4.13 It From Bit and the Triadic Theory of Reality

Size: px

Start display at page:

Download "4.13 It From Bit and the Triadic Theory of Reality"

Mariah Fleming
6 years ago
Views:

1 (Excerpt from S. Ji, Molecular Theory of the Living Cell: Concepts, Molecular Mechanisms, and Biomedical Applications, Springer, New York, Pp ) 4.13 It From Bit and the Triadic Theory of Reality The following excerpt from "Geon, Black Holes & Quantum Foam: A Life in Physics by Wheeler (1998) explains what is meant by his often-quoted phrase It from Bit (Wheeler 1990): "... one enormous difference separates the computer and the universe--chance. In principle, the output of a computer is precisely determined by the input.... Chance plays no role. In the universe, by contrast, chance plays a dominant role. The laws of physics tell us only what may happen. Actual measurement tells us what is happening (or what did happen). Despite this difference, it is not unreasonable to imagine that information sits at the core of physics, just as it sits at the core of a computer. Trying to wrap my brain around this idea of information theory as the basis of existence, I came up with the phrase "it from bit." The universe and all that it contains ("it") may arise from the myriad yes-no choices of measurement (the "bits"). Niels Bohr wrestled for most of his life with the question of how acts of measurement (or "registration") may affect reality. It is registration--whether by a person or a device or a piece of mica (anything that can preserve a record)--that changes potentiality into actuality. I build only a little on the structure of Bohr's thinking when I suggest that we may never understand this strange thing, the quantum, until we understand how information may underlie reality. Information may not be just what we learn about the world. It may be what makes the world." The last sentence reminds us of the Peircean metaphysics (described in Section 6.2) of Firstness (e.g., quality, feeling, and potentiality), Secondness (e.g., facts, actuality), and Thirdness (e.g., reason, knowledge, representation) (Peirce 1903), motivating me to suggest another triadic representation of reality as shown in Figure 4-10:

2 as IS = Firstness REALITY = as MEASURED = Secondness as KNOWN = Thirdness Figure 4-10 An analysis of Wheeler s dictum It from bit based on the Peircean metaphysics. The three aspects of reality appearing in Wheeler s dictum are shown in Figure 4-10 as capitalized words and the texts related to them are identified as follows: 1) IS = Information... may be what makes the world... ; 2) MEASURED =.. the myriad yes-no choices of measurement... ; 3) KNOWN =... we understand how information may underlie reality.. Information may not be just what we learn about the world.... In Figure 4-11, the content of Figure 4-10 is re-displayed using the format of the triadic theory of reality (TTR) shown in Figure 4-7. The similarity between Wheeler s metaphysics (marked by { }) and Peirce's metaphysics (marked by [...]) is striking in Figure 4-11, leading to the following identifications of the nodes, which is consistent with Figure 4-10: 1) It = Firstness 2) Measurement = Secondness 3) Bit = Thirdness.

3 Gnergy <--- Ontology [Firstness] (Subtance) {It} C/P Energy Information <--- Epistemology [Secondenss] [Thirdness} (Extension) (Thought) {Measurement} {Bit} Figure 4-11 A diagrammatic representation of complementarism (and the Spinozan metaphysics in parenthesis). Also displayed are Wheeler's "it" and "bit." The philosophical perspectives underlying this figure are complementarism (C) (described in Section 2.3.4) and Peircean metaphysics (P) (described in Section 6.2). If the speculation expressed in Figure 4-10 is valid that there are three fundamental aspects to reality, then there must also be three categories of information to represent them, namely, the information about the REALITY AS IS, the information about the REALITY AS MEASURED or REGISTERED, and the information about the REALITY AS KNOWN to the community of Homo sapiens throughout the human history (see Figure 4-7), which may be denoted as the Firstness information, the Secondness information, and the Thirdness information. If we denote these different types of informations as 1-I, 2-I and 3-I, respectively, we can write information, I, as a combination of three components: I = (1-I)^(2-I)^(3-I) (4-36) where the symbol ^ indicates a complementary relation. Equation (4-36) may be referred to as the triadic theory of information. (TTI), which in turn may be regarded as the informationtheoretic version of the triadic theory of reality (TTR) described in Figure 4-7. We can apply the complementarian logic (see Section 2.3.3) to Wheeler's "it from bit", leading to the following possible identities: i) A = Measurement (4-37) ii) B = Bit, and iii) C = It.

4 If this set of identities is valid, it may be concluded that "it" cannot derive from "bit", because it transcends bit according to the transcendentality criterion of the complementarian logic described in Section 2.3. To be consistent with the complementarian logic as applied to Equations (4-37), Wheeler's original dictum may need to be rephrased into one of the following expressions, which are admittedly not as poetic, but perhaps closer to truth, than the original phrase: "It from Bit" => "It as Gnergy" (4-38) It is Gnergy. (4-39) "From It to Bit and Erg. (4-40) "Bit and Erg from It. (4-41) where erg is the unit of (or represents) energy just as bit is the unit of (or represents) information.

It From Bit Or Bit From Us?

It From Bit Or Bit From Us? Majid Karimi Research Group on Foundations of Quantum Theory and Information Department of Chemistry, Sharif University of Technology On its 125 th anniversary, July 1 st, 2005