My thermostat may not be intelligent but it is certainly smart... At least it says so on the box. Anyway, the strip does contain the state of the world around

My thermostat may not be intelligent but it is certainly smart... At least it says so on the box. Anyway, the strip does contain the state of the world around it: the temperature is modeled by how much the bimetal is bent. I think indeed it is a minimal example of a complex system, one that at first glance defies explanation, it seems to have purpose (keep temp stable), until you understand the inside. Anyway, "Is a virus alive?", "Are these specimens the same species?", ... Us humans like our boxes, but at the edges they almost always go wrong.