In the beginning, there was the brain. And the brain created the computer in its own image, and was pleased. And the brain spake unto the world, saying, “Behold, world; verily, I have created a machine which functioneth like a brain, and I shall call it the computer.” And so the years passed, and the computer begat ever mightier computers, until anon the brain-folk began to whisper betwixt themselves, “Forsooth, 'tis not the computer which is alike to the brain, but the brain which is alike to the computer! For is not the heart alike to the pump? And the kidney to the filter?” And merry were the brain-folk, and so did they revel in their new-found metaphor, that any earlier one long passed from living memory.
Which raises the question of, what, if anything, did people compare the brain to before the advent of the computer?
Before computers, brains were compared to telephone switchboards; before that, clocks or other machines. Before that, their operation was a complete mystery and in some cases, they weren’t considered to be the organ responsible for cognition anyway.
It has gone around full circle somewhat as well. Computers and brains can be compared almost exactly as well as comparing the Hoover Damn to a heart. Besides grasping at the most vague connections, current computers and all animal nervous systems operate on almost, but not completely different processes generated in completely different ways. Artificial as it was envisioned 50 years ago had largely been a failure but early researchers couldn’t comprehend how different the types of systems are. Computers off blazing computation speed. Th human brain is a fairly slow fascinating pattern recognition device that we only have the vaguest idea of how it works.