It from Bit

(An Amelioration of an Amateur Scientist)

By John Winders

The image of the tree is courtesy of George Hodan through PublicDomainPictures.net

Note to my readers:
You can access and download this essay and my other essays directly from the Amateur
Scientist Essays website using this link:

https://sites.google.com/site/amateurscientistessays/

You are free to download and share all of my essays without any restrictions, although it
would be very nice to credit my work when quoting directly from them.

If you would like to leave comments via email, you can send them using this link:

mailto:Amateurscientist@hotmail.com
John Archibald Wheeler (1911-2008) was one of the last true visionaries in the field of theoretical
physics. He was far more interested in finding out why things worked than how they worked, inspired
by philosophers like Gottfried Leibniz, who believed physical reality is derived from otherworldly
monads, described as distinct atoms of consciousness. Wheeler came to the conclusion that physics is
intrinsically informational, and sometime around 1990 he coined the phrase “It from Bit.” He stated,
“Our perception of phenomena consists of a series of binary yes/no decisions made through
observations. In short, the physical universe emerges from information.”
Wheeler had a tendency to make short, pithy statements that were amazingly profound while flying
completely over the heads of his listeners. In fact, initially I had a difficult time wrapping my head
around the full significance of this particular statement; however, I’m convinced that Wheeler did not
mean our “perception of phenomena” (aka the phenomenal universe) is comprised of data. Instead, he
truly meant it emerges from information.
Most people, including scientists, conflate information with data. Data are records or descriptions of
decisions after they are made. Information is the uncertainty about decisions before they are made.
According to Wheeler’s definition, decisions are made through observations. We need a clear
understanding of what information is (and what it isn’t) in order to grasp the significance of “It from
Bit.” We’ll start out by examining a concept known as entropy that emerged in the 19th century.
Definition of Entropy
Entropy came from the science of thermodynamics in the Age of Steam. Scientists and engineers
discovered the fraction of useful energy that can be extracted from heat energy is less than 100%.
Rudolph Clausius noted that the amount of “non-useful” energy in the steam exiting a steam engine
increases, and he named this increase entropy, meaning “energy change.” Later, Ludwig Boltzmann
and Josiah Willard Gibbs placed entropy on a firm statistical foundation.
Boltzmann’s formula for entropy is S = kB log (W), where kB is a fundamental constant of nature, equal
to 1.38 × 10-23 joule/K. Units of energy (joule) and temperature (K), place entropy squarely within the
framework of thermodynamics. The term W in Boltzmann’s formula is Wahrscheinlichkeit, a German
word meaning probability. It turns out that W isn’t exactly probability, which is limited to values
between zero and one. It’s actually a very large number of internal microstates of a system based on a
particular macrostate that can be measured externally. By assuming each of the microstates have the
same probability, p, Boltzann’s formula can be rewritten S = - kB log (p).
In general, the probabilities of a system’s microstates are not all the same, and Gibbs modified the
Boltzmann formula for the general case where the probability, pi , pertains to a particular microstate, i.
This modification is shown below.

S = - kB Σ pi log(pi) , summed over i = 1, 2, 3 … W

The particular microstate a system occupies at any given moment is completely irrelevant to entropy.
In fact, it is fundamentally impossible to measure or know which microstate a system occupies. All
that truly matters are the probabilities associated with a complete set of possible microstates.
So exactly what are microstates? Boltzmann and Gibbs built their definition of entropy around the
kinetic theory of gases. A gas molecule can be described by its position and momentum, both of which
have three degrees of freedom (the x, y, and z directions). A microstate is defined by the positions and
momenta of every gas molecule within a given volume at a specific exterior state as defined by a

-1-
measured set of temperature and pressure values. There are two key facts: 1) gas molecules are
indistinguishable from each other, and 2) position and momentum must take on discrete values.
The first key fact arises because molecules don’t have name tags. So swapping the position and
momentum of Molecule #649 with the position and momentum of Molecule #847, has absolutely no
effect on a microstate. The indistinguishability of molecules drastically reduces the number of possible
microstates.1
The second key fact arises from Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. If the position of a molecule is
defined within a certain range Δx, the momentum in the x direction can only be specified within a
range Δpx = ½ ħ / Δx, where ħ is the Planck constant. This sets an upper limit to the number of
microstates that can exist; without that upper limit, entropy would be infinite.2
A third fact is that entropy of a system only has meaning when the system is at equilibrium, as when
the exterior measured properties, such as temperature and pressure, don’t change. However, a system
is considered to be in equilibrium if changes occur slowly enough, as when a piston is withdrawn
slowly from a cylinder of gas thermally isolated from the environment.
At the time of Boltzmann’s discovery, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle hadn’t been invented yet and
atomic theory was not widely accepted, making it even more prescient and remarkable. Microstates
and entropy are not limited to systems comprised of gases. All physical macroscopic systems have
entropy in one form or another.3 It turns out that entropy is a fungible quantity among all systems.
Entropy is essentially a metric for uncertainty, or unknowing. This leads to a complete reversal of the
way most people (including many physicists) think of information. Information is the question and not
the answer, as illustrated in the following sections.
Entropy Is Not Disorder
One very common misconception about entropy is that it has something to do with “disorder.” This is
completely false. First of all, there is no mathematical definition of disorder because the very concept
is subjective. The best we can do is by calling it absence of “order,” which could be loosely defined as
objects placed in groups of other similar objects or objects arranged in specific geometric relationships
with other objects. Examples would be socks paired up and placed in a particular drawer or chairs
lined up in straight parallel rows, but neither of these have anything to do with entropy. Consider two
poker hands shown below, dealt from two thoroughly-shuffled decks of 52 cards:
5 3 7 6 8 10 J Q K A
The hand on the left is essentially worthless in the game of poker, whereas the hand on the right is
called a “royal flush” and it beats all other hands, with all five cards in sequential order, the ace of
spades being the “top card” in the deck, and all the cards belonging to the same “suit.” In short, the
hand on the right is more orderly than the hand on the left, but being orderly has little to do with its
probability, which is the sole basis of entropy. Drawing both of these hands have exactly the same
odds: 1 / 2,590,960. Looking at the first hand, 5+3+7+6+8 = 29, which is a prime number. There are

1 It should be noted that a mixture of different molecules would greatly increase the number of microstates and thus
increase entropy.
2 This answers the question, “Why quantum?” Entropy can only be defined from discrete probabilities.
3 Amazingly, spacetime itself has properties that are analogous to pressure, energy, temperature and entropy. Theoretical
physicist and cosmologist Thanu Padmanabhan showed that the generalized Schwarzschild metric takes on the form of
the thermodynamic equation at the boundary.

-2-
relatively few combinations of five numbered cards adding up to a prime number, which are neither
straights nor flushes, with no two cards the same number. A hand like that could easily become a
winning poker hand just by implementing a rule change and calling it a “prime hand.”
It’s true that disorderly systems do tend to have more entropy than orderly ones, but the reason isn’t
because they are disorderly. When water freezes, H2O molecules are arranged in hexagonal crystal
lattices, whereas when water boils, the molecules are not arranged in any particular way. However, the
frozen water molecules are in that peculiar arrangement because they are physically constrained from
being in other arrangements. Ice has a lower entropy than water vapor because freezing drastically
constrains the molecular freedom of movement, reducing the number of available microstates. But it’s
not just because the water molecules happen to be lined up in an “orderly” way.
Information Defined and Explained
Claude Shannon is known as the father of information theory. He worked on cryptology during the
second world war, followed by work on communication theory at Bell Labs. The main objective of
communication engineering is to send a signal from Point A to Point B through a channel that generally
corrupts the signal, sometimes making it difficult for the receiver to know what signal was actually
sent. Shannon’s theory made it possible for engineers to encode a signal at the sending end of the
channel that maximizes the probability that it can be decoded at the receiving end, even when the signal
was corrupted. This theory hinged on a precise definition of the term known as information.
Before Shannon’s groundbreaking work, people only had a vague idea of what information is (and most
still do). A common notion is that it has something to do with how long or how detailed a message is.
Shannon changed that notion. He discovered that information of a signal depends on the uncertainty
associated with the message, calling it the “surprise factor,” instead of its length or its details. For
example, if a TV anchor on the 11 o’clock news informs her viewers that the Sun will rise in the east at
7AM EST, there wouldn’t be much surprise in the minds of the viewers. In fact, there wouldn’t even
be much point in sending a message like that in the first place. But if she informs her viewers that the
Sun will explode at around 7 AM EST, that would surprise most people. The surprise factor of the
second message would be much greater than the surprise factor of the first message.
So how exactly did Shannon define information on the basis of the “surprise factor”? He based it all on
uncertainty and probability. The less likely each message is, the more uncertainty exists and the more
information the messages carry. This is the formula Shannon used to define information, H:

