[Diamond]

Your thermostat provides a feedback mechanism for the furnace

The design of the thermostat in your home is evident at least in part because its designer (or some corporation that owns the design) wanted to make it evident. There is probably a name of some type imprinted on your thermostat. Your thermostat is teleological in nature, whether you think it defective or not. (A word to the wise; if it were not teleological in nature there would be no way of telling if it were defective or not. The word would have no meaning.)

Cordially,

[general_re]

But is what the thermostat does a matter of design? When the switch trips, and the furnace kicks on, is that by design on the part of the thermostat? I don't think so - the thermostat has no intentions or designs. It's a purely mechanical stimulus-response affair, and yet it produces a complex sort of behavior, much as the bees are operating purely as a stimulus-response affair, and yet producing complex behaviors and structures. The bees cannot coherently be said to be "designing" anything, nor can the thermostat be said to be "designing" anything.

Now, I suspect the fallback position is to say that the bees and the thermostat are themselves designed, but I'm not asking about the bees and the thermostat - I want to know about emergent structures and processes like beehives and heating cycles....