I should have a blog really, but I find blogging quite lonely so I'm afraid I'll have to use you!
Sorry. This thread I want to use as a link repository (not suppository like I once said in error) and to catalogue the evolution of a new idea of mine, if it develops. I find it useful to retrace ones journey and especially if you need to trace errors in your thinking.
The central premise is that the brain grew out of the immune system. That is, that all brain cells, not just glia, grew from immunal cells, and my current view is that Dendritic Cells (also called Langerhan Cells) and Neurons have a common ancerstor, and that this ancestry is shared in a number of immune forms adapted to immune tasks, or, that it is shared from many immune types to the ancestor of neurons.
So, this is a simple concept, the brain is a structural immune system, and the 'immune cells', or neurons, are networks that have an origin in immune cells and which need to be networked into larger groups by special integrationalist, 'cables' or axons. The two systems, 'immune network' and 'cable' are deemed as distinct innovations. The origin of each are very important in a functionally effective whole - that is, the true brain innovation is not neurons onm the given parts of the brain, but the long connections and shielding and the mechanisms by which these integrate the terminal networks together. Thus the central innovation of all brains are not the 'neurons' but the network technology between neurons. The neurons are veiwed to interact using a number of immune technologies developed for cells of that system.