H = - Σ pi log(pi) , i summed over all possible messages

This should look familiar because it’s exactly the same as Gibbs’ entropy formula without the factor kB.
In fact, Shannon himself often referred to H as entropy because he realized the two are fundamentally
the same.4 It turns out that H and S are so fundamentally alike, that when information is “lost” within
boolean logic gates, a corresponding amount of thermodynamic entropy, S = kB H, is transferred to the
physical logic gates themselves, raising their thermal energy and temperature.5
One may ask, “What do the probability values in Shannon’s equation represent, and what are the
corresponding microstates?” First of all, Shannon cared nothing about what a message actually means.

4 One other difference is that Boltzmann/Gibbs used the natural logarithm, Shannon used the base-2 logarithm, which
expresses H in dimensionless units called “bits” or binary digits.
5 This is Landauer’s principle, which places a lower bound on the amount of heat generated by computers. As of 2021,
computers haven’t yet reached the Landauer limit, but it may be reached in the coming decades.

-3-
It could be a Shakespeare sonnet or complete gibberish. In fact, Shannon’s experience with cryptology
taught him that even when a coded message looks like complete gibberish, it could contain plenty of
valuable information. He only cared about the likelihood of a certain string of symbols being sent.
Consider a page copied from an English novel. In English, each letter has a certain frequency or
probability, with the letter “e” much more likely than the letter “z”, so pe ≫ pz. The information per
letter is found using Shannon’s formula by summing pi log 2 (pi) over 26 possible letters. This works out
to be H = 4.25 bits per character based on the frequencies of letters found in English sentences. Using
the same 26 letters, H would have somewhat different values in German or Italian.
The nice thing about Shannon’s approach is that the entropy (or information) of each letter is additive.
So if H = 4.25 bits per letter, a paragraph containing 1000 letters would have 1000 × 4.25 = 4250 bits of
information. If each letter had the same probability, there would be 26 1000 different ways those 26
letters could be arranged. Then H = log 2 (26 1000) = 4700 bits, which is the maximum entropy possible
for this sequence of these letters. Although most of those 1000-character strings wouldn’t make any
sense, that’s completely irrelevant in terms of information content.
Here’s the bottom line: Information and entropy are fundamentally the same thing.
What Is an Observation?
Let’s return to Wheeler’s statement, “Our perception of phenomena consists of a series of binary yes/no
decisions made through observations.” When he referred to observation, I don’t think he was referring
to looking at preexisting data bits on a computer screen. I think he meant observations are yes/no
decisions that continuously create data bits. A yes/no decision must be preceded by a question, and a
question clearly involves a degree of uncertainty and probability, fitting in perfectly with Shannon’s
definition of information based solely on probability.
Bit (information) → It (data)
Observation is a continuous process of creating data from information, as shown by a one-way arrow
above. There are two separate entities in this process: The observer (the subject) and the observed (the
object). The meaning of Wheeler’s statement is that an observer literally creates the object, going from
uncertainty to certainty.6 In the everyday sense, an observation is equivalent to a measurement.
What Are the Qualifications of an Observer?
Regarding the famous Schrödinger’s Cat experiment, a majority of physicists today seem to argue that
only intelligent beings can qualify as observers, because only they are able to collapse the alive/dead
quantum wave function of a cat. I really doubt this is true because an observation is equivalent to a
measurement, which can be done with an instrument. I believe the only criterion is for the observer to
have an internal complexity greater than the complexity of the object being observed, and by that I
mean using entropy as a proxy for complexity. The following example illustrates this concept.
A piece of laboratory equipment is designed to make a measurement of the spin of a single electron
through its interaction with a magnetic field. Suppose an electron is in a superposed up + down
quantum spin state. It is sometimes stated that a superposed spin state is an up state combined with a
7
down state. However, only the lab equipment can define “up” and “down” directions with respect to

6 This ultimately leads to the theory of a participatory universe in which conscious beings participate in the creation of
the world they live in.
7 The truth of the matter is that no electron has either state until it is measured. Experiments violating Bell’s inequality
repeatedly prove there are no preexisting quantum states before they are measured.

-4-
its own magnetic field. According to Wheeler’s statement, the observation is a yes/no binary decision.
If the equipment decides the spin is pointing in the same direction as the magnetic field, the spin is
“up.” Otherwise, it is “down.” When the electron interacts with the magnetic field, decoherence
occurs, collapsing its quantum wave function and producing an electron with a classical “up” or
“down” magnetic dipole moment. This releases a tiny energy blip into the magnetic field; a positive
energy blip corresponding to an “up” spin, and a negative energy blip corresponding to a “down” spin.
The energy blip could be amplified many times and cause a pointer to move, an indicator lamp to light,
or the word “UP” to be printed on a piece of paper. Later on, a smart person in a white lab coat could
discover an up-spinning electron was detected, but the wave function had collapsed long ago.
It’s clear that the lab equipment is far more complex having far greater entropy than a single electron,
making it possible to measure the spin direction, collapsing the wave function by decoherence and
creating an “it” (the actuality of an up-spinning electron) from a “bit” (a possibility of 50%).
But what happens to the bit afterward? Before the measurement was made, there was a 50%
probability either outcome would occur; there was H = – 0.5 log 2 (0.5) – 0.5 log 2 (0.5) = 1 bit of
information representing an uncertainty prior to making this decision. After the measurement is made,
there is no longer any doubt or uncertainty about the decision because the lab equipment/observer
turned the bit into an “it.” It would appear one bit of information is now missing, but there is a
fundamental law of nature that prohibits information from going missing.8
According to the no hiding theorem, the missing bit of information shows up as increased entropy
among the internal states of the lab equipment. If the measurement is reversible, S = kB log e (2) joule/K
of entropy is added to the equipment. In practice, such measurements are never reversible, especially
when amplification is involved; therefore, much more entropy must be added to the entropy of the lab
equipment than just one bit.
In the discussion thus far, intelligence and consciousness have not been factored into the measurement,
the only criterion for an observer being a sufficient amount of internal complexity, with entropy used as
a proxy. Laboratory equipment creating tiny “its” of certainty from uncertainty is one thing, but how
does this apply to creating the world writ large?
The “Self-Excited Circuit”
Wheeler wrote down many of his ideas in notebooks that have been retained in the library of the
American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, PA.9 A recurring theme in those notebooks was
something he called the “self-excited circuit.” Nobody is quite sure what Wheeler meant by this, and
he didn’t really leave many clues other than scribbling cryptic drawings of it, depicted below.

