When Man tills the ground, sows seeds and later harvests a crop, he is transforming land into a more productive resource.  Likewise, when he fells some trees and builds a house for shelter, he is transforming the Earth.  However, the Earth, and the multitude of organisms working in a competitive, symbiotic and cooperative harmony is the original transformation system.  Acting Man creates no material goods, he merely transforms and combines raw materials from one form into another.

Man meets many of his needs by transformation of some sort or other. Some primitive needs can be met by finding something unowned in Nature and directly using it to satisfy a Want, but this is rare in the modern world. We refer to these historical periods of more limited technology, using terms such as “The Stone Age” or “Iron Age”, when these were the most advanced materials that man had created with tools and to make other tools. Tools allow Man to be more productive than he would otherwise be and also permit him to create products that could not otherwise be created. A Spear or other weapon makes Man a more capable hunter, enabling him to kill bigger game more safely. A hollowed out coconut might allow him to transport water. But Man could use a stone axe to hollow out a log and make a simple boat. Without an axe or other sharp tool, the construction of a boat is inconceivable.

Some tools are more durable than others, but at some point, every tool will become obsolete and need to be repaired or replaced. But despite this problem, the increased productivity of Man with tools encourages their continued replacement and development. Different techniques and different combinations of tools can be combined to make totally new products to satisfy Man’s never ending desire to have his Wants satisfied. Clay can be heat treated using fire to make bricks or pots. A Kiln might be made from the bricks and then iron ore could be melted to produce iron. We need not discuss the process of invention for now, but we can see that new materials and products can only be made if Man has the tools to accomplish this task.

Man has been transforming the world for millennia by making tools, to achieve a goal. More often than not, he uses his tools to create intermediate products, which are then used in a later stage of a production process, to meet his end goal. A simple pencil needs wood, graphite, paint, cutting tools, transportation equipment and a myriad of other prior steps to bring these materials together so that the pencil can be made.

Note, that at no stage are any raw materials lost forever.  Many steps require fuel. Fire which was Man’s earliest controlled power source is created by transforming wood, coal or oil, into Carbon Dioxide and other by-products. But the atoms and molecules that make up the fuel are not ever destroyed. A fuel, if it were methane combined with Oxygen, has merely been transformed in to CO2 and Water.  Its usefulness as fuel is exhausted, but it has not been lost.  Iron, which has been mined, converted into nails and then, after use, discarded into landfill, has not been lost.  At some point in the future, the scarcity of iron may be so severe that it might be viable to excavate landfill to mine rusty nails.  Water might be so scarce that effluent might be transformed back into drinking water without being released back to waterways.

All transformation requires energy.  Even if the raw material is sheet music, transformed into song, the singer, in utilising his voice, expends energy.  Energy is unique in that while the source of the energy is transformed (light into: electrons, or coal and air into: electricity, CO2 and water), the actual energy is part of the transformed products, never to be fully recovered.  The fundamental physical law that energy is never created or destroyed holds, but it is merely transformed from one type to another.  However, all expenditures of energy result in a dilution of the concentration of the energy.  For vast majority of examples, this dilution of energy can be considered as a loss, never to be re-transformed.

Individual humans act consciously and purposefully.  Man eats, sleeps, provides shelter, makes entertainment, gazes at the stars etc.  Each individual pursues his own goals.  He holds an idea, thinks, develops a plan, acquires tools, employs labour and uses these means in pursuit of his goals.  When man acts, he often aims to transform existing products into more useful products or services.  In acting he aims to make future conditions more satisfactory than they would otherwise be. In most cases, he uses tools and in doing so transforms the planet.