Abstract
J.A. Wheeler's It from Bit program is examined and compared with C.F. von Weizsäcker’s Ur Theory. The properties of their respective 'atoms of information', the classical bit and the ur, or qubit, are summarized, and implications are drawn from Spekkens’ 'toy' theory which give a deeper understanding of each structure. Wheeler's and von Weizsäcker’s answers to the question, “What is information?” are compared, and it is concluded that both men were approaching a conception of information as 'psycho-physically neutral' in the sense of Wolfgang Pauli. This premise is explored by examining Susan Carey's research on the origin of concepts, with specific attention paid to the origin of number concepts. In particular, her postulated fundamental cognitive process, the 'Quinian Bootstrap', is applied to the conceptualization of complex numbers and analogously to the structural properties of the qubit. Finally, implications for Descartes' 'cut' are explored.
Charles Raldo Card