Lorraine,
I agree with your statement that reality is "mostly deterministic but not 100% deterministic", in the predictive sense mentioned previously.
But I disagree with the statement that "surely causation is a thing that has to be assumed."
Assuming causation as a first principle is not the "starting point" of the scientific method. Rather, experiencing repeatable sequences of events is. Causation is a secondary "assumption", namely that when I see the first events in a previously seen repeatable sequence, I then employ induction, to infer that those events will cause the next events in the sequence to occur. But I would never have made such an assumption, if I had never observed repeating sequences of events. In other words, "causation" is a conclusion, not a premise, of the scientific method. Induction, of course, is based on the assumption that the past will resemble the future, in the sense that sequences of events that have always been seen to repeat in the past, will continue to do so in the future. But it is the experience of repeating sequences of events, that causes that assumption to seem reasonable, in the first place.
There is nothing in the laws of physics, that dictate such repeatability. It is repeating "initial conditions", rather than the laws per se, that enable us to deduce the fact that laws even exist. If you could never repeat an observation or experiment, because the initial conditions could never be reproduced, there would be no "scientific method".
With regards to what information is, consider your introductory statement, that "the word information meaning "knowledge communicated" comes...", in the following context.
Claude Shannon worked for a telephone company. One day, Claude's boss comes into Claude's office and says, "The board of directors is looking to add value to our phone system. They want to send other kinds of information over the phone, not just speech. Figure out if we can do that." Claude wisely asks what this other kind of information is about. Surely it would make a difference, if it were about bank account numbers, as compared to videos. The boss informs Claude, in no uncertain terms, that it does not matter "What the information is about!", all he needs to know, if he wants to keep his job, is that it is going to be about whatever the customers want it to be about, and "Whatever you come up with, it had better work for anything and everything, without making our customers worry about what their stuff is about! How the heck are they supposed to figure out if your technique might not work if their information is "about" something you failed to take into consideration? Just you make darn sure your technique is independent of whatever their crap happens to be "about!"!"
So, being a good engineer, Claude came up with a way to characterize the limitations of "knowledge communication", that is independent of whatever that knowledge may happen to be about. Consequently, his re-definition of information, is not "about" anything, other than determining under what circumstances communication is even possible.
Rob McEachern