Hello Akinbo, from Margriet O'Regan from DownUnder !
I'm so cross with myself for leaving it too late to discuss your essay properly, as there is quite a lot I would have liked to have said.
I did not know that Wheeler said - as you quote in your essay :-
Wheeler was in the forefront of a grand scheme to reduce physics to geometry.
This he called 'geometrodynamics' [13]. It was his dream to obtain mass from the massless,charge from the chargeless and field from the fieldless. To him, "what else is there out of which to build a particle except geometry itself?" [14]. If we follow Wheeler along this road, we infer that 'it' is from 'geometry'. A literal interpretation of the same Wheeler's 'it from bit' is then that
'geometry' and 'bit' must be strongly related, if not same.
WOW !! But it is a defining feature of 'my' geometrical objects that they are real, albeit completely powerless to 'do' anything. Let alone create all that stuff - mass !!! charge !!! force fields !!!!
Although I'm not a religious person, I still 'believe' in 'a creator' as I simply cannot bring myself to believe in something from nothing. Which is what Wheeler patently hoped for. I know, I know my position solves nothing - I just find it easier. Although it scares the hell out of me (to coin a phrase) because if we are to judge the creator by its works ???!????!!!! - heaven help us - to coin yet another a phrase !!
I digress.
My point is that what we's got is wot we's been given - or put more pedantically, both hard solid matter with their geometrical objects stuck onto their surfaces, as they are, is what we've got & we've just gotta deal with it. And I feel again, very strongly, that the creator gave matter all of the power to do stuff, information none - but matter uses information to guide & direct its every move.
Further, my own investigations have led me to conclude that 'information' is NOT digits - no kind nor amount of them (including any that can be extracted from quantum phenomena!), nor how algorithmically-well they may be massaged & shunted through any device that uses them.
Unequivocally they - digits - make for wonderful COUNTING & CALCULATING assistants, witness our own now many & various, most excellent, counting, calculating devices BUT according to my investigations real thinking is an entirely different phenomenon from mere counting, calculating & computing.
For which phenomenon - real thinking - real information is required.
My own investigations led me to discover what I have come to believe real information is & as it so transpires it turns out to be an especially innocuous - not to omit almost entirely overlooked & massively understudied - phenomenon, none other than the sum total of geometrical objects otherwise quite really & quite properly present here in our universe. Not digits.
One grade (the secondary one) of geometrical-cum-informational objects lavishly present here in our cosmos, is comprised of all the countless trillions & trillions of left-over bump-marks still remaining on all previously impacted solid objects here in our universe - that is to say, all of the left-over dents, scratches, scars, vibrations & residues (just the shapes of residues - not their content!) (really) existing here in the universe.
Examples of some real geometrical objects of this secondary class in their native state are all of the craters on the Moon. Note that these craters are - in & of themselves - just shapes - just geometrical objects. And the reason they are, also one & at the same time, informational objects too, can be seen by the fact that each 'tells a story' - each advertises (literally) some items of information on its back - each relates a tale of not only what created it but when, where & how fast & from what angle the impacting object descended onto the Moon's surface. Again, each literally carries some information on its back.
(Note : Not a digit in sight !!)
How we actually think - rather than just count, calculate & compute - with these strictly non-digital entities, specifically these geometrical-cum-informational objects, in precisely the way we do, please see my essay.
I did not make the distinction between computing with digits & real thinking with real information, sufficiently strongly in my essay.
This contest is such a wonderful 'sharing' - Wow - & open to amateurs like myself - Wow. How great is that !!! Thank you Foundational Questions Institute !!! What a great pleasure it has been to participate. What a joy to read, share & discuss with other entrants !!!
Margriet O'Regan