Information and significance are related but distinct concepts.
Information concerns difference. A signal, event, or condition contains information when it can be distinguished from alternatives. Information therefore describes variation, structure, or change.
Significance concerns importance. A condition is significant when it matters to an agent because of its consequences for ongoing activity, functioning, persistence, or adaptive engagement with the world.
A system may encounter information without that information being significant. Countless environmental differences surround living systems at any moment, but only some influence what the organism does, what it needs, or what affects its continued existence. Significance explains why certain differences become relevant while others remain background conditions.
Within APS, biological evaluation provides the connection between information and significance. Through evaluation, living systems distinguish conditions according to their relevance. Information becomes significant when it acquires consequences for an agent.
This distinction is important because living systems are not organised around information alone. They are organised around what matters. Information identifies differences; significance explains why those differences become relevant to living systems.