8 This is just a restatement of the second law of thermodynamics, based on entropy = information.
9 Amanda Gefter, Trespassing on Einstein’s Lawn, Chapter 11

-5-
This above drawing shows the universe beginning at the upper left of the letter “U” expanding,
evolving, and culminating in a giant eye at the upper right looking back at the beginning. The eye
represents intelligent beings, implying they are somehow responsible for creating the universe in the
first place, and presumably they are also responsible for sustaining it. Is it true that objective reality
doesn’t even exist outside consciousness? As Albert Einstein famously quipped, “Does this mean the
Moon disappears when I look away from it, and reappears when I look back?” Wheeler seemed to
believe the answer to both of those questions is yes.
One of the problems with the participatory universe is how to explain why material objects seem to be
immutable, at least in the short term, if they are only images created by ever-changing conscious
thoughts. Consider an ordinary object, such as a coffee cup. What keeps the cup from morphing into a
cereal bowl or a vase, or disappearing altogether into the quantum void? Furthermore, why do different
people give such similar descriptions of the same coffee cup? Solipsism might provide the answer:
There is only a single private reality (mine) with “other people” relegated to role playing simulations;
however, most people, including me, are repelled by solipsism.
I think there is a more plausible explanation: The coffee cup sustains its observable exterior properties
(the “it”) by continuously observing itself. The cup is endowed with myriad unobservable interior
microstates (entropic bits) that qualify it as a sufficiently-complex observer. Individual atoms are the
“its” defining the observable properties of the cup. If left alone unobserved, the atoms could wander
away or disappear by turning into evolving quantum wave functions. As a sufficiently-complex
observer, the cup can continuously interact with those wave functions and decohere them, preventing
delinquent atoms from wandering very far away from their assigned positions, although they may
jiggle around a little.10
The Role of Consciousness as the Binary Decision Maker
While self-excited circuits might explain the persistence of coffee cups and other objects, applying this
explanation to the entire universe is problematic without invoking consciousness in some way. The
idea of an observer making yes/no choices along with doubt and uncertainty strongly imply some kind
of underlying consciousness or awareness. The difficulty is explaining how a universe could start out
without form or structure and evolve, or in other words how “its” could organize themselves into
qualified sufficiently-complex observers. Maybe an attribute such as consciousness making binary
yes/no decisions permeates the universe, meaning the universe itself is consciously aware, engaging in
the Great Thought as James Jeans suggested. This sounds a lot like panpsychism, but I don’t know if
this is exactly what Wheeler had in mind when contemplating a participatory universe.
According to Wheeler’s notebooks, he seemed to have become obsessed with Kurt Gödel, and he tried
to recruit the great Austrian mathematician and logician to help him solve the participatory universe.11
Gödel refused all these repeated requests, steadfastly refusing to accept any quantum mechanical
interpretations of reality, apparently having been brainwashed by Einstein. Gödel’s incompleteness
theorems appear to rule out any self-referential system that is logically consistent. This would be a
major stumbling block in developing any rational theory of a universe completely cut off from the
outside. Wheeler clearly recognized this, but he believed Gödel might somehow be able to get around
it. If the machinery of the universe requires a binary decision maker, it may be a Universal Mind. If
humans are also binary decision makers with limits to the phenomena we are capable of observing,
each of our individual perceptions of phenomena (our universes) then may be somewhat different.
10 It has been experimentally verified that radioactive atoms don’t decay when they are continuously “watched.”
11 Gefter

-6-
Implications of “It from Bit” Regarding Cosmology
In the previous sections, I tried to stick to Wheeler’s own idea of “It from Bit” as much as possible and
avoid putting words in his mouth. In this section I’ll go a bit beyond what Wheeler actually said and
try to put “It from Bit” into a cosmological framework.
A radically different cosmological model was developed in other of my essays,12 and I strongly suspect
“It from Bit” is tied directly to it. In summary, the model consists of a temporal Now moment as an
expanding, curved, two-dimensional surface of negative curvature surrounding a three-dimensional
volume. This surface is continuously saturated with Bekenstein-Hawking entropy, with the bit per unit
area density increasing in proportion to the increasing radius of curvature of the surface. Since the total
area of the surface increases in proportion to the radius squared and the entropic density increases with
the radius, the total entropy on the surface increases in proportion to the radius cubed. Meanwhile, the
volume enclosed by the expanding surface also increases in proportion to the radius cubed.13
Everything that occurs must occur in the surface of the Now moment. Presumably, nothing exists
beyond this surface, thus Now is a temporal boundary of our universe. The other temporal boundary is
the Beginning where the radius of curvature originates.14 There are no spatial boundaries in this model.
The Now moment is where Bits→Its (Entropy→Data). Each bit of entropy on the two-dimensional
surface extends into the three-dimensional interior within that surface. The expanding two-dimensional
hyperbolic Now surface surrounds expanding three-dimensional hyperbolic space, which in turn
surrounds expanding causal four-dimensional hyperbolic spacetime as described by general relativity.
The cosmology presented above is painted with a very broad brush, and I admit to not knowing exactly
how Bits are made into Its on the Now surface. Nonetheless, I can say with supreme confidence that
everything that happens must happen in the Now, an infinitesimally thin temporal surface surrounding
“space” similar to the holographic principle. But unlike the prevailing AdS/CFT correspondence
theory where the surface hologram exists in some faraway place, the Now moment in my model is right
here where conscious beings perceive phenomena through making binary decisions.
As stated earlier in this essay, Gödel’s incompleteness theorems rule out any universe that is both
closed and logically consistent; however, internal logical consistency might be possible if “something”
not subject to the laws of space and time resides on the very edge and directs it, and the only
“something” that comes to mind is consciousness.
Wheeler’s Big U diagram shown on Page 5 seems to indicate a retroactive creative act with the eyeball
representing conscious beings living in physical bodies, which clearly seems to defy logic. When
Wheeler was asked in an interview to explain this apparent logical discrepancy, he responded in his
characteristic terse manner, “Think of it as feedback.” Feedback doesn’t work properly unless it’s
applied continuously and instantaneously. So we might infer from Wheeler’s feedback comment that
the “It from Bit” process operates continuously instead of retroactively. I also think that when Wheeler
talked about a “participatory universe,” he meant that finite conscious entities may participate in
creation as binary decision makers, but their creative role is only peripheral because their individual
perceptions are significantly constrained. Thus, The Big Eyeball could also represent a single
conscious universe-sustaining deity. Although Wheeler was a member of the Unitarian Church, I can’t
find any references saying whether he believed in such a deity.
12 For details, follow the following links: "The Universe on a Tee Shirt" and "The Inside-Out Black Hole"
13 This expanding volume is a hyperbolic sphere with surface area = 4π r 2 and volume = 2/3 π r 3. See the Appendix below.
14 Pointing in any direction into space from the Now boundary also points back toward the Beginning, a singular point in
time. This very strange property shows how space and time are deeply intertwined as a causal network.

-7-
Molecules, Marbles and Misconceptions
Most misconceptions regarding information and entropy are the result of trying to describe hidden
quantum phenomena in terms of classical models. Around 1875 Josiah Gibbs discovered a major
problem involving entropy, called the Gibbs paradox. By modeling gas molecules as tiny classical
objects, it turned out that entropy is not extensive. This means that dividing a 2-liter container of gas
into two 1-liter containers without changing pressure or temperature results in a decrease in total
entropy, when common sense says that the entropy of two containers should be additive. Worse yet,
this causes a violation of the second law of thermodynamics, which was (and mostly still is)15
considered to be inviolate. The Gibbs paradox can be illustrated using the figure below.
V = 16 V = 16 V = 32
N=6 N=6 N = 12
16C6 = 8,008 16C6 = 8,008 32C12 = 225,792,840

The box on the left has a barrier dividing it into two compartments, each with 16 spaces and six
marbles that are indistinguishable. The marbles are allowed to distribute themselves randomly in the
compartments, with no more than one marble allowed per space. There are 16C6 = 8,008 possible
combinations of marbles in each compartment. For every combination in the left compartment, there
are 8,008 possible combinations in the right compartment, for a total of 8,008 2 = 64,128,064 possible
combinations overall. If the barrier is removed, as shown in the box on the right, all 12 marbles can
migrate to all 32 spaces, and the number of combinations increases to 32C12 = 225,792,840 with no
other physical changes to the box. Overall entropy has increased, and you might say this is okay
because it simply reflects greater freedom of movement of the marbles, which is true. However, if the
barrier is replaced, the entropy is reduced to its original value with no other physical changes to the
box. This is a clear violation of the second law of thermodynamics – the crux of the Gibbs paradox.
While the barrier is removed, suppose two of the marbles wander from the left side over to the right
side, which is certainly possible. If the barrier is replaced, eight marbles are trapped on the right side.
The number of combinations on the left side is 16C4 = 1,820 and the number of combinations on the
right side is 16C8 = 12,870. The total number of combinations is 1,820 × 12,870 = 23,423,400 which is
even fewer than the initial combinations before the barrier was removed!
In 1912, Otto Sackur and Hugo Tetrode solved the Gibbs paradox, using the newfangled idea of
quantum mechanics. They defined entropy of an ideal monatomic gas as a function of an observable
macrostate, based on temperature and volume and taking quantum uncertainty into account. The
following expression is the Sackur-Tetrode entropy equation, making S an extensive quantity.
S = kB N loge [(V/N) (2π m kB T / h2 ) 3/2 ] + 5/2 kB N ,
where kB is the Boltzmann constant, N is the number of atoms, V is the volume, m is the atomic mass,
and T is absolute temperature. The Planck constant, h, also makes an appearance. The secret to

15 I say “mostly” because there are a significant number of scientists today who go around claiming it’s not really a law.

