
If no-one looks at the results, or acknowledges their correctness, in what
meaningful sense can the chip be said to "work"?? Does flibozity exist?
By "flibozity", I mean a particular, extremely complex configuration of 
physical phenomena, which no-one, absolutely NO-ONE cares about in the 
slightest. Does it exist, Eric?

Getting back to the question of whether the DES chip "works", doesn't "work" 
mean something like "achieving the desired/expected effect"? Note the way 
intentionality subtly underlies that definition. Even if we take the 
definition as "expected", instead of "desired", can you deny that conformance 
to expectations is itself a value of sorts, namely the scientific values of 
accuracy-of-prediction and reproducibility-of-results?

The phenomenologist Husserl, for one, considered Intentionality to be the
primary ontological "stuff" from which all other ontology was built --
perceptions, consciousness, thoughts, etc. Frank is by no means alone in
seeing intentionality (or "values", as he puts it) underlying all human
experience, even the so-called "objective" experiences, such as 
measurements of the natural world, or the output of your DES chip.