The concept of algorithm is really powerful to explain phenomenon related to minds. It might be possible to attribute desires and beliefs to the symbol-manipulating effects of algorithmic processes, and as such we can understand "virtual" algorithmic systems by using the vocabulary to describe own behavior. Daniel Dennett refers to our antropocentric views as intentional stance which might also be useful in many realms, to understand the complicated lives of our fragile ecosystem, or the miosis of cells by DNA programs, or the decision-making processes in our brains, the interactions in groups and societies, or the design of complicated artifacts.
Of course there is some resistance to the idea that minds or even the fascinating games of live might be seen as cold, mechanistic, algorithmic processes. I don't think so. I think the new point of view rather provides much more interesting ways to look at ourselves, very much similar to the joy of doing mathematics, as Andrew Wiles, the mathematician who gave the final resolution to Fermat conjectures puts it:
"Perhaps I can best describe my experience of doing mathematics in terms of a journey through a dark unexplored mansion. You enter the first room of the mansion and it's completely dark. You stumble around bumping into the furniture, but gradually you learn where each piece of furniture is. Finally after six months or so, you find the light switch, you turn it on, and suddenly it's all illuminated. You can see exactly where you were. Then you move into the next room and spend another six months in the dark. So each of these breakthroughs, while sometimes they're momentary, sometimes over a period of a day or two, they are the culmination of - and couldn't exist without - the many months of stumbling around the dark that precede them."
