Interesting, easily understood analogy on how the universe works; the universe's version of '20 questions'

I've always been curious about quantum mechanics and ideas like "the collapse of the wave function". Below is an interesting, easy to understand analogy about this. It comes from this Scientific American article.

"Wheeler once explained this concept to me by comparing a scientist to someone playing the "surprise version" of the old game 20 Questions. In this variant, the Guesser leaves the room while the rest of the group--or so the excluded person thinks--agrees on some person, place or thing. The Guesser then re-enters the room and tries to guess the group's secret with a series of questions that can only be answered with a yes or a no.

But the group has decided to play a trick on the Guesser. The first person to be queried will only think of something after the Guesser asks his question. Each subsequent person will do the same, making sure that his or her response is consistent with all previous questions. "The word wasn't in the room when I came in even though I thought it was," Wheeler noted. In the same way, physical reality exists in an indeterminate limbo before we pose our questions. "Not until you start asking a question, do you get something." We live in a "participatory universe," Wheeler suggested, which emerges from the interplay of consciousness and physical reality, the subjective and objective realms."