StringJunky

That's a good idea.

My riposte: They also perform the other functions you mention. TBH I've only recently learnt that semicolons and colons can be pause indicators. I've genning up on creative writing and they are often used for that purpose in that genre.

Citation?

The idea of a 'soul' has religious origins where the body is considered to be just a vessel for a person's spirit. which vacates when a person dies.

I put the Counting Crows cover up a bit a go,

The opening minute of this is an orgy of far out, tripped out Rock bliss.Yes, I'm that old.

I don't think they are distinct layers, or areas, but a single continuum where we arbitrarily assign those labels depending on the level of neuronal complexity or information processing we are looking at.

There's an EM field produced by opposite charges.

Because they have net charge and can easily react; that's the 'electrical' bit when lots of them act together in sequence. It is a fact of atoms that they all want to have a full outer shell of 8 electrons to be at their most stable state. and every reaction they undertake is towards that end. A positive ion has a deficit of electrons so it will take an electron from an atom that has too many (negative ion). That exchange constitutes the electrical impulse when you put lots of these in series,

In a sense, commas, semi-colons, colons and full stops denote periods of rest in the flow of reading. Each one, respectively, is one beat of silence longer than the previous one in my list. So, if you put a comma after a conjunction it does add emphasis.

Well done on the appointment, ajb.

Yes, it's electrical but the consciousness bit is the behaviour of the entire set of components, not the electricity itself. It's the whole whole collection of impulses that make the consciousness. The mind is information. like code in a computer is information but a piece of code is not a program..

I think I see what you mean; You use either 'but' or ',' but not both because they have the same function. From your link:

I think you need to read about emergence; it is an important concept in higher or complex biological and physical systems.

Don't worry, the loss of one neuron will have the same effect as taking a cup of water from a lake on it's waterline; negligible to zero.

Consciousness arises from the actions of many neurons, not one. One neuron is not some fraction of consciousness just as one brick is not some fraction of a house; it's just a brick.

Also, if you reuse the same cell line the senescence is still there and the likelihood of cancer etc increases; you are still as old.as you are. If we can create life from scratch, we will; curiosity demands it. We'll put the ethics on after the fact.

Trump might become president.....In fact, I hope the US does then the US and UK can look total twats together in front of the world.

It's 2cm. now http://www.livescience.com/50545-most-precise-atomic-clock.html

It was, Strange, but it was strange.

Don't overthink it. Time is what clocks measure, just as rulers measure space or distance.You never hear people asking "What is the ontology of distance?" it's a parameter that can be measured with clocks, nothing more. It is existential with space and does not require objects for it to exist. What objects do is curve spacetime and thus alters the rate of time relative to another frame that is not moving with the same velocity and/or not in the same gravitational potential. See my response to Thoram. That's as much i think I know on the subject. I think the notion of the soul arises from Cartesian duality which stems from religion; the mind and body being distinct. The evidence suggests, as you know, that mind (soul) is an emergent property of the brain's processes. So we are back to the question as to what empirical evidence we have for the "soul" and whether we can make predictions about it, or measure it, or whatever.

"Head, meet Wall".