In Gödel Escher Bach by Hofstadter there is a wonderful dialogue called "Ant Fugue" and it explores the idea of an ant colony as a conscious mind. Even though each ant is just following near-mechanical rules, the behavior of the colony as a whole can exhibit intelligence, and Dr. Anteater explains that even though he eats ants, he is friends with several ant colonies.
Why not make a group of computers able to work together like an ant colony, instead of a rigid structure like a grid? Maybe the way to make computers truly intelligent and flexible is not with more complexity and higher-level organization, but use Hofstadter's ideas and work from the bottom up. Just let there be a lot of different tunnels and chambers (namespaces) and tons of ant trails carrying data back and forth (mux-pipes) and let it all be free-form and grow however the little ants want to scurry. Maybe that would be a good way to build a more flexible computer system that could evolve toward the same kind of emergent intelligence that Dr. Anteater described in Douglas Hofstadter's Ant Fugue from GEB.