-8-
making entropy of a gas extensive is to take into account the unknowable internal states of a real gas
instead of treating a gas as a collection of knowable classical objects like marbles.
Unfortunately, a number of scientists failed to learn the lesson from the Gibbs paradox and continue to
employ models of classical objects where there is no uncertainty. Consider another marbles-in-a-box
model below, producing an “arrow of time.”
V = 12 V = 20 V = 32
N = 12 N=0 N = 12
12C12 = 1 20C0 = 1 32C12 = 225,792,840

In this example, a barrier restricts all 12 marbles to just 12 spaces left of the barrier, with no marbles in
any of the 20 spaces to the right of it. Both sides have only one possible combination of marbles, for a
combined entropy of zero, or complete certainty (or a total lack of uncertainty) about the physical
arrangement of the marbles. If the barrier is suddenly removed, the system is no longer in a state of
equilibrium. The marbles will reach a new equilibrium by distributing themselves among 225,792,840
new possible configurations, increasing entropy. This is a crude model of free expansion of gas when it
is suddenly released into an empty volume, resulting in an increase in entropy, making the process
irreversible, as shown by the blue “arrow of time” pointing toward the right.
Unfortunately, there are scientists who publish misleading papers, books and articles claiming all
physical processes are reversible. This misconception is based on marbles-in-a-box models like the one
above. In this model, random motion would allow all 12 marbles to spontaneously bunch up again in
the 12 spaces in the far left side of the box, reversing the direction of time. They assume if marbles can
do this, air molecules could also do this by spontaneously bunching up in a corner of a room. They
admit such a thing is statistically very “unlikely,” but they point out it is inevitable if we just wait long
enough, like maybe 100 trillion years or so. Based on marble theory, no process is truly irreversible,
time is bidirectional (or maybe an illusion), and the second law of thermodynamics is not a true law but
just a statistical tendency for things to become more “disorderly” over time.
I hate to break it to scientists who say those things, but they’re wrong. A “microstate” consisting of air
molecules bunched in one corner of a room isn’t just “unlikely” – it is nonexistent for the new
equilibrium state. The only way to recreate that peculiar internal configuration would be to completely
alter the macrostate, making major changes to pressures and/or temperatures and adding physical
constraints, e.g. mechanically pumping air into a corner and trapping it there. The passage of time is
not an illusion; it’s the accumulation of information, which simply cannot decrease. Arthur Eddington
had some choice words to say to those who would try to violate the Law of Laws:
“The law that entropy always increases, holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of
Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with
Maxwell’s equations – then so much the worse for Maxwell's equations. If it is found to be
contradicted by observation – well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your
theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is
nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.”

-9-
Exactly What is Quantum Randomness?
The preceding section shows that information must be built on a foundation of complete quantum
randomness in order for time to be unidirectional. Without time having a direction, causality in the
macro world would be impossible. Although Einstein accepted the validity of quantum mechanics in
terms of making correct predictions, he rejected the Copenhagen interpretation, which seems to rule
out the existence of objective reality. In 1935, he and two colleagues, Boris Podolsky and Nathan
Rosen, published a paper describing a thought experiment they said proved that giving up objective
reality results in what Einstein described as “spukhafte fernwirkung” or “spooky long-range effect.”
In 1964, John S. Bell published his famous inequality theorem, describing an experiment that could
prove once and for all whether or not any objective reality exists at the quantum level. After carrying
out a number of experiments like the one Bell described, it turns out it doesn’t, meaning quantum
randomness is a fact. But what exactly does quantum randomness mean? Like the terms “order” and
“disorder” it seems impossible to give a precise mathematical definition for that term; however,
American physicist Heinz Pagels gave a terse description I think is very appropriate: “Quantum
randomness cannot be beaten.”16
Here’s an example of what “cannot be beaten” means. Bob and Alice are master cryptologists, who
devised a way to communicate using an unbreakable code. Their method is shown below.

The green box with a question mark generates entangled pairs of electrons, each color representing a
different pair, with one electron from each pair sent to Bob and the other one sent to Alice. The
electrons have superposed quantum spin states, meaning their spin directions can only be known
through observations using spin detectors. Bob and Alice have such spin detectors at their respective
locations, with magnetic fields (blue and red arrows) producing “up” and “down” spin readings. On
Bob’s end, there is a 50/50 chance that an electron will be revealed as “up = 1” or “down = 0” with the
field aligned in any direction, and the same is true on Alice’s end. However, the entangled pairs of
electrons are anticorrelated, meaning if Bob’s and Alice’s spin detectors are aligned in opposite
directions {}, they will always detect the same spin directions for each pair {1/1} or {0/0}. But if
Bob’s and Alice’s spin detectors are aligned in the same direction {}, they will always detect
opposite spin directions for each pair {1/0} or {0/1}.
Bob taps out a message to Alice in Morse code by changing the alignments of his blue arrow in a
series of “up” and “down” positions while Alice keeps her red arrow pointing “up.” According to
16 Heinz Pagels, “The Cosmic Code: Quantum Physics as the Language of Nature”

- 10 -
quantum mechanics, Bob’s faraway actions must instantaneously change the correlations between
Alice’s up/down readings and his. Einstein might call that a “spooky long-range effect” violating
local causality. But is that really true?
While the blue and red arrows are aligned in opposite directions, Bob’s and Alice’s series of 1s and 0s
are correlated as shown by heavy black digits in the figure above. While their arrows are aligned in
the same direction, they are anticorrelated as shown by gray digits. However, both sets of readings
are perfectly random because they came from measurements of superposed quantum states, so Alice
can’t even tell if Bob made any changes to his detector’s alignment without comparing her readings
with his. Therefore, Bob must send his readings to Alice via text, email, US Postal Service, etc., and
all of those delivery methods occur at, or below, the speed of light. Since Alice can’t even look at the
correlations until Bob’s readings are delivered, no “spukhafte fernwirkung” or violation of causality is
even possible. More importantly, even if a spy should intercept Bob’s set of random 1s and 0s, it is
impossible for the spy to decode Bob’s message without also having a copy of Alice’s random set of
1s and 0s. This is what Pagels meant when he stated, “Quantum randomness cannot be beaten.”
It seems mathematicians have a very hard time coming up with a valid definition of randomness.
Some of them insist they can tell if a series of numbers is random from certain tests, but I think they
just fool themselves into believing this. Most people consider a roulette wheel to be the epitome of
randomness because they think a perfectly balanced and unbiased wheel cannot be beaten. However,
this is not actually the case, as Edward O. Thorp proved.
Thorp taught math at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology when he was a younger colleague of
the great Claude Shannon who also taught at M.I.T. in the 1960s. They both knew roulette wheels
obey Newton’s laws, so the initial positions and motions of the ball and the wheel could determine
exactly where the ball will ultimately land on the wheel. They both tinkered a lot with electronics
and they designed a wearable computer they could conceal and sneak into a casino.17 By knowing the
characteristics of a particular wheel and initial states of the wheel and the ball, they believed their
computer could predict with reasonably high confidence the most likely locations the ball would land
on the wheel. Thorp and Shannon actually procured a professional roulette wheel, played with it and
tweaked their computer in the basement of Shannon’s house – and it worked! Gambling casinos
permit placing bets on numbers on a roulette wheel while the ball is still in the track, allowing enough
time to predict the most likely groups of numbers where the ball will land before making a bet. This
strongly tilts the odds in the bettor’s favor, so it turns out that “random numbers” taken from roulette
wheels aren’t nearly as perfectly random and unbeatable as quantum randomness.
Perfect quantum randomness appears to be essential for preserving Einstein’s cherished local
causality in the macro world; but I can almost hear Einstein making objections from his grave about
some Hidden Rule or God Algorithm that must underlie the apparent quantum weirdness. God, after
all, simply does not play dice. But if he were correct and our universe really is deterministic, it must
also be self referential, and Gödel’s theorems proved that self-referential systems must be logically
inconsistent. So it seems quantum weirdness is the “secret sauce” ingredient that not only creates
time, but also keeps our universe from sliding into logical inconsistency.
It’s remarkable that our stable world of chairs, tables and marbles so utterly depends on quantum
weirdness. I believe this is the underlying and profound reason behind Wheeler’s “It from Bit.”

