And at the very bottom of the abiogenesis ladder is the issue of where autonomy came from in the first place. At that theoretical level it is all a “soup.” Any message sent in its direction would be a broadcast to the soup. Things would have to become autonomous within that theoretical soup for successful communications to occur as we observe it today – otherwise there would still only be that theoretical soup. What a marvelous exchange between you and CottShop, dearest sister in Christ! Thank you for this superlative essay-post! It's definitely a "keeper."
BTW, your observation that inversely-causal information involves temporal non-locality is spot-on, IMHO FWIW.