Mining is the process by which it is ensured that the blockchain is the same across all nodes. A miner that solves a cryptological problem related to the previous transactions on the blockchain is rewarded with Ether.
The word mining originates in the context of the gold analogy for crypto currencies. Gold or precious metals are scarce, so are digital tokens, and the only way to increase the total volume is through mining it. This is appropriate to the extent that in Ethereum too, the only mode of issuance post launch is via the mining. Unlike these examples however, mining is also the way to secure the network by creating, verifying, publishing and propagating blocks in the blockchain.
The current intent at Ethereum is to use a mining algorithm where miners are required to fetch random data from the state, compute some randomly selected transactions from the last N blocks in the blockchain, and return the hash of the result. This has two important benefits. First, Ethereum contracts can include any kind of computation, so an Ethereum ASIC would essentially be an ASIC for general computation - ie. a better CPU. Second, mining requires access to the entire blockchain, forcing miners to store the entire blockchain and at least be capable of verifying every transaction. This removes the need for centralized mining pools; although mining pools can still serve the legitimate role of evening out the randomness of reward distribution, this function can be served equally well by peer-to-peer pools with no central control.
This model is untested, and there may be difficulties along the way in avoiding certain clever optimizations when using contract execution as a mining algorithm. However, one notably interesting feature of this algorithm is that it allows anyone to "poison the well", by introducing a large number of contracts into the blockchain specifically designed to stymie certain ASICs. The economic incentives exist for ASIC manufacturers to use such a trick to attack each other. Thus, the solution that we are developing is ultimately an adaptive economic human solution rather than purely a technical one.
