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Think we're going to get bogged down in unclear relationships to tackle this sorry...
If anything that processes information is a computer, do all computers have programs?

I'm not objecting to the word computer per se, I just don't think a deflationary sense of the word is of any interest for comparision to the brain. The word could be of use to help illuminate what the brain is (and is not), but the comparison I sense would have to be with something more like a general purpose computer / universal computing device.

You're not understanding me. I'm not trying to argue such things don't process information.

I can't argue against "Is the brain a computer?" + "Anything that processes information is a computer" combination. If we're taking an essentialist definition of the word computer then we should ditch the term and the the title of the page should just be "Does the brain process information?" - which I have no interest in objecting against.

My original attempted criticism was against the statement that anything processing information is a computer. (Taking a deflationary concept of a computer is not what I presumed was meant in the title of the discussion).

Parking the word computer aside, based on the resultant thread, more interesting questions to me are:
1) What is the demarcation between something that processes information and something that does not?
2) What is the demarcation between something that processes information and the human brain?

I'll have to tap out sorry. Possibly talking on different trajectories.

If an OR gate is conceived as a computer then the initial post about the brain being conceived as a computer is a banality / an uninteresting syllogism.

Cool. Not sure I can criticise a syllogism. I can try push the definition ad absurdum...
- A light switch processes information. Therefore, a light switch is a computer.
- An OR gate processes information. Therefore, an OR gate is a computer.

A ribosome processes information. A ribosome is not a computer.