Monist vs. Dualist Experiment?

[pocaracas]

So what?

So the brain is way too complex.
We don't have the ability to track every single nerve impulse and build a clear map between brain activity and "consciousness".

So, we're left with wild speculation... maybe not that wild...

It seems that brain damage leads to mental incapacitation.
Imbalanced brain chemistry leads to altered states of consciousness.
Child brain physiology leads to... well... child-like behavior... The same applies for the teenage brain and the teenage behavior (http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/print/...dobbs-text).
Death is permanent and no consciousness has ever been found to go from one brain to another.

These findings, in turn, hint towards the fact that the brain is the processor of consciousness. And consciousness is nothing more than an "emergent quality" of the functioning brain. As I like to say, consciousness is a high abