There are many steps required to understand any data. First is the gathering of the data, analyzing the data, then fitting the data to a model and finally the understanding. Obviously, there are many more steps and these phases can also be subdivided into many subsections.
How does the human brain do it ?
Each of the nerves and “sensors” like eye, ear and skin are sending individual signals all the time. This needs to be integrated into memory and understanding and then converted to action. There is an interesting talk by Dr Jill Bolte Taylor in TED about her experience with a brain aneurysm that incapacitated her left side of the brain and her experience during that time. This is the probably one of the most often watched talk on TED but this also tells you about the processing of information by the brain.
Obviously, this is not a fully understood subject but it is interesting to study how brain processes the complex world. The lateral function dependence in the brain two hemispheres has been the most easily researched even though it is known that specific regions of the brain are responsible for specific functions. Thus the right side of the brain is responsible for: space judgement, body position, understanding and remembering things, and aggregation of information. The left side controls the language, memory and analysis of information. The link between them is corpus collosum that forms the link between both of them. It is interesting to go to Jill’s web page and listen to how disconnecting one hemisphere changed our perception of the world.
Correlating brain processing with the equivalent of processing information in the computer are the various computer subroutines that perform various functions and the link between them is the whole program. With that analogy, complex data sets will need to be analyzed by unique segments of processing that performs separate functions. However, the functions need to be combined into groups that perform sets of functions that are more related to each other and can complement each other. In the brain this is accomplished in a three dimensional matrix but with a computer that is probably easily executed. Later these individual groups can be combined to form the complete program.