They were in the state of a substrate, ready to be acted upon. Data items were related to each other through mathematical formulas. This is the equivalent of the wiring of the brain, as the pregnancy progresses. Objects are modules which contain BOTH data and instructions in self contained units. The programmer is unable to tell HOW the object does what it does, how does external, useful function arise from internal, hidden ones.
Objects are epiphenomenal, emergent, phase transient.
It is the hierarchical and at the same time fuzzy organization of the objects which does the trick. In a way, these newly emergent classes are the products and the classes that they derived from are the origin. This process so closely resembles natural phenomena that it lends additional credibility to the metaphor. Thus, classes can be used as building blocks. Their permutations define the set of all soluble problems.