17 It was a special-purpose “computer” with just a handful of transistors, and Thorp actually used it in Las Vegas. A foot
switch told the computer when the ball in the track passed a reference point on the wheel. A musical tone was sent into
an earpiece Thorp wore, telling him where the ball would likely land, giving him a 44% advantage over the house.

- 11 -
Weirdness Is an Essential Part of Reality
When giving a lecture on quantum mechanics and the two-slit experiment Richard Feynman once
stated, “Nobody understands quantum mechanics." He said that because QM just doesn’t follow the
same rules as the familiar world of tables, chairs and coffee cups. I think this directly relates to
Wheeler’s statement defining It from Bit: “Our perception of phenomena consists of a series of
binary yes/no decisions made through observations.” This means yes/no decisions are the answers to
simple yes/no questions, so there are certain questions that simply cannot be asked and certain
answers that cannot be given. There’s a reason for this: Those yes/no questions and answers must be
compatible with space and time, and assure causal relationships exist according to the principles of
Einstein’s theory of relativity. Here are some of the “weird” QM rules that “nobody understands”
because they supposedly contradict common notions of how reality is supposed to work:
• Quantum states do not exist until they are observed (Bell non-locality).
• If two objects are entangled, neither can be entangled with a third object (monogamy rule).
• Entangled objects must influence each other instantaneously (see third article on next page).
• Quantum states cannot be copied (no cloning rule).
• Quantum information cannot be lost (no hiding theorem).
All of these rules are necessary for a reason: to preserve causality and to maintain a direction of time.
Let’s see what would happen if the no cloning rule were broken. Bob and Alice are cryptologists
extraordinaire. Not only can they communicate with 100% unbeatable security, they’ve also figured
out how to make an “Instantaneous Messaging App” using the scheme depicted below.

In this scheme, Bob and Alice create a collection of entangled electron pairs, shown as colored marbles
kept in compartments in boxes labeled “Storage.” They agree to test the spins of their entangled
electrons in a certain pair sequence. Bob takes his electrons to a place far away from Alice, and he
removes one electron at a time with a {} superposition from his storage box in this sequence and
tests it using a magnetic spin detector. Meanwhile, stay-at-home Alice removes one electron at a time
with a {} superposition from her storage box in the same sequence and sends it to a “Cloner” that
makes eight exact copies of the {} superposition. All nine electrons from Alice’s “Cloner” are then
sent to a magnetic spin detector with the magnetic field fixed in the “up” direction.
Far-away Bob measures a “gold” electron with his spin detector pointing “up.” In this position his
random readings are perfectly anticorrelated with Alice’s readings, meaning that if Bob measures 1 for
his “gold” electron, Alice will measure 0 for all nine of her clones, shown by the nine “gold” readings
above, and if Bob measures 0 for his electron, Alice will measure 1 for all nine of her clones. Bob then

- 12 -
measures a “green” electron by pointing the magnetic field of his spin detector to the “right.” In the
“right” position, his “green” electron reading is now completely uncorrelated with Alice’s “green”
electron readings, so her “green” readings are random 1s and 0s instead of all being the same. Thus,
Alice will know when Bob’s magnetic field changes directions by observing instantaneous changes in
the correlations between their measurements, revealed solely by statistical changes in her own readings.
Bob can now send instantaneous coded messages to Alice by changing the directions of his spin
detector, no matter how far he and Alice are apart. Worse yet, it doesn’t really matter when Bob makes
those measurements, so if Alice makes her measurements several days before Bob makes his, he could
send her stock quotes and winning lottery numbers from the future.
This example shows the no cloning rule is absolutely necessary to prevent time reversal, which would
have catastrophic effects on causality in our world. The same thing applies to the monogamy rule since
Alice could violate causality by entangling each of the electrons in her storage box with multiple
partners instead of cloning them. I suspect there is also another reason why quantum states cannot be
cloned: A quantum state represents a specific question in search of a specific answer. If the answers
are completely random, different answers could result by asking the same question more than once,
creating multiple conflicting Its (answers) from the same Bit (question).
As discussed earlier, the no hiding theorem prevents any decrease in entropy from a disappearance of
even a single bit of quantum information. This a corollary of the second law of thermodynamics,
which strictly prohibits time reversal. Quantum interactions can be reversed as long as information is
preserved;18 however, quantum information (entropy) can never be “lost.” An article in "Quantum
Information Theory" entitled The New Thermodynamic Understanding of Clocks describes a number
of recent experiments that show, as Gerard Milburn of University of Queensland in Australia stated, “A
clock is a flow meter for entropy." Einstein noted that time is what is measured by a clock, so time as
we experience it is equivalent to the flow (or buildup) of entropy.
Non-locality (the fact that quantum objects have no hidden variables) is now an accepted fact from
multiple experiments that demonstrate violations of Bell’s inequalities. This is no arbitrary rule. An
article Quantum Entanglement Shows that Reality Can't Be Local published in “arstechnical.com”
shows why non-locality is essential for preventing faster-than-light communication.
Propagation of causal influence between entangled objects must be instantaneous according to a paper
authored by Jean-Daniel Bancal, Stefano Pironio, Antonio Acin, Yeong-Cherng Liang, Valerio Scarani
and Nicholas Gisini, Finite-speed Causal Influence Leads to Superluminal Signaling published in
“nature.com.” According to the authors, experimental violations of Bell’s inequality can be explained
only if the influence between entangled objects propagates at a velocity v > c, but if v < ∞ the article
says, “Such models predict correlations that can be exploited for faster-than-light communication.”
The article specifies a Bell-like experiment that can validate the truth of this claim.
I won’t go into the nitty-gritty details in the papers linked in the previous three paragraphs because I
simply couldn’t do justice to them. Suffice it to say that weirdness is a feature of reality and not a bug.
Einstein’s theory of relativity and Bohr’s quantum theory conspire to make sure causality and the
forward direction of time are always preserved – an unbreakable Law that Nature strictly enforces
using every means at Her disposal, including “weirdness” when necessary.

18 Boolean logic gates are irreversible, making conventional computers unidirectional, inputs → output. Quantum logic
gates are reversible, both physically and logically, so quantum computers are capable of “reverse calculating” the inputs
to achieve a desired output. An example would be the traveling salesman problem, where all routes having total travel
distances below a certain mileage limit could be identified through “reverse calculation.”

