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The functional component itself is totally dependent on the context of the whole system and has no meaning outside that context. This is why reducing the system to its material parts loses information irreversibly.

Isn't that a simply amazing insight, dearest sister in Christ?

A previous article raised a similar point in retrospect, that the biological cell developed maintenance and repair functions before it could have been aware of — or anticipated — the need for them.

Yes, I recall that thread too. The lead article there maintained that the biologically requisite functional information that cannot be anticipated in advance of need is provided via a universal source of "inversely-causal metainformation" which would be equivalent to a universal formal cause operating in biological nature. One wonders how such an intangible thing can have arised from purely natural or material source, and concludes that it cannot have done so. How such a formal cause may operate, or may be "located," the Kinemans (in one of the papers I sent you) have an interesting suggestion. They hypothesize a fifth, "time-like" scalar dimension as the context in which the "abstract" universe (formal cause, semiotics) and the "real" universe (final cause, syntax) co-exist and mutually interrelate. It's a very interesting suggestion IMHO.

So I think MHGinTN may very well be right, that the phenomenon of a formal cause points to a non-linear temporal element.

Thank you so much, dearest sister in Christ, for your very kind words, and for your excellent essay/post!

Thank you oh so very much for your encouragements, dearest sister in Christ!

How such a formal cause may operate, or may be "located," the Kinemans (in one of the papers I sent you) have an interesting suggestion. They hypothesize a fifth, "time-like" scalar dimension as the context in which the "abstract" universe (formal cause, semiotics) and the "real" universe (final cause, syntax) co-exist and mutually interrelate. It's a very interesting suggestion IMHO.

So I think MHGinTN may very well be right, that the phenomenon of a formal cause points to a non-linear temporal element.

Sadly, I still have not found the time to read the Kinemans article - but just from the description here I surmise it is right up my alley.

And in that regard, I'd like to address some points raised elsewhere on this thread by MHGinTN and hosepipe.

One is that we are not consciously aware of all the informing going on in our physical bodies, e.g. heart beating, cells performing their functions. I agree. But at the same time (and at the risk of sounding weird) I do speak to them though not verbally and they do respond, e.g. "be still my heart" "stop aching."

Another is the perception that results from such phenomenon. Though obviously not a sensory perception, one becomes aware that even involuntary functions of the body (or mechanism or donkey in hosepipe's metaphor) can be subjected to the will (or spirit or temporal element or rider in hosepipe's metaphor.)

Or more to the point of the article, it is another case of the whole being greater than the sum of the parts.