Otherwise put, every it — every particle, every field of force, even the space-time 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 — a very deep bottom, in most instances — an immaterial source and explanation; that which 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 that this is a participatory universe.
~ John Archibald Wheeler
The idea that physical reality is based on quantum information has been formulated before Wheeler by Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker in his ‘Ur-theorie’ (theory of archetypal objects).
Cf. https://www.nzz.ch/wissenschaft/am-anfang-war-das-bit-eine-entgegnung-auf-eduard-kaeser-ld.1458377
Deutsch, D.. (2011). It from qubit. In J. D. Barrow, P. C. W. Davies, & C. L. J. Harper (Eds.), Science and Ultimate Reality (pp. 90–102). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Plain numerical DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511814990.008
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“Of john wheeler’s ‘really big questions’, the one on which the most progress has been made is it from bit? – does information play a significant role at the foundations of physics? it is perhaps less ambitious than some of the other questions, such as how come existence?, because it does not necessarily require a metaphysical answer. and unlike, say, why the quantum?, it does not require the discovery of new laws of nature: there was room for hope that it might be answered through a better understanding of the laws as we currently know them, particularly those of quantum physics. and this is what has happened: the better understanding is the quantum theory of information and computation. how might our conception of the quantum physical world have been different if it from bit had been a motivation from the outset? no one knows how to derive it (the nature of the physical world) from bit (the idea that information plays a significant role at the foundations of physics), and i shall argue that this will never be possible. but we can do the next best thing: we can start from the qubit.”