- 13 -
Does Wheeler’s “Participatory Universe” Produce Backward Causation?
Did Wheeler really think the Big U diagram on Page 5 represents backward causation, where binary
choices made in the present moment determine the entire history of the universe up to this moment?
Wheeler had a tendency to think outside the box and brainstorm in public. There is one anecdote about
him when he taught at the University of Texas, where he often tried to derive something in front of a
class on the blackboard, and when it didn’t work out, he would cross it out and write “WRONG” in big
letters.19 I think some of his supposed crazy ideas originated by brainstorming in public.
Wheeler proposed a modification to the standard double-slit experiment called the Delayed Choice
Experiment (DCE), where a choice is made whether to measure a photon as a particle versus a wave
only “after” the photon has already gone through one of the slits or both of them, as the case may be.
DCE is similar to the quantum eraser experiment that I discussed in detail in another one of of my
essays,20 and I won’t go into those details here, except to say when DCE was carried out in laboratories,
the results were interpreted as choices made in the future affecting events in the past. Some may think
DCE proves that the present alters history, but that is false. All DCE does is form correlations between
entangled pairs of photons, with one photon being measured in the “future” with respect to the other
photon’s measurement. As we saw in Bob’s and Alice’s communication method shown on Page 10,
quantum correlations can only be seen by comparing both measurements at the same location, so DCE
does not produce backward causation; this is an illusion due to the fact that quantum influences must be
instantaneous to preserve causality. Quantum weirdness rescues Einstein’s relativity again.
Wheeler came up with a DCE thought experiment with a delay on steroids, depicted below.

A very bright and very distant star emits photons. A huge galaxy sits between the star and Earth,
causing the paths of the photons to bend around the galaxy on their way to Earth due to the Einstein
gravitational lens effect. This mimics the standard double slit experiment, where a photon can take the
upper path, the lower path, or both paths depending on how it is observed. If an astronomer points her
telescope right at the galaxy and takes a photograph of it, photons emitted by the star will appear as
particles above or below the galaxy, the dots forming the double star image shown in the right-hand
box. If she places a photographic plate in the path of the photons without observing which path they
took, the dots form a wavelike interference pattern, as shown next to the double star image. Therefore,
Wheeler concluded the choice she made in the present moment retroactively caused photons to become
particles or waves while they were going around the galaxy many millions of years earlier.
When Wheeler came up with that interpretation, he forgot that photons must remain as quantum
particle vs wave questions (“Bits”) until the answers appear as dots (“Its”) on the photographic plate.
Quantum questions cannot be asked more than once and they can only be answered in the present
moment. History written in the present goes forward, not backward into intergalactic space long ago. I
hope Wheeler abandoned this view by mentally crossing it out and writing “WRONG” next to it.

19 Gefter
20 See Appendices D and D.1 in my essay Is Science Solving the Reality Riddle?

- 14 -
Concluding Remarks
“It from Bit” is an elegant metaphysical concept; however, it doesn’t (yet) rise to the level of a
complete physical theory. The quantum world and the classical physical world have completely
different qualities, and yet they somehow work hand in glove to produce the physical phenomena we
perceive. Quanta are bits of uncertainty, and Wheeler was undoubtedly familiar with Shannon’s
information theory and must have understood at some level that information measures uncertainty,
which is a state of consciousness. The problem was how to include consciousness in physics.
Wheeler’s teaching style relied heavily on the blackboard. He would often prepare for a lecture
beforehand by covering the blackboard with beautiful diagrams using colored chalk, and then
proceeded to explain the meanings of each of them during the lecture.21 At other times he would write
down pithy statements, mostly in English but occasionally in Latin, or write down a mathematical
derivation on the fly that he would sometimes have to cross out when it didn’t work out.
In his final lecture on quantum measurement at the University of Texas at Austin in 1979, Wheeler
wrote down 17 statements on the blackboard, the first of which said, “We don’t understand how the
universe came into being.” This is the crux of a problem that troubled him his entire life: How were
the first “its” formed from the quantum soup of “bits”? The persistence and immutability of physical
objects could be due to a continuous process of quantum decoherence, which can be derived from
Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle.22 But decoherence does not explain how the very first elementary
particles appeared or how they organized themselves into forms and structures that lead to decoherence,
let alone explain how spaceless, timeless quanta created space and time.
Sometime around 1714, Gottfried Leibniz wrote a famous essay entitled “Monadology.” In that essay
he presented the concept of monads, which he described as distinct, indivisible, indestructible and
conscious entities existing outside space and time.23 According to Leibniz, monads brought the
universe into being and sustain it. Wheeler was heavily influenced by philosophers beginning with
Aristotle and going forward to the 20th century, so he was undoubtedly familiar with monadology. But
he seemed very reluctant to embrace idealism or panpsychism, either of which might actually provide
the answer to “how the universe came into being” from an apparent “nothing.”
Wheeler was convinced, as were most of his contemporaries, that: 1) Consciousness is necessary to
collapse a quantum superposition in order to create an “it” from a “bit” and 2) Consciousness arises
from matter, which is comprised of “its.” These two beliefs set up the circular logic shown in the
drawing of the Big U terminating in the Big Eye, which simply cannot be valid, notwithstanding an
attempt to brush it off by saying, “Think of it as feedback.” The only way out of this circularity is to
posit some sort of retroactive causation, which some physicists mistakenly think is possible based on
the results of DCE. In conclusion, I’m convinced “It from Bit” does embody Ultimate Truth in some
way, but not necessarily the way Wheeler envisioned it.

21 Misner, Thorne and Zurek, John Wheeler, relativity and quantum information, “Physics Today” April 2009.
22 The meaning of the Heisenberg equation ΔE Δt ≥ ℏ / 2 is most often interpreted as defining the minimum uncertainty of
a measurement. The “equal to or greater than” sign is rather ambiguous, raising the question of how much greater is
“greater than”? I would replace the “≥” with “ = ” instead, expressing the lower bound of uncertainty. The equal sign
would also allow reversing the meaning of the equation: Δt = ½ ℏ / ΔE is the maximum duration of a binary quantum
superposition if ΔE is the energy gap between the two possible outcomes. Of course, this still doesn’t explain why there
is an energy gap (or even why there is such a thing as energy in the first place).
23 Leibniz seemed to anticipate quantum theory that would eventually appear two centuries later. Like monads, quantum
states are distinct (they cannot be copied), indivisible, indestructible (they cannot be “lost” but only converted into
entropy instead), and exist outside relativistic spacetime (their influences must travel instantaneously, v = ∞).

