ABSTRACT
This chapter studies the approaches of Arthur Eddington and John Wheeler, both renowned physicists, who came to dual-aspect monist views from slightly different angles. Both place strong emphasis on concepts of meaningful information. We group them together since their fundamental link connecting the objective (physical) and the subjective (mental) is the notion of participation. The subjectivity of agents is reflexively implicated in the very existence of objective reality – a position now known as “participatory realism”. Eddington called his view “selective subjectivism” while Wheeler’s view was encapsulated in his slogan “it from bit” (whose erroneous reception in contemporary discussion we clarify). Both Eddington and Wheeler describe a psychophysically neutral realm with no space and no time (what Wheeler calls “pregeometry”) from which subject and object emerge. We compare similarities and differences between their viewpoints and examine their dual-aspect features together with the deep structure of meaning.
