Yes. The brute force approach is one that’s based on the idea of mathematical calculation in series and sequence. That model of computation allows you to do things like calculate the trajectory of an orbit to within 12 significant digits, things like this. These were the kinds of things that the very earliest computers did.
Unfortunately, they were machines designed for warfare, more often than not. But the other model for computation, which involved the parallel flow of information through neurons, was really designed to mimic what we know, what we even knew in 1948 happened in brains.
But at that time, computers were really not powerful enough to implement meaningful versions of those kinds of brains that are modeled after the physiology of real animals.