How could solid-seeming computer hardware support such a ghostly thing as research progress?

To explain a FAIR research platform, we have to show how they are built from mindless stuff, smaller and simpler than anything we’d consider smart.

“Self-describing” data products include/contain/link to any “knowledge products” (schema, ontology, etc.

How do FAIR data resources work? How can you build a FAIR resource from many little parts, each non-FAIR by itself?