After all, even by the standards of microcircuits, bacteria are very small. A human brain fires hundreds of cells when deciding to advance or retreat. A simple neural network in a cat may involve 100,000 interconnections. Indeed, next to even the tiny brain of a salamander an entire bacterium seems like a speck of cosmic dust in a galaxy of stars. If nothing else, though, science teaches its followers that similarities can hide in unlikely places.
Holograms share some unique properties with brains .
Two generations ago, Karl Lashley showed that memory cannot be culled from the brain and divided into discrete bits and pieces. Lashley taught rats to traverse mazes. The display of memory became dimmer and dimmer as he removed more and more cortex from the animals. Yet even animals with the smallest trace of a cortex could make a good stab at the maze. Certain kinds of holograms can be severely damaged, but the tiny intact parts can produce a whole, if sometimes faded, image.