A file cabinet might be a metaphor for Cottshop's point.
Whether or not each sheet of paper is readable, no matter how big a file cabinet gets, it is worthless just sitting there. It must be used.
When speaking of information theory and molecular biology, many of our correspondents think it is all about the message, in this case the DNA.
But information theory is not about the message, it's about the communication of the message. The elements are always message, sender, encoder, channel, noise, decoder, receiver.
The message (e.g. DNA, RNA) by itself accomplishes nothing. It just sits there like a sheet of paper in the unused file cabinet.
And it does no good to write a memo in Spanish if the recipient only reads German. Both the sender and the receiver must speak the same language. Indeed, information requires there be a language (semiosis.)
And it does no good to send a letter to the wrong address. Likewise, if a person received all messages from anyone any where in the world all at once, he would be overwhelmed. There must be a channel (autonomy.)
The origin of information theory is Shannon's Mathematical Theory of Communications.
Like Shannon's theory, Williams' argument doesn't narrow in on a single unexplained complexity but rather on the entire structure which must be in place in a living organism.
Wow. What an outstanding observation, dearest sister in Christ! The file cabinet analogy is spot-on.
I've been meditating the IC/AP model, and am about to draw a picture! LOLOL! Maybe I'll even post it in due course. On the basis of your observation, levels (iv) and (v) need further scrutiny....
Just a question. CottShop recently gave an example of why metainformation can't be the simple sum of information pertaining to any lower level of the hierarchy. He wrote:
...it would be unreasonable to think that piling info on info could result in an evolving synchronized metainfo system, much the same way that adding digital info to a system of established digital info couldn’t add to the controlling metainfo already established unless the metainfo were already predesigned to accommodate this new info in the first place....I think the "piling up" assumption is "unreasonable," too. Here's my question: Under CottShop's scenario, would it be incorrect to say that the "additive" digital information would be simply "noise" at the level at which it was introduced, it lacking a metainfo in place at that level (e.g., a program)?
Thank you ever so much for your outstanding essay-post, dearest sister in Christ!