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Any area of information exists as some organized part of the universe, and can be defined by how its organization and behavior differs from whatever surrounds it. The differences that allow an area of information to be defined are what separate that information from other matter and energy. No information can exist in isolation, because no carrier of information exists in complete isolation. To exist, information must be created by or develop through an interaction with an entity other than itself. Matter or energy must either be recognized, or purposefully coded into a new organization of matter or energy to exist as information. Recognition and coding are processes that involve changes in a particular organization of information, or other matter or energy, over time, space, or both. Because information exists through an interaction with some agent that creates or acknowledges it, no information can exist for a unique instant -- all information is in motion, or part of a system of other moving matter and/or energy. A person can discuss how the substance of information changes position in time and space in terms of the system of information that contains it. The word system denotes a particular organization (or a set of interrelated organizations) of matter and energy and its behaviors over an interval of time. If a person knows how the individual parts of a system behave and interact over a specified interval of time, she can describe what happens to a particular area of matter and/or energy, or information within that system. An information system is a system of matter and energy that stores and provides information for communication-- activity that moves information toward a destination in time, space, or both. When a person describes how a particular representation (or area of information) travels and is transformed, she describes a communication. Any particular act of communication is contained by an information system.
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