He hadn't even considered whether capacity was well defined in a distributed system. He has a brand spanking new theory that allows him to jump straight past abstractions and simplifications and "ancient 1980s views"[1] and "fun curiosities" like the basics of dynamics, structure, organization, and composition described in an ancient book (2000s) he couldn't possibly learn anything from because he's a biologist and knows better. Nevermind that it smells an awful lot like [2]. But he doesn't need to know anything about it it or acknowledge it because dummy non-biologists couldn't possibly help someone as smart as him.

[1] https://www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/pnas.79.8.2554 a paper he confidentally rejected as meaningless, unaware and not interested in the overwhelmingly likely possibility that his current brand new ideas trace back to it.

[2] "I’m stitching across a lot of different research, and I want to be clear many aspects of this system are not yet fully worked out.

But what we do know points to a system that works with different physical and algorithmic priors, and the dynamics are sharply distinct from current digital computers." Hmm, I wonder if "we" figured that stuff out from individual and especially collaborative efforts combining abstractions and more theoretical approaches with expertise in biology, not to mention EE, biophysics, physics, and whatever else other fields that don't know about his favorite molecule and thus can be ignored if not shit on?