Really. I so agree. I really can't see any extension of the idea of "information" to non-living systems in nature. Non-living systems are captives of the deterministic physical laws, especially the first and second laws of thermodynamics.
What makes living systems different, is their sustained defiance of the second law, maintaining maximal distance from its effects for as long as possible. They need "information" to do that. And as Shannon correctly notes (it seems to me), it is only successful communication — understood as the reduction of uncertainty in the hands of the receiver, not primarily the content of the message itself — that can accomplish this. (Not to say the content is not important. Only to say the content could be, say, the Declaration of Independence itself which, if not successfully communicated, would have no effect on the receiver of the communication.)
Well 'nuff for now. Time to sleep.
Good night to you, dearest sister in Christ — and to all a good night!
I really can’t see any extension of the idea of “information” to non-living systems in nature.
***We send trillions of bits of information across non-living silicon chips every day, every second, and even now as I type this.
This fixation on the supposed misuse of one word, information, doesn’t seem to hold when I read the wikipedia articles on quantum entanglement.
So far I have not seen a naturally occurring non-living physical phenomenon that has all the elements of Shannon's model. Artificial intelligence systems, computers, telecommunications do but they are not naturally occurring.
Abiogenesis theories must show how information (successful communication) emerges serendipitiously in nature. Any theory omitting that would be dead on arrival (Pattee, Rocha et al)