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Dear Sisters:

I deliberately used the terms, "made to", "human", and "sentient" -- to stimulate A-G into revising her analogy into a more general form. '-}

As they say in Congress, "I now exercise my right to 'revise and extend' my own remarks:" ;-)

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A-G: "The letter in your mailbox doesn't become information until you read it. "

TXnMA: So, by extension, the words written on a letter, the bits stored on a flash drive, or the pits on a DVD are not "information", either -- until they are decoded and [made to] perform a function that interacts with a ~~human~~ [consciously] reactive recipient.

I see a Newtonian analogy: All of the above data-storage forms are potential information -- much as water behind a dam, or gunpowder in a cartridge, or a weight hanging over your head ...represents potential energy.

So, by that analogy -- and your statement -- "information" could be viewed as "kinetic data" that also interacts with a ~~sentient~~ [consciously] reactive recipient....

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Caveats and disclaimers:

I have been known (when introducing a concept or design as a "Straw Man" to be 'picked apart') to deliberately include a "['ugly, hairy arm']" to direct destructive attention away from parts I wish to preserve... ;-)
A portion of my research career (and resultant patents -- including my very first one) involved using light energy (both 'info-coded' and 'raw') to effect actions and reactions (including chemical reactions) -- sometimes "at a distance".

As you might guess, I know (at least, in part) where I'm going with this... <LOL!>

Admittedly, I've never read Shannon, but, I really expect that there are some new "group insights" lurking in this train of thought!

First, I apologize - we have company and my ability to reply is spotty at best. But I wanted to let you know right away that I am intrigued by your replies and where I suspect you may be going.

Reduced to a single phrase, the Shannon model tells us that "information is the reduction of uncertainty (Shannon entropy) in the receiver (or molecular machine) as it moves from a before state to an after state."

It is the action of successful communication, not the message itself. The message doesn't matter - it could be DNA, Shakespeare's Hamlet, etc. The language doesn't matter either as long as the sender and receiver speak the same language.

And although the receiver decodes the message from the channel, consciousness is not necessary to the model. The same model applies to television, radio, computers, the internet, etc.

The elements of a successful message in order are: message, sender, encoding, channel, noise, decoding, receiver.

Information content is measured by the reduction of uncertainty in the receiver, in bits (which are not necessarily binary btw in Shannon's model.)

As far as I know, there is no known materialistic origin for information (Shannon, successful communication) in the universe. Indeed, there is a standing prize of a million dollars for the first scientist to propose a feasible answer to that problem. AFAIK, that prize has not been collected. I'd research it, but as I said, my time is very limited today.

To make a long story short, an astrophysicist friend of betty boop's - whose specialty is the sun - early on wondered about light as an information carrier (channel.) His speculation sounds like it might dovetail into your field of expertise.

Any hoot, I look forward to reading your next, dear brother in Christ!