'It is bit'. Being, Information, and the Manifest Pole
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) July 20, 2026 Giovanni Prosperi
Being, at its most fundamental level, is not derived from information but is itself information, radicalizing Wheeler's 'it from bit' idea by eliminating its residual dualism. Absolute nothingness is impossible because positing it is self-contradictory. Necessary Being cannot be homogeneous, since the undifferentiated is indistinguishable from nothingness, so difference is a constitutive constraint of Being. Determining difference is the minimal definition of ontological information, making Being a network of differences. This identity holds only under the principle of operational determinacy: a difference is determinate only if, in at least one possible register, the distinction between its holding and not-holding is operative. Energy is reread as the recombinatory capacity of differences, and Consciousness as the transcendental pole of the manifest, distinct from empirical recognitions.