time and space are modes by which we think and not conditions in which we live —D. Marianoff

 

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Throughout his life, (John) Wheeler aspired to understand the most fundamental components of the cosmos. 

He changed his mind on that issue several times in his career, starting with particles, venturing into fields and geometry, and finally delving into information. 

He also wanted to comprehend the organizing principles steering those components into recognizable patterns. Sum over histories, based on the principle of least action applied to quantum physics, was one such idea, but he also considered others. 

In the end, he became convinced that the answer had to do with a “self-excited circuit”: a symbiosis between conscious observers and what they were observing, namely, the cosmic past. Somehow, through our looks back in time, we organized our own universe, from among the frothy possibilities of the quantum foam. 

Therefore, in Wheeler’s mind, the questions of “How come existence?” and “How come the quantum?” became inextricably linked. 


—Paul Halpern
The Quantum Labyrinth: How Richard Feynman and John Wheeler Revolutionized Time and Reality

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I, like other searchers, attempt formulation after formulation of the central issues and here present a wider overview, taking for working hypothesis the most effective one that has survived this winnowing: It from Bit. Otherwise put, every it — every particle, every field of force, even the spacetime continuum itself — derives its function, its meaning, its very existence entirely — even if in some contexts indirectly — from the apparatus-elicited answers to yes or no questions, binary choices, bits.

It from Bit symbolizes the idea that every item of the physical world has at bottom — at a very deep bottom, in most instances — an immaterial source and explanation; that what we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes-no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and this is a participatory universe.


—John Archibald Wheeler

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[...] the Hebrew word, the word timshel—‘Thou mayest’— [that] gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open. That throws it right back on a man. 

For if ‘Thou mayest’—it is also true that ‘Thou mayest not.

―John Steinbeck
East of Eden

 

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