[textninja]

Can a collection of around 1.5 billion interconnected cells that predictably respond to signals in their environment using simple rules? How about 86 billion? 36 trillion?

These are ballpark counts of cells in crow’s brain, a human’s brain, and a human body. The question is, is it the cells themselves doing the reasoning and planning, or are they just the machinery this disembodied process happens to be running on? I’d argue intelligence is a distributed phenomenon that our DNA is as much a party to as our brains.

Certainly the question of whether humans use DNA to reproduce or DNA uses humans is a matter of perspective.