- 15 -
 Appendix – Derivation of the “It from Bit” Cosmology
Earlier in this essay, I gave a broad-brush description of a new cosmology based on “It from Bit.” I
avoided giving a detailed derivation in the body of the essay because it involves quite a bit of math,
which is off-putting to some readers. Instead, I decided to show it in this Appendix for those readers
who are curious (or skeptical) about how I arrived at this conclusion, and are interested in the
mathematical nuts and bolts.
This new cosmology begins with the Minkowski metric, dating back to Einstein’s special theory of
relativity. Then the Bekenstein-Hawking (B-H) treatment of entropy at the Schwarzschild boundary is
applied to the boundary of the universe as a whole, based on the premise of this boundary being
perpetually saturated with entropy like the “event horizon” of a “black hole.”
The result is radically different than the standard cosmological (Big Bang) model, where the universe
starts out as a singularity, expands at a variable rate (first slowing down and then speeding up), has a
constant gravitational parameter, and contains a fixed total amount of mass-energy. In the “It from Bit”
cosmological model, there is no singularity at the Beginning, the expansion rate is fixed (the speed of
light), the gravitational parameter decreases over time, the total mass-energy increases in proportion to
time squared, and distance and time are naturally quantized based on the information quantum.
Premises
• Using the Minkowski metric, the boundary of the universe is a temporal surface (Now moment)
where (c dτ) 2 = (c dt) 2 – dr 2 = 0, i.e., where proper time is frozen across the entire surface.
• Solving the Minkowski equation above, the boundary must expand at the speed of light, r = ct.
• The interior of the light cone is a record left behind the expanding Now moment.
• The boundary is a Swarzschild surface saturated with B-H entropy: S = 4π r 2 c3 / (4 Għ).
• Entropy at the boundary extends dr into the interior: dS = 8π r c3/ (4 Għ) dr = (2π c3 / Għ) r dr.
• The temperature, T, at the boundary is the Hawking temperature, which is proportional to 1/r
and can thus be replaced by T / r, where T is a constant.
• The energy on the expanding boundary is calculated from the Landauer equivalency:
e = S kBT = π kB T c3 r2 / Għ.
• The energy on the expanding boundary should be equal to the total energy of the interior, which
is found by integrating the incremental energy on the expanding boundary, de = kB T dS over the
radius from r = 0 to r. Substituting T /r for T: ∫ de = ∫ (kB T 2π c3 /Għ) dr. Integrating this
expression yields e = kB T 2π c3 r / Għ = 2π kB T c3 r2 / Għ → a discrepancy (see below).
Results
The last bullet item above shows a 2:1 discrepancy between the energy of the interior compared to the
energy on the boundary. This can be eliminated by making the ratio T/G a constant. With this change,
r and T appear in the numerator of the integrand instead of T , and the integral is solved as follows.
∫ de = ∫ (kB T r 2π c3 / Għ) dr = π kB T c3 r2 / Għ, which matches the energy on the boundary.
This forces us to abandon the assumption that G is constant, but there are other valid reasons why G
should be proportional to T and 1/r. According to Newton’s law, the energy required to separate two
gravitating masses by an incremental distance is proportional to G. Gravitation should be considered
an entropic phenomenon24 where the energy required to separate two masses, Δe, arises because a
24 Erik Verlinde, "On the Origin of Gravity and the Laws of Newton"

- 16 -
separation decreases entropy, and Δe = - kB T ΔS. Since Δe is proportional to G and T, and T is
proportional to 1/r, then G must be proportional to 1/r as well.
Another justification for G being proportional to 1/r is that it results in an increase in the entropy
density at the boundary’s surface, dS/dA, proportional to time. As stated earlier in this essay, the
accumulation of entropy in the Now moment is equivalent to time measured by a clock. A decreasing
G reduces the Planck area, Għ / c3, which increases the B-H entropy density on the boundary.
Since G is proportional to 1/r, the total mass-energy of the universe must increase in proportion to t 2. It
is interesting to note that in 1937 Paul Dirac reached exactly the same conclusions based on his large
number hypothesis (LNH). Traditionalists argued that mass-energy cannot increase because of the law
of conservation of energy. However, this law applies if and only if there is time-displacement
symmetry, which exists on small scales but not over cosmological distances and time scales, so the law
of conservation of energy wouldn’t apply to the universe as a whole.
The Schwarzschild radius of a spherical volume having a mass, M, is given by the formula rS = 2GM/c2.
The radius of the boundary of the Now moment should be equal to its Schwarzshild radius. Based on
the Hawking temperature T = ħ c3 / (8π GM kB), the total mass-energy, e, is computed as follows.
e = π kB T c3 r2 / Għ = [π kB c3 r2/ Għ] × [ħ c3/ (8π GM kB)] = Mc2
This reduces to the following equation.
r 2 c4 / (8 G2 M2 ) = 1 → r = 2 √2 GM/c 2, which does not agree with rS = 2GM/c2.
This apparent discrepancy can be explained as follows. If the total mass-energy, e, were twice the
value above, the radius would then be equal to 2GM/c 2. The Schwarzschild formula assumes a sphere
has positive curvature, a surface area equal to 4π r 2 and a volume equal 4/3 π r 3. A surface of uniform
negative curvature (a pseudosphere) has a surface area 4π r 2 and volume 2/3 π r 3, which is only half the
volume of a normal sphere. A pseudosphere with ½ the volume and ½ the mass-energy of a normal
sphere would have a Schwarzschild radius equal to rS = 2 √2 GM/c 2, which strongly implies the Now
boundary has uniform negative curvature and hyperbolic geometry. The Minkowski metric also shows
spacetime as having an underlying hyperbolic geometry, with the light cone being a hypercone.
Consequences
Unlike the standard cosmological model, the mass-energy of the universe is not constant, but it must be
proportional to t 2. Like all events, a continuous creation of mass-energy occurs on the Now surface as
Bits become Its. The total entropy of the interior is equal to the entropy at its surface, and both are
proportional to r 3, which means one quantum of entropy, the nat, corresponds to one quantum of
volume: Q V = V/S = 2/3 G t ħ / c2. Note that G times t is constant, so Q V can be calculated using the
current measured values of G and t ∼14 billion years. This suggests that distances and time are also
quantized from the relationships Q r = (Q V) 1/3 and Q t = Q r / c.
The natural quantization of volume and time are based on the fundamental quantum of entropy. This
avoids the Big Bang model singularity since both volume and time are non-zero at the Beginning.
Also, the initial mass-energy is extremely small compared to the current mass-energy of the universe.
Assuming the Beginning was an actual historical event and not just an apparent beginning, the universe
would have been very hot and dense, but unlike the standard cosmological model, it was not in an
infinitely hot, dense state where “the laws of nature break down.” Nature’s laws don’t ever “break
down” because quantum physics and relativity (both special and general) work together in harmony in
order to prevent such a catastrophic breakdown from happening.

- 17 -
Visual Depiction of the “It from Bit” Cosmology
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. I tried to capture most of the mathematics of the “It
from Bit” cosmology into a single image shown below.

The temporal “Now” surface, shown in blue, is the boundary of the universe where all the action takes
place. This boundary has a two-dimensional surface of uniform negative curvature, meaning it
surrounds a pseudosphere, the three-dimensional hyperbolic light cone (hypercone), with r increasing at
the speed of light, c. Because it is impossible to draw or even imagine a surface of negative curvature
surrounding an object, I only drew part of the “Now” surface and I drew the pseudosphere as a gold-
colored three-dimensional conventional sphere instead. According to the Minkowski spacetime metric
for dτ 2 = 0, proper time is frozen along all paths within the hypercone.
The “Now” surface has an area equal to 4 π r 2, like a normal sphere, but the volume of the hypercone
within it is equal to 2/3 π r 3, or one-half the volume of a normal sphere. Objects with mass (“Its”) are
confined to a causal spacetime region (not shown) and are restricted to speeds below c relative to each
other. Photons of light are massless, and they live in the hypercone.
The wiggly orange object represents one quantum of information, the nat.25 Bits are related to nats by
the relationship 1 nat = 1 bit × Ln 2. A nat protruding onto the “Now” surface is the dark red rectangle,
having an area 4Għ / c 3. Because G is proportional to 1/r instead of a constant as assumed in the
standard Big Bang cosmology, this area is proportional to 1/r, causing the density of information on the
“Now” surface to increase in proportion to time. In the “It from Bit” cosmology, proper time is
equivalent to increasing information density in the “Now” moment.
The quantum extends from the “Now” surface into the hypercone, which is saturated with information.
Each quantum carries a volume VS = 2/3 Għ r / c 3. Since G × r is constant, VS is constant while the nat’s
area projected onto the “Now” surface varies with 1/r. Using the current measured value of G and
assuming r ∼ 14 billion light-years, VS ∼ 2.29 × 10 –48 m3. The small gold sphere in the center
represents the Beginning boundary, with a spatial volume corresponding to the volume of one nat of
information, VS. Information quanta are not locational, transcending space and time, so their influences
spread instantaneously across the “Now” boundary and into the hypercone all the way back to the
Beginning.
25 The nat also goes by the names nit and nepit. If there are two equiprobable outcomes, then S = Ln 2 = 0.693 nat.

