Is there a base or fundamental state of energy? Is there a base state of energy?  By base state, I mean if a certain amount is in no other state like heat, light, magnetism it just stays in the base state. If not, why not? Also, is there a list of all identified forms of energy?
Somebody told me Potential energy.  But, my point back to him was this assumes certain mass or an object.  What if there is no object or mass to hang on to?
Thanks much
 A: There is no such state; energy does not work like that.
Energy is not an object, but a property of physical objects. Light (i.e. ripples in the EM field) has energy, as do electrons (excitations of the electron quantum field), but there is no such thing as "pure energy". It's as if you asked the question, "some buildings are very high, and some are short, but what is fundamental, pure height?"
This misconception of 'pure energy', i.e. energy as an object itself, comes from pop science books that say things like "matter and antimatter annihilate into pure energy". What I think they're trying to say is that often, the annihilation products will be photons, which have no mass; therefore there is no matter and just 'pure' energy. (This is also incorrect, since mass is a form of energy.) But in either case, the energy has to belong to something.
A: Let us start with one of the first sentences in Wikipedia "in physics energy is a property of objects which can be transferred to other objects or converted into different forms, but cannot be created or destroyed. The "ability of a system to perform work" is a common description, but it is difficult to give one single comprehensive definition of energy because of its many forms." So to erudite what is energy we have to explorehow the different energy manifestations are converted into each other. The energy transfer happens always with electromagnetic radiation.
We need a proof of course. First at all, how many fundamental forces we know and which are not important for energy transfer? 4 forces we know and the electromagnetic force is the only, we have to apply in most the cases. Here are some examples and the community will correct me, if the examples are not connected to the EM force:


*

*Heat exchange in gases

*impuls exchange of rigid bodies

*acceleration of electrons in a electrostatic potential


There is a second relevant force in our daily life. It is the gravitational force. To lift up something we have to use again the EM force.
The EM force as the reason for all this energy transfers is not obvious and we don't care about this, but since you are asking such a question in physics, you have to explore this. The weak and the strong force are working on very short distances inside the nucleus and I will ignore them in this answer.
I feel that you are not satisfied with the statement that all three examples (and other possible cases) are mediated by EM radiation. So let as take the example of clapping your hands. You will find the relevant discussions in this forum. Never the left hand touches the right hand, the electrostatic force of the surface electrons of your hands prevent the touch. But anyway the hands will be stopped, so what happens on the atomic level? The electrostatic force works like a spring and the hands get braked. Braking is a acceleration and any acceleration of particles led to a EM radiation. Your hands emit and receive EM radiation. 
The fundamental states of energy are photons.
