Modern scientists have done a good job, dividing the brain into multiple, discrete regions with satisfyingly technical names.. hypothalamus, caudate nucleus, neocortex.. and mapping particular functions to particular sites. Here is abstract thought; here - creativity; here is emotion; here is speech.

The brain is a bordered organ, subdivided into zones and functions. But the lines are blurrier than we ever imagined.

Finally and most elusively, we are learning something about consciousness itself. The ghost in the neural machine that gives you the sense of being in the moment, peering out at the world from the control room behind your eyes.

If we can identify that cognitive kernel, can we one day endow a machine with it? But by isolating such a thing, do we in some way annihilate it too?

Human beings have always been brash enough to ask such questions but lacked the necessary gifts to answer them.