look at all the little cogs putting on airs...

First, I want to take issue with your claim that the brain is a complex variant of a computer. This is patently false. Computers were built to model some of the brain's functions, but its a logical error to reverse this causation and assume that what a brain is, is essentially just a more complex model.

I want to know why you feel that identifying with an organism has a more engaging aspect to it than identifying with a machine? Aren't all the part of a machine as equally engaged as the parts of an organism? In fact, with a machine, assuming its well engineered, one could say that all the parts are essential. Everything involved plays its own vital role. With organisms, well, let's just say I still have an appendix, and its not doing anything for me.

I'd think that regardless of how you structure these possibilities, its impossible to show that one is actually better or more fruitful then the other. Obviously they're both just a mask one can wear to hide from the world and for this reason alone I think it's a silly question.