Quoting the Theory of Enformed Systems:
"The evolution of the meaning of energy illustrates the departure of scientific ideas from the strictly material premise. This term was used widely in the 18th and early 19th century to identify a material substance under the Caloric theory of heat. Because Carnot and Clausius, the originators of thermodynamics, conceptualized energy in this way, they mistakenly described laws that didn't apply to reality. For instance, Clausius was thinking of a material substance that moves when he characterized the entropy lawþthe second law of thermodynamics: "Heat cannot, of itself, move from a cold to a hot body." Metalinguistically, then, both the entropy law and the first law of thermodynamics (that energy is conserved) were nullities. Nevertheless, using updated concepts, thermodynamics remains a useful scientific tool.
It was not until the middle of the 19th century that the Caloric theory was replaced by the mechanical theory of heat; i.e., heat reflects the average velocity (hence, kinetic energy) of individual particles. Because the first law of thermodynamics was based on the false materialist premise, Helmholtzwho conceptualized energy as nonmaterialis credited with discovering the conservation of energy. Energythe capacity to perform workthereafter became as central to scientific thinking as mass: Both are universal, fundamental, conserved, nonmaterial principles. Moreover, these nonmaterial principles interact profoundly with matter to account for the behavior of physical systems.
Traditionally, mass and energy have not been assigned to a named category. Because there are only two of them, it is easy enough to identify them simply as mass, energy, or mass/energy. Nevertheless, it is useful to categorize these quantities as "principles," corresponding to the definition in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED):
Principle: an origin, source; source of action. A fundamental source from which something proceeds; a primary element, force, or law which produces or determines particular results; the ultimate basis upon which the existence of something depends; cause, in the widest sense.
Categorizing mass and energy as principles identifies them as nonmaterial, universal, fundamental, conserved quantities. Moreover, establishing this category prepares us to anticipate additional principles. Indeed, I have postulated the existence of a third principle: enformy, the capacity to organize (Watson, 1993). Enformy is foundational to Systemics in the same way that mass is foundational to classical mechanics.".......
If you do contemplate this possibility, and then read forward through the other listed articles it seems to make sense. It's like any holistic system. You need to look at the sum of the parts.
