My bias to information in the abiogenesis/biogenesis inquiry is because I have personally concluded that the difference between life v non-life/death in nature is information. Information is the action (successful communication) not the message (DNA, tRNA).
When a thing (whether an individual cell, function or organism) - is successfully communicating in nature, it is alive. When it ceases to communicate, it is dead. If it never could communicate, it is non-life.
The Shannon model accommodates all the bizarre forms, e.g. bacterial spores, viruses, viroids, prions, mimiviruses - either as autonomous messages, non-autonomous broadcast messages or noise.
The Miller/Urey experiments got no further than creating amino acids. Then again, they didn't know about the information side of life. Wimmer, on the other hand, who bootstrapped the polio virus in a lab - was successful because he began with the existing message itself.
Of course, we Christians realize that information will trace back to the Logos, the Living Word of God. But science, IMHO, should continue its pursuit - looking for a source of information in the universe. It is after all in the business of physical causation.
May God ever bless you, dear xzins!
Thank you for your insights, A-G.
I agree that information is present in life, yet, I do not think that information is life.
I am thinking that there actually is some essence that is life, that it is either on or off, full or empty, complete or broken....something like that.