The big difference between computers and living organisms is that computers are designed by humans and meant to be understood by humans. Those that design compu

The big difference between computers and living organisms is that computers are designed by humans and meant to be understood by humans. Those that design computers must understand them, and so do those that write code for them, those that write compilers, those that write operating systems, and so on. None of this applies to a living being or any of its parts. I think your thought experiment makes the mistake that such an abstraction-less computer would still be designed and built by humans. That won't work, because no human can understand the whole of it all at once, hence the need for abstractions. A computer "designed" by an incredibly complex computer program could push that barrier but probably not break it. If you really want an analogy to actual life, such a computer would have to be the outcome of some evolution-like process. And no, not what people like to call "evolutionary process" or something like that today, but actual evolution that mirrors biology -- and quickly becomes too complex to understand by humans.