I think trust comes in many forms, and is difficult to define. It also depends on expectation.

For example, one of my friends has a tendency to exaggerate, and sometimes even to fabricate. I can't trust that he is always telling me the truth, but then as long as I keep that in mind, it causes me no hardship. But in a crisis, I would trust him with my life. I trust that he wouldn't harm me, and would come through for me if I needed it.

Trust can also be very specific. Perhaps I need to leave a message for someone with their receptionist. I don't know the receptionist, so I have no idea whether I could trust them as such, but I can get some sense by their phone manner as to their professionalism, and if that impression is a good one then I will feel that I can trust them to pass on the message correctly.

So for me, it's important to qualify trust. I don't tend to ask myself 'Do I trust this person?'. But I might ask myself 'Do I trust this person to tell me the truth?'. Or 'Do I trust this person not to steal my wallet if they find it lying around?'.

I don't have a lot of faith in politicians, but I tend to have faith in the civil servants who work behind them (and for whose work I'm sure the politicians take the credit a lot of the time). We'll see I guess.

That's an interesting question which perhaps touches a little on the senses. If we had no sense that there was anything but ourselves, would we still have consciousness? And if consciousness is dependant on external stimuli then that in itself raises some very intriguing debates.

For me, I think the answer is both yes and no.

Could I switch off my computer and go to bed right now without posting this comment? Of course, if I wanted to. But I want to post the comment, so that's what I'm going to do.

Here's the question though. If time were rewound and my mum gave birth to me all over again, and I had no memory of my first run-through, would my life unfold the same way the second time around, or differently?

At the time of birth, my body was configured a certain way. My brain cells were too. That particular configuration of cells gave rise to me – my conscious mind; my personality. Was my entire life mapped out at that point? Would changing a single brain cell have led me to make different choices at different points throughout my life? If, as they say, you simply can't avoid being the person you are, then I'd be tempted to say that free will does not exist.

In a way I think it depends on how you see consciousness. If you take it as an inevitable outcome of the human brain being what it is, then perhaps all your choices are essentially made for you the moment you are born.

I don't know where I stand on consciousness, and as a result I don't really know where I stand on free will either. But there are certainly times when I agonise over a particular decision ad nauseum that I wish I didn't have free will!

As I sit here and type this, I'm intrigued by the thought that this is essentially my brain trying to understand its own nature.

Or is it? Is consciousness a result of, or a part of, the brain – or does it just reside in the brain for the time being? I don't know what I believe on that one.

The debate surrounding consciousness is something that's been doing backflips in my mind for several nights now, so I'm glad this thread is here.

So here we are, humans, and we have consciousness. But it's argued that not everything living has consciousness: plants, bacteria...I think it's safe to say most people would say these kinds of things don't. In any case, there must come a point as life gets simpler and simpler, at which a line is drawn between consciousness and no consciousness. But where does that line lie?

I suppose you could say that once you have a brain, you become conscious. But how much of a brain do you have to have? At what point in its development does an embryonic brain cross over from non-conscious to conscious? How much of a person's brain could you take away before they were no longer conscious?

So many questions and so few answers.

I wonder to what degree consciousness depends on the senses. For example, as I sit here now, if I were to lose all my senses so that I could no longer see, hear, smell, feel or taste anything, I would still be conscious. I would be able to think 'What the hell has happened, where did the world go?!'. What though if I was born this way? Born without the ability to detect that there was a world around me. I'd have no concept of language, space or perhaps even time. I wouldn't be able to learn anything. Would such a hypothetical infant have, or develop, consciousness? If you could grow a brain in a lab, would it be conscious? Imagine what a horrifying consciousness that would be.

It may of course be that simpler forms of life have a different type of consciousness. And if that's the case, what type of consciousness might a more complex form of life than ourselves have?

I generally tend to feel that governments will find a way to make pretty much anything work and come out the other side, basically because that's their job. So I didn't vote in the referendum because really I don't think that a huge difference will be seen in the long run leave or remain, at least not in most people's lives anyway.