Edward Witten, in an interview with WIRED ___ https://www.wired.com/story/a-physicists-physicist-ponders-t
he-nature-of-reality/ ____ said "It from qubit" in natural language.

But a computer scientist would know that a software engineer versed in "formal specification languages"-- which are abstract programming tools used to specify what the real time programmers in assembly language...

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Edward Witten, in an interview with WIRED ___ https://www.wired.com/story/a-physicists-physicist-ponders-t
he-nature-of-reality/ ____ said "It from qubit" in natural language.

But a computer scientist would know that a software engineer versed in "formal specification languages"-- which are abstract programming tools used to specify what the real time programmers in assembly language should write-- might want to translate such a statement in natural language into an equation in a formal specification language.

After all, theorems can be proved about equations written in formal specification languages. We know the code is correct when we prove a theorem that it is correct. Those who risk their lives to use such software, for example in spacecraft, appreciate such features of the formal specification language.

For example, a software engineer knowing the formal specification language of "non-wellFounded sets" could translate Witten's statement in natural languages into an equation about existence written in the language of non-wellFounded sets, thusly:

it = (qubit, it)

To see the idea, first highlight and copy the righthand side of the equation. Next select and highlight the "it" on the righthand side of the equation. Finally, paste the righthand side of the equation over the "it", to get---

it = (qubit, (qubit, it))

it = (qubit, (qubit, (qubit, it)))

And so on.

The computer scientist calls this a "stream." And the equation adds: a stream named "it."

Continuing with the Witten interview:

"The other night I was reading an old essay by the 20th-century Princeton physicist John Wheeler. He was a visionary, certainly. If you take what he says literally, it’s hopelessly vague. And therefore, if I had read this essay when it came out 30 years ago, which I may have done, I would have rejected it as being so vague that you couldn’t work on it, even if he was on the right track."

Again, the computer scientist knows that a software engineer armed with a formal specification language might likewise want to translate "it from bit" into:

it = (bit, it)

But could such a translation into a formal specification language rehabilitate Wheeler's text?

The text is located in (you guessed it), a ___Santa Fe Institute___ book "Complexity, Entropy, and The Physics of Information" (Zurek), in the lead-off paper "Information, Physics, Quantum: The Search for Links," in which Wheeler in 1990 said:

"This report reviews what quantum physics and information theory have to tell us about the age-old question, "How come existence?" No escape is evident from four conclusions: (1) The world cannot be a giant machine, ruled by pre-established continuum physical law; (2) There is no such thing at the microscopic level as space or time or spacetime continuum; (3) The familiar probability function or functional, and wave equation, or functional wave equation, of standard quantum theory provide mere continuum idealizations and by reason of this circumstance conceal the information theoretic source from which they derive; (4) No element in the description of physics shows itself as closer to primordial than the elementary quantum phenomenon, that is, the elementary device-intermediated act of posing a yes-no physical question and eliciting an answer or, in brief, the elementary act of observer-participancy. Otherwise stated, every physical quantity, every it, derives its ultimate significance from bits, binary yes-no indications, a conclusion which we epitomize in the phrase, it from bit."

Given it = (bit, it), what can be made of this text?

For one, It = (bit, it) seems to satisfy Wheeler's (software?) requirement that there is no such thing at the microscopic level as space or time or spacetime continuum, it's just_____it = (bit, it).

Here, as simply an engineer, is where I need your theoretic help:

What equations about qubits should I study that might relate to it = (qubit, it)?

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