[wpietri]

This strikes me as appealing but dangerous:

> What are cells if not computational nodes that exchange messages?

We evolved in a context where we survived by exchanging messages with other "computational nodes". So it's very tempting to see everything through that lens. But I think it's a mistake to see cells as "really" just like us. As Box said, "All models are wrong, some models are useful." We shouldn't forget that cells are really cells, and we see them as analogous to familiar things because the world is too big to represent directly in three pounds of meat.

[gmueckl]

Are you sure that the parent was comparong humans to cells? It strikes me more as this: "human intelligence is run by a network of nerve cells which are complex but could be modeled in all of their conplexity". So if you could model enough of these, you would get a functional replica of a human brain.