The logging analogy doesn't capture what I was referring to. Logging is a feature that someone deliberately adds to an application. It has a purpose even if no

The logging analogy doesn't capture what I was referring to. Logging is a feature that someone deliberately adds to an application. It has a purpose even if no-one uses it. I'm talking about features that (a) were not intentionally designed and (b) have no "purpose" - i.e. do not "participate in physics necessary for the observable universe functioning," per the original commenter. The point is that for a feature to have a purpose implies an intentional design. If you assume the universe was intentionally designed, then yes, one might expect all features of the universe to have a purpose. Although as Gödel pointed out, this may not be possible - even intentionally constructed systems end up with features that weren't part of the intention, but rather are unavoidable consequences of the design. If you don't assume intentional design, then there's no reason to expect that all features of the universe have a purpose.