A second method, which involves taking the "design stance", is to attribute functions to the system or its parts and to predict that the system will function properly.
Wolfram's point is similar to some of Dennett's remarks, namely: taking some sort of "design stance", Wolfram suggests that one can talk about a cellular automaton as it just "decides" to do this or that—"thereby effectively attributing to it some sort of free will" (Wolfram 2002, p. 752).
We say that proteins fold (the physicalist stance), but that eyes see (the design stance).
The data are discussed as they bear on children's understanding of the design stance (Dennett, D. C. (1987).
On Dennett's view, a system with beliefs is a system whose behavior, while complex and difficult to predict when viewed from the physical or the design stance, falls into patterns that may be captured with relative simplicity and substantial if not perfect accuracy by means of the intentional stance.
However, Dennett's (1988) claim is that there is no mind-independent determinate fact of the matter about meanings or functions and that the functions of artifacts, the functions of biological systems and the contents of the thoughts of people are all dependent on interpretation, on our adopting either the design stance or the intentional stance toward them.
If you're playing chess with a chess computer, you don't scrutinize the conductive properties of its circuits or contemplate the inner workings of its operating system (the physicalist and design stances, respectively); you ask how the program is thinking, what it's planning, what it "wants" to do.
Much of Sachs's work will exemplify his 'non-functional' and his 'anti-design' stance.
This designer stance applies to designing robots, but we also hope it will help understand universal human mental structures.
