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....
What about the cooling systems of the naturally occuring nuclear reactors? Is the necessity of cooling non-designed?