- Debate over whether “objects” (like a spoon) are the right abstraction for automated design: participants argue that what matters are the underlying energy/matter transformation processes (e.g., chem-to-mechanical junctions, ratchet functionality) rather than the final artifact.

- Proposed alternative: describe requirements via a fitness function that captures what a “spoon” must do; any physical structure that satisfies the function “becomes” a spoon, enabling top-down design without reifying the object.

- Connection drawn between this fitness-function view and test-driven development: if a manufactured prototype fails the test, the function—not the object—is deemed incorrect.

- Discussion of real-time “structure data → actual motor changes” noted from recent papers, hinting at closed-loop fabrication where design parameters directly drive machinery in real time.

- Reconfigurable manufacturing raised as a distinct layer (CAM/inventory); machinery itself can be modeled as a set of composable functions and interfaces, aligning with the process-centric philosophy.

- Acknowledgment that existing design languages and grammars are object-oriented, making it hard to express purely process-driven methodologies—illustrated by the inability to write down a clean “how to make a spoon” procedure without defaulting to molding-centric object thinking.