A toaster has feedback control over its temperature, time control over its cooking duration, and start/stop control by attending to its start/cancel buttons. It makes decisions constantly.
I simply can't make toast without a toaster, however psychologically primary you want me to be. Without either of us, there's no new toast. Team effort every time.
And to make it even more interesting, the same is true for my mum and her toaster. She does not understand how her toaster works. And yet: toast reliably appears! Where is the essential toast understanding in that system? Nowhere and everywhere! It simply isn't relevant.
> A toaster has feedback control over its temperature, time control over its cooking duration
Most toasters are heating elements attached to a timer adjusted by the human operator. It doesn’t have any feedback control. It doesn’t have any time control.
> I simply can't make toast without a toaster
I can’t make toast without bread either, but that doesn’t make the bread “responsible” for toasting itself.
> She does not understand how her toaster works.
My mum doesn’t understand how bread is made, but she can still have the intent to acquire it from a store and expose it to heat for a nominal period of time.
I simply can't make toast without a toaster, however psychologically primary you want me to be. Without either of us, there's no new toast. Team effort every time.
And to make it even more interesting, the same is true for my mum and her toaster. She does not understand how her toaster works. And yet: toast reliably appears! Where is the essential toast understanding in that system? Nowhere and everywhere! It simply isn't relevant.