The idea that physical events are an output is radical but not new:
1. Fredkin. Proposed that for physical events to be an output “…only requires one far-fetched assumption: there is this place, Other, that hosts the engine that “runs” the physics.” (Fredkin, 2005) p275.
2. Wilczek. Proposed that causing the physical is “… the Grid, that ur-stuff that underlies physical reality” (Wilczek, 2008 p111).
3. Wheeler. Proposed that “… every physical quantity, every it, derives its ultimate significance from bits … a conclusion which we epitomize in the phrase, it from bit.” (Wheeler, 1989).
4. D’Espagnat. Proposed that a “veiled reality” generates time, space, matter, and energy (D’Espagnat, 1995).
5. Campbell. Proposed that a “Big Computer” outputs everything (Campbell, 2003).
6. Barbour. Proposed a reality where “The mists come and go, changing constantly over a landscape that itself never changes” (Barbour, 1999) p230.
Now let Fredkin’s engine, Wilczek’s ur-grid, Wheeler’s bit source, D’Espagnat’s veiled reality, Campbell’s big computer, and Barbour’s landscape that never changes, all refer to a primal network that existed before our time and space began. In a cellphone network, each station actively supports local cellphones and also communicates with its neighbors (Figure 2.1). The proposed quantum network is the same, except it isn’t physical, and each node is a point of space that runs quantum entities. The result is the same as Feynman’s idea of space, as Hiley recalled:
“I remember … Richard Feynman … saying that he thought of a point in space-time as being like a computer with an input and output connecting neighboring points” (Davies & Brown, 1999) p138.
If each point of space is a processing point, as Feynman thought, then the quantum network isn’t in space, it is what generates space. And if null processing is space, a photon or electron can be a non-null result.
Yet if quantum processing generates matter, is matter information, as Wheelers It from Bit implies? Before exploring how a quantum network could create a space and time like ours, let us clarify the relation between matter and information.