Anyone interested in the Brain – that ultimate piece of high technology – has seen the true but overused statement that each age in history sees the brain as analogous to the latest current technology: the ancients thought of it as a hydraulic system, our grandparents as a telephone exchange, our parents as a computer…

Well, I’ve just run into the next step in this progression. We were watching House on TV, and the irritating genius explained to a colleague that the brain is like the internet, where information packets flow this way and that.

I’m not sure at all that this is a good description – in fact I doubt it very much – but at any rate, we’re one step beyond the brain-as-computer now. Can’t help but wonder what the brain will be likened to next?…