I found a very interesting article here that discusses a very broad base of ideas and history of computers and their role in networks. The focus of this article is to determine whether a supercomputer or a brain is smarter, using theories about network effects. The author is the inventor of ethernet, the very thing that made the internet possible. He then goes on to say how his invention has enjoyed the benefits of network effects, after a slow start to 10^8 new ones made each year. The interesting part of this article is how he tries to compare transistors on a chip to neurons in a brain. He seems to be stumped when he discovers that the brain is thought to be 10^4 times smarter than the fastest supercomputer, but based on raw computing power the neurons are slower than the transistors with about the same amount of each in each of the two “computers”. He then tries to justify this by talking about how each transistor is individual and does its own job, while the brain is a whole wide network of neurons that form a sort of network effect that greatly multiplies the computing power of the brain, and thus proves the notion that the brain is much smarter, or more intelligent. Unfortunately the author does not go on to explain how these network effects work in the brain other than stating that each neuron connects to a very large number of other neurons that create this effect, whereas each transistor is connected to one or two other transistors, making it a linear system of sorts, which restricts its computing power. It would be very interesting to see what else could come out of this. Is the brain just a large network of neurons that works cohesively, with a network effect, to make humans so intelligent? It seems that there could be biological forms of network effects that have not yet been discovered. I hope you found this as interesting as I did.