Sigh.  Certainly the human brain is the most optimized (so far!) for being a human and the elephant&#x27;s the most optimized for being an elephant.  Clearly you need more neurons than a few to get higher functions, but above some (probably tiny) threshold structure dominates.  It&#x27;s like deriving function and performance by counting the number of transistors on a chip.<p>We see Apple&#x27;s A9 is currently the peak performer ($&#x2F;W, $&#x2F;FLOPS) for a mobile device with a big screen... but is still very very far away from Intel&#x27;s general purpose chips.  Does that mean one is &quot;better&quot;?  No, they just picked different optimization points.<p>Far more interesting is why a chihuahua with a walnut-sized brain is just as smart as an irish wolfhound that has a brain that masses about as much as a whole chihuahua!