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Tallis in Wonderland

An Itsy-Bitsy Universe?

Raymond Tallis breaks down the ultimate breakdown.

Over thirty years ago, the great physicist John Wheeler made a claim that seemed astonishing then and should still seem astonishing, indeed absurd, now. He said “every it derives its ultimate significance from bits, binary yes-or-no indications, a conclusion which we epitomize in the phrase, it from bit” (‘Information, Physics, Quantum: The Search for Links’, Proceedings of the 3rd International Symposium on the Foundation of Quantum Mechanics, 1989). By this he meant the fundamental stuff of the physical world is information. Every physical object (every It) is a pattern of BITS. ‘What is’, is information, all the way down.

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