The take that "since we can't completely understand how a system of a few hundred neurons works, we can hardly expect to figure out a brain of 86 billion neuron

The take that "since we can't completely understand how a system of a few hundred neurons works, we can hardly expect to figure out a brain of 86 billion neurons" is a little irritating. 1. A similar argument might run: we can hardly understand all the complex interactions that are going on at the molecular level at the seashore, so how can we possibly model beach erosion. But the truth is that we don't always have to model everything to begin to understand how a system works, at least under a wide range of situations. 2. But also, it seemingly ignores that a lot of those 86 billion neurons have the same functional roles. On the one hand, its one way to build redundancy in the system--probably important for a creature living more than half a century and intimately involved in long-term care of offspring, but more neurons can offer more precision (e.g. a large population of neurons with varying tuning curves can you give you more precise estimates of values).