- 18 -
Where is Four-Dimensional Spacetime Located?
The preceding description of the “It from Bit” cosmology shows a two-dimensional temporal boundary
surrounding a three-dimensional hyperbolic light cone, but four-dimensional spacetime was not
represented. It turns out that the hypercone forms a three-dimensional surface surrounding a four-
dimensional causal spacetime. The Minkowski equation (c dτ) 2 = (c dt) 2 – dr 2 = 0 can describe either of
two hypercones: one that expands or one that collapses, depending on the choice of t = 0. In the
universal reference frame, t = 0 corresponds to the Beginning and “Now” corresponds to t = +Δt. In an
observer’s reference frame, t = 0 corresponds to “Now” and the Beginning corresponds to t = – Δt. It is
impossible to draw (or imagine) these hypercones in three-dimensional space, so it is instructive to
draw our four-dimensional spacetime as having one less spatial dimension, as shown below.

The gold light cone’s surface in the universal reference frame is shown on the left, with its radius
expanding at the speed of light. A “Now” moment, shown as one-dimensional blue circle26 encloses a
two-dimensional spatial surface and forms a temporal boundary of the light cone’s two-dimensional
surface. Points on the spatial surface within the “Now” boundary are causally disconnected from each
other. Photons and other quanta (“Bits”) lie in the light cone’s two-dimensional surface where Δτ = 0.
“Its” created at the “Now” boundary are deposited at the edge of the expanding spatial surface, and
since they have mass-energy, they must be left behind in the expanding causal three-dimensional
interior within the light cone’s two-dimensional surface. Thus, our four-dimensional Minkowski
spacetime in enclosed within the three-dimensional surface of the universal light cone.
Conscious observers (Leibniz’s “monads”) are shown as colored spheres in the “Now” moment. In the
green observer’s reference frame, there is a reciprocal inverted light cone. Its radius expands with
decreasing time, creating an optical illusion that the universe expands in the past. All visible images,
like the white star depicted above, lie on the light cone’s two-dimensional surface. The observer has
one angular degree of freedom where to look, denoted by an angle θ. But no matter which θ is chosen,
this direction always points back to the Beginning. When we look out from Earth into our own
universe, we look into a three-dimensional surface enclosing four-dimensional spacetime with two
degrees of freedom, altitude and azimuth, where to look. But no matter which two angles we choose,
this direction always points back to the Beginning. Proper time displacement, Δτ, (the time measured
by a clock) is zero within the light cone’s three-dimensional surface, so every photon-emitting object
visible to an observer in our universe effectively exists in the observer’s “Now” moment!
26 The circle would have a uniform negative curvature, but this cannot be drawn.

- 19 -
The It from Bit Hologram
All physical sensations – everything we see, hear, touch, smell, and taste – are the result of
electromagnetic interactions with our sense organs involving photons, which only exist in the timeless
3-dimensional light cone pseudosphere. In truth, everything that exists in the “physical universe” is
brought into our awareness through photon interactions, making “reality” equivalent to a 4-dimensional
holographic image created within a 3-dimensional timeless light cone hologram. A 2-dimensional
observer’s reciprocal light cone is used to illustrate this using two spatial dimensions (x and y) plus
time (t) as shown below.

In the illustration above, the radius of an observer’s reciprocal 2-dimensional light cone expands at the
speed of light with the observer looking along the edge of the cone with one degree of freedom, θ, for
selecting a line of sight, shown by the orange dotted line. The light cone’s surface encloses a 3-
dimensional holographic image, where the laws of causality and relativity apply based on the
Minkowski equation with c2 dτ 2 > 0. The boundary between the 2-dimensional hologram and the 3-
dimensional image is the dotted line chosen by the observer. Since the light cone is timeless, spatial
distances from the observer to holographic images serve as proxies for time – the greater the distance
between the observer and an image, the farther back in the “past” the object “was.” But in fact, all
holographic images of the “past” are created at the exact same moment they are being observed (the
“Now”), so we’re not really observing actual “Its” in the “past,” but holographic images of them
generated by the hologram. Every observer looks through the hologram from a different spatial
position and sees a different holographic perspective of space-time presented to them.
When we peer out into our 4-dimensional space-time, we are looking through a 3-dimensional light
cone (an expanding pseudosphere) that surrounds 4-dimensional space-time. The boundary separating
the pseudosphere from space-time is the line of sight in any direction we choose to look. In other
words, the boundary is present everywhere inside the 3-dimensional pseudosphere.27
The holographic interpretation of “It from Bit” is similar to the AdS/CFT correspondence principle,
which is based on string theory and is gaining popularity in scientific circles, where a 4-dimensional
hologram surrounds a 5-dimensional image. It’s not at all clear what role consciousness plays in
forming the AdS/CFT hologram or perceiving the image. In fact, consciousness isn’t addressed at all in
AdS/CFT, raising the question of how a hologram can even be said to exist at all without someone
perceiving it. In other words, without addressing perceptions of consciousness, the AdS/CFT
correspondence principle is just another abstract “machine” model of the universe.
27 I think the two degrees of freedom, the azimuth and altitude angles, should be quantized because angular momentum is
quantized by one half Planck constant, h/2. Thus, although there are an enormous number of possible boundaries
separating the light cone pseudosphere from causal space-time, the number should be finite.

- 20 -
Dimensions are equivalent to degrees of freedom, which evolve within the boundaries having lower
dimensions; a boundary of n dimensions encloses an interior of n+1 dimensions. The diagrams below
illustrate the evolution of dimensions from zero to four.

A point represents a 0D object with zero dimensions and zero degrees of freedom. Two 0D points
enclose a 1D line segment, which could represent either length or duration. Joining the two ends of the
line forms a circle, enclosing a 2D surface, with perfect symmetry around its circumference because
there are no preferred points along its length. A radius, shown in yellow, establishes curvature.
2D surfaces can be stacked up in 3D space to form a sphere with perfect symmetry over its 2D
boundary, as shown by the object labeled 3D. The blue 2D surface grid is the temporal boundary
around the 3D spatial light cone. Time asymmetry results from surface curvature having a preferred
direction; either positive (as a normal sphere shown above) or negative (a pseudosphere). A circle
drawn on a surface of positive curvature has a circumference C < 2π r, whereas a circle drawn on a
surface of negative curvature has a circumference C > 2π r. Time enters into the picture from the
equation c2 dτ 2 = c2 dt 2 – dx 2 – dy 2 – dz 2 = 0, with the radius increasing at the speed of light, dr/dt = c.
Since c2 dτ 2 = 0 the “passage of time” as measured by clocks is not experienced within the 3D spatial
pseudosphere. It is here where photons and other quanta, e.g. “Bits” exist in a timeless world.
The fourth time dimension emerges by allowing c2 dτ 2 > 0, resulting in causality, relativity and the
experience of time. This 4D object cannot be drawn in three-dimensional space, but it is left to the
imagination by the figure above, with 4D space-time being in the middle, with the 3D light cone and its
2D temporal “Now” grid surrounding it. It is my contention that consciousness is omnipresent on the
blue temporal “Now” grid around the yellow pseudospherical light cone, but consciousness is also
somehow pinned to physical brains being renewed at the boundaries of space-time.
Brains perceive the space-time holographic image through the five senses. Electromagnetism is the
only true force of nature that can stimulate an electrical response in the retina, cause acoustic vibrations
in the ear, sensations of pressure, heat and cold to the touch, or chemical interactions producing taste
and smell. In order words, the holographic image consists of photons. The mystery is how the brain as
an “It” is able to transfer these perceptions as qualia to consciousness residing at the boundary of the
hologram.
Transforming “Bits” into “Its” is a continuous process of renewal taking place at the boundary
separating the timeless 3-dimensional pseudosphere from 4-dimensional causal space-time. “Its”
appearing at the boundary soon slip into causal space-time and disappear into a “past” that can only be
retrieved indirectly through a holographic image in the “Now” moment.28 In short, all physical “Its”
are renewed in their entirety from an endless supply of “Bits” that increase but never can decrease.
Renewed “Its” are usually close facsimiles of the ones that slip into the past, but unfortunately, newer
versions of our bodies are always older than the earlier versions they replaced!
28 As proof, try physically going back into your own past. You’ll soon see it cannot be done.

- 21 -