At Home in a Super-Copernican Cosmos, Part II: The Nature of the Observer and Wheeler’s ‘It from Bit’

Abstract

After his controversial speech in honor of Copernicus in 1973, John Wheeler's new ideas about the observer-participator and our place in the cosmos underwent more than a single metamorphosis. During the 1980s, they would flow into the grand (and admittedly sketchy) vision labeled by the famous slogan "it from bit". In this contribution, we will document how, in the late 1970s, Wheeler's views about the role of consciousness and of the observer in quantum physics became more and more de-anthropomorphised, but also how, at the same time, did not result in a demotion of mankind to a marginal accident in the universe.