"However, we should be careful with the metaphors and paradigms commonly introduced when dealing with the nervous system. It seems to be a
constant in the history of science that the brain has always been compared
to the most complicated contemporary artifact produced by human industry
[297]. In ancient times the brain was compared to a pneumatic machine, in
the Renaissance to a clockwork, and at the end of the last century to the telephone network. There are some today who consider computers the paradigm
par excellence of a nervous system. It is rather paradoxical that when John
von Neumann wrote his classical description of future universal computers, he
tried to choose terms that would describe computers in terms of brains, not
brains in terms of computers."
https://www.inf.fu-berlin.de/inst/ag-ki/rojas_home/documents...
"However, we should be careful with the metaphors and paradigms commonly introduced when dealing with the nervous system. It seems to be a constant in the history of science that the brain has always been compared to the most complicated contemporary artifact produced by human industry [297]. In ancient times the brain was compared to a pneumatic machine, in the Renaissance to a clockwork, and at the end of the last century to the telephone network. There are some today who consider computers the paradigm par excellence of a nervous system. It is rather paradoxical that when John von Neumann wrote his classical description of future universal computers, he tried to choose terms that would describe computers in terms of brains, not brains in terms of computers."