At its simplest, an area of information marks only difference, degree of difference, or change in the the state of the system containing it. Simple forms of information can exist in any information system. All information systems are comprised of simple elements. Differences in the relationships among simple elements are informative when they change over an interval of time, or reveal themselves to another entity. The fewer the number of relationships an area of information represents, the simpler that information is.

A signal is one example of a simple form of information. When wires connect the positive and negative ends of a battery to the two metal contacts at the base of a light bulb, electric current flows over the wires, between the battery and the bulb, forming a circuit. When current flows through the bulb's filament, light is produced. The current acts as a signal when it causes the state of the bulb to change from unlit to lit. If the wire is disconnected, information is produced when the bulb's state changes from lit to unlit. In this case, the absence of current is a signal. (For a description of how a light bulb works, click here).

To be complex, information must do more than signal its presence or absence. Complex information can serve more than one function at a time, or be informative to more than one part of an information system over the same period of time.

Description and instruction are types of information that mark difference in the structure of an information system or change in its state. Each form is complex because it signals itself within an information/communication system and tells the system about a condition, or about other matter or energy not contained in it's own structure. An instruction causes the information system processing it to change its structure in a particular manner, while a description provides information about an entity other than itself. A description represents some entity of matter and energy other than itself, in the same system as itself. The physical structure of what is described remains independent of the representing information as that information is interpreted.

As information systems become more complex, it is more likely that each system will be able to divide different information processing tasks among its individual components, and that a complex system can potentially recognize, process, and/or interpret more than one area of information at a time if its individual parts can perform different tasks at the simultaneously.

As an information system becomes more complex, it becomes more likely that the information it carries will also be complex. An information system that allows a person to recognize the presence and color of a red stoplight is more complex than the information system that allows a light bulb to change from an unlit to a lit state. The information system that enables a person to recognize the color red has more interacting parts than the information system that allows a light bulb to produce light. The major components of this more complex system are the source of the color red, the light that carrries information from the source, and a person's eyes and nervous system-- specifically, the rods and cones in a person's eyes that receive light, the optic nerve that carries the information to the brain, and any structures in the brain that direct this activity, allow it to occur, and enable the nervous system to recognize and process the signal.

If a complex system can divide labor among its parts, and if information , or can cause parts of a system to behave in very particular ways.... Human thought exists on a conscious plane and on a neurophysiological plane. How a person considers that information to exist depends on which part of the system she is considering. Even imaginary stuff has a physical component if it exists as a thought or "location" in memory. Thought is a subset, or a type In the set of all information. However, thought may have a more multi-dimensional nature than other information.Language and speech...concrete.

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