Every portion of matter has spatio-temporal location, internal structure (apart from indivisible particles, if there are any) and external relationships to other items. Every portion of matter is involved in some processes (e.g. changing relationships with other things) and also has the potential to be involved in many more processes.

Energy can produce or modify material states or processes and both energy and matter can be transferred and transformed. E.g. a pendulum swinging constantly transforms energy between gravitational potential energy and kinetic energy, and when animals swim, run or fly, chemical energy is transformed into mechanical energy. The chemical energy may have been acquired through processes of ingestion, digestion, photosynthesis, or other means. Since the work of Einstein we have learnt that matter can be converted to energy and vice versa.

Over centuries we have also found ways in which information can affect matter and energy, though usually humans or other animals have produced and/or used the information, for instance information about an approaching storm or information that a battle has been won.

Unfortunately very few researchers have been well educated concerning forms of information, types of information processing, mechanisms of information processing, functions of information processing, or architectures combining different information processing functions and mechanisms. So, when confronted with complex observational results their abilities to think of possible explanations are seriously hampered, and often restricted to implicit forms of anthropomorphism.

Although the products are widely used, they are some of the new ways of thinking about information processing systems are not widely understood and they do not yet form part of the general education of scientists who need them.