This may be a little anal but analogies between a typical von Neumann architecture computer and any animal brain are pretty limited. The brain is essentially like some next-gen MIMD processor.
I remember once hearing it said that the brain is always compared to the most complex machine we know how to build; before von Neumann architectures, the analogy was punch-card looms, and before punch-card looms, it was clockwork. I can't agree more that these analogies should always be taken with a grain of salt...
Well I definitely think that some computational theory of mind is correct. Of course the critical difference between computationalism and clockwork analogies is that we now have formal proof of just how general computation really is. I don't believe that the embodied human mind is capable of more computation than a UTM.
That being said, comparing the brain, any animal's brain, to a commercial Intel or AMD processor is very misleading.
And I guess it's fitting that I compared the brain to a machine we don't yet know how to build...
