You should post more often. Love it.

On the right most of the stimuli are internal, the process of evolution is non-linear and hard to predict. It’s doing its own thing, all you can do is try to nudge it one way or another and wait, often without any certainty about consequences.

Another way to view the spectrum is as an answer to a question: how likely were the ancients pray to it?

I gotta say, that transition had me perplexed. I definitely experienced a moment of, "Where the hell is he going to go with this?" You followed through and delivered an interesting approach to control and interaction.

Growing kettles instead of designing them would obviate our worries about pentagons, constraints and alternatives. But how would it work? Imagine if you could easily create new random kettles in large numbers. You already have a list of desirable characteristics that you can score each of them on. If you selectively mix the characteristics of only desirable kettles you would be in effect breeding them, and repeated actions of selection over time would cultivate a wild crop of kettles into something more tame.

I don't know if you saw this post - I have been watching this genetic car algorithm for an hour now.. It was my first encounter with genetic algorithms in a way I could really understand. The randomly generated cars take off down a track and the one who makes it furthest (the "elite clone") continues over to the next round. New cars are mutated and the race is repeated. Like your idea with kettles, and using mutations instead breeding, this little game demonstrates how we can arrive at the "perfect" design for a specific circumstance given enough time.

You should also check out TNG's recent post regarding micromanagement. It's a bit more of a candid look at micromanagement in chaotic, real life situations. As much as we can analyze and explore control, management, and interaction of individuals and objects, throw a real life boss in the mix and everything gets much more complicated. :)