This is why on previous threads I summarily rebuked Alex Williams' (et al) narrative. They rudely diss Shannon for not addressing the content of the message itself which is something a universal mathematical model must never do. If it did, it would not be portable among knowledge disciplines.
Yes, it bothered me too that Alex Williams did that. I thought he was dissing Shannon for not doing something completely extraneous to what Shannon's main purpose was, a theory of successful communications per se — that is, something quite independent of any particular message content. It was to describe the "medium," not the "messages." And it has been amazingly successful in doing just that.
Thank you ever so much, dearest sister in Christ, for this marvelous essay/post!
[[Yes, it bothered me too that Alex Williams did that.]]
Yep- it bothered me too- it;’s almost like he got a bit hot under the collar about hte issue- not sure why- Williams and Shannon address two different issues, but related- it woudl seem there woudl be agreement, but Williams kinda reacted funny about hte whole thing
To this day, nobody has been able to explain to me why it is innapropriate for experts on all sides of the biological information debate to relegate Shannon information to the more or less trivial end of the information research spectrum. It’s not just Alex Williams that takes this position, Dr. Gitt (a creationist information theorist) basically says the same thing in his book “In the Beginning was Information,” as does Dr. Meyer (an IDer) in his book “Signature in the Cell,” as do a multitude of materialist information theorists.
Here is what Dr. Gitt has to say about Shannon information (quite extensive):
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/itbwi/statistical-view-of-information
Here is what Dr. Meyer’s book has to say regarding the same: