space each time and jump in space all the time.. Modeling consensus as celular automata is interesting but maybe is just too abstract to get performant algoritms...

One insight is that consensus in a distributed system is that the most important aspect is the propagation of information betwen nodes. Practically, it is enough if you have a protocol imposing some logical epochs and time (real clock) limits after which the nodes are not alowed to change their mind about the events of an epoch. When you get information about the changes proposed by a large majority of nodes ( and what they know about all other nodes) than any kind of total ordering you introduce will give you a sound consensus.

[abss]

Two very different ways of seeing the same problem..