"The quest for a neurological marker of the first events of human life owes its impetus to the perceived symmetry between processes at the beginning and end of life. Burgess and Tawia write: "If conscious experiences ... are the aspect of our lives we value when we look forward, considerations of symmetry dictate that we first acquire a capacity for what we most value in our lives when we first become conscious". They view the beginning of consciousness as the beginning of "cortical life". A concrete expression of this trend has been provided by Sass, who advocates the legal protection of "personal life (animate life) from the beginning of brain functioning (brain life) to its end (brain death)"."