I've already replied to some of this, but re: your mice vs. humans example, my views on this are that the fundamental algorithmic innovation that makes humans so intelligent was already present in mice, and almost all critters in the "bigger than a bug" families. Fundamentally we do process information in the same way as mice, it's merely a matter of turning up some of the intensity knobs (or more likely, adding a few more well-tuned layers to the network that already exists) to let humans take intelligent thought to new realms of utility.