Oh, I so agree — "God has created a Universe that communicates to us." This is so because God created an intelligible universe, and us as intelligent beings capable of receiving the "communication."
Where you and I disagree is concerning the question of where "meaning" ultimately resides. Evidently, you want the world itself to be "meaningful."
And it is — to the rational mind. That is to say, "meaning" resides, not in the world directly, but in the human mind only.
To me, to say that meaning is "in" the world is tantamount to saying that God is "in" the world. The latter gets you some species of pantheism every time.
To my way of thinking, meaning always involves acts of judgment. The primary data of nature are not "judgments"; they are simply data. In this sense, we cannot say that the world is "meaningful." It takes a human observer to make statements about meaning.
Meanwhile, biological entities, which except for man are incapable (presumably) of the self-reflection necessary to the making of rational judgments, still have to go along and "process information" relevant to their own survival, thriving, and reproduction. They don't need "meaning"; they just need good, clear instructions.
And the Shannon model provides an excellent way of understanding successful communications at this level of biological necessity. And so I was very disappointed to see Alex Williams dismiss Shannon with a hand-wave....
Thank you so very much for writing, GGG!
==Where you and I disagree is concerning the question of where “meaning” ultimately resides. Evidently, you want the world itself to be “meaningful.”
To my mind, the world is meaningful in the same way a website is meaningful. Websites are constructed by intelligent designers. The message is communicated via the World Wide Web (also intelligently designed). We received the message on our computer (also intelligently designed) and decipher its meaning (also intelligently designed). There is no need for the sender to actively perpetuate the message. The meaning of the message continues to be sent long after the intelligent designer has left the keyboard.
And it is — to the rational mind. That is to say, "meaning" resides, not in the world directly, but in the human mind only.
The letter in my mailbox has no meaning until I read it.
And even then, the meaning is very much in my own mind. I may not even be able to describe how meaningful it was to me.
By the way, in the Shannon model information occurs when the receiver is informed - the receiver moves from a before state of uncertainty to an after state. But whether the message was meaningful is, like the letter, in the mind of the receiver.