Abstract
The terminological contrast between “it” and “bit” marks at least three distinctions. Using this language, we might be talking about the differences between analog and digital structures. We might be talking about the differences between physical principles and more abstract informational and computational principles. Somewhat nebulously but perhaps also intriguingly, we might be trying to reach for something about a relationship between “every item of the physical world” and “an immaterial source and explanation”. Because the first distinction (i.e., analog versus digital) has been extensively discussed earlier, this essay focuses on the other two contrasting pairs. With respect to the contrast between physical and informational-computational principles, two conclusions are reached. Nature does not in general operate computationally. Nonetheless, the informational concepts of complexity and entropy are significant for our understanding of existence, although the respective roles of information and of matter and energy are unclear. The last topic is approached by considering the possibilities for computation and complexity as factors in the explanation of consciousness. Neither proposed explanatory factor is helpful. It seems that consciousness does not reduce either to “it” or to “bit” or to any combination of them. The final conclusion is that, if we could better understand the connections among “it”, “bit”, and consciousness, then we might also make some progress on the even grander question, “How come existence?”
Laurence Hitterdale