As I said, it is representational in a sense; however, the information is encoded by physical means into a series of discrete states -- and THAT is not conceptual at all. Shannon doesn't deal with the concept, he deals with the physical extraction of physical states from a medium that is subject to noise.
You're still trying to conflate intent, with that physical arrangement of discrete states. Shannon does not do that.
Mr. Gitt is trying to do the same -- he is saying that the physical arrangement of discrete states must always be a result of a mental process. Just to state it that way, however, is to see the error in his statement of the problem.
If we look at the example of sperm meeting egg, we see a creation of new information, without a mental process involved. And on that small scale, anyway, we see that Mr. Gitt's assertion is incorrect.
No, I don't believe you can say that for in point of fact each of these living things has some aspect of intent/will that is not a molecular reality else clever humans it is likely would have figured a way to duplicate this non-molecular 'impulse'. We might even say that 'LIFE' is a phase shift beyond the physical expressions of spacetime as we comprehend it, presently.
In reality we have yet to fully understand, LIFE may function in a spacetime continuum we have yet to discern with our limited comprehension of dimension Time, yet LIFE is intimately connected to but not dependent upon the level of spacetime we perceive as the realm of the physical/molecular interactions of our science.
==If we look at the example of sperm meeting egg, we see a creation of new information, without a mental process involved. And on that small scale, anyway, we see that Mr. Gitt’s assertion is incorrect.
Unless said mental process is already coded in the information contained in the sperm and the egg.
It is certainly is conceptual. Despite what you think, there is meaning in things that encode meaning. The highs and lows on a circuit line are encoding something in a computer. To the transistor that encoded something is meaningless to it. Yet the high and low voltage are semaphores to the transistor to conduct or not conduct. It is this series of meanings that each designer inserts along the line to a finished communications system which is conceptual. So each transistor along the lines of a designed communications circuit does not give a whit about anything but conducting or not conducting. The designer(s) has(have) embodied the concept into a circuit. Does that circuit do anything? Not without power, it doesn't. When powered up does it do anything? It certainly consumes power, but it is the designer whose concept is embodied in the circuit that decides whether it does anything or not. The circuit may eventually simply transmit a single unmodulated frequency which acts as a beacon. The designer could have complicated the design in order for the beacon to modulate its signal to give directional information to a receiver. etc. etc. etc.
If we look at the example of sperm meeting egg, we see a creation of new information, without a mental process involved.
What? Sperm and egg randomly materialized into a suitable location?