Reality is an information
The Question is what is The Question? Is it all a Magic Show? Is Reality an Illusion? What is the framework of The Machine? Darwin’s Puzzle: Natural Selection? Where does Space-Time come from? Is there any answer except that it comes from consciousness? What is Out There? T’is Ourselves? Or, is IT all just a Magic Show? Einstein told me: “If you would learn, teach!”
— John Wheeler
Could it be, that all we observe is just information? The “It from bit” as the famous John Wheeler tells us? And by “it” he means the whole observable universe on all scales - from the smallest parts to the galactic superclusters. Is it possible, that it all came from bits? Is information the “prima materia”?
Or shall we rather use “it from qubit”? A quantum bit is the basic unit of quantum information. Since the rules of quantum mechanics in fact apply to our reality, it seems safe to assume that the computer running our big game is using quantum computing instead of regular zeros and ones. A pure qubit state is a coherent superposition of the basic states. This means that a single qubit can be described by a linear combination:
Qubit has states of 0 and 1 and everything in between and also all-around. Wouldn’t that mean that simulating reality just got a whole lot easier, if we could use these?
Bloch sphere, a geometrical representation of a two-level quantum system - qubit:
Is it such a far-fetched idea that you could then break it all down to zeros and ones (I will stick with the 01 analogy as listing qubit states take too much space), the pure “qubinary” code of the whole reality? Every aspect of every particle can be expressed as information and put into such a code. And so, subatomic particles may be the bits that the universe is processing, as a giant supercomputer. And if the whole reality can be reduced to a code, can the human mind be anything different?
Or maybe it is the other way around? Our brain is an information processor. Maybe all it can understand is information processing and so the universe looks like huge computation. If all you have is a hammer… and so forth.
There is also a peculiar connection between information theory and the second law of thermodynamics – Shannon entropy - which measures the disorder or randomness inherent in any communications system. The greater the entropy, the less clear the message, until it becomes unintelligible. Which corresponds nicely to a regular entropy if you consider the cosmos an information-based system.
Information is communication and it is neg-entropy. The big bang was a signal and now it is slowly transformed into noise. From structured information into… well, entropy.
It seems that it is as Wheeler said, first, “Everything is Particles,” second, “Everything is Fields,” and third, “Everything is information.”
Consider also that reality is mostly empty space. There is mostly empty space between subatomic particles. There is mostly empty space between atoms themselves. Between molecules. Between cells. Between planets and their suns. Between solar systems. Between galaxies. All is empty.
Only the conscious mind with its ability to recognize patterns in information can translate this emptiness into the reality of objects through the computing power of the brain.
“Although I think that life may be the result of an accident, I do not think that of consciousness. Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms. For consciousness is absolutely fundamental. It cannot be accounted for in terms of anything else.”
- Erwin Schrödinger
So, here is an answer to the old question: "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" and the answer is – no. It doesn’t even fall. But when you come around, it will be rendered for you lying on the ground. The computation still happened. It also doesn’t mean that the tree doesn’t exist when you are not looking – it does, but only in a superposition – an unrendered code, waiting to be observed by the magic of conscious awareness.
The universe is information and the best information-generating tool we know of so far is the brain. What does it mean for you? Contemplate this. Meditate on this.