Edelman (1992: 40):
In considering our minds, we must also consider both our kinship with and our differences from other species. As I discuss in chapter 16, one difference is that each of us has an individual "soul" based on language. Whatever we find out about the properties of language, however, the sad fact is that neither psychology nor biology will permit the transmigration of souls.
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To be clear, 'an individual "soul" based on language' is Edelman's higher-order consciousness. From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic theory, because language is a social semiotic system distributed across members of a linguistic community, each individual consciousness is a uniquely developed individuated variant of the collective consciousness afforded by the language of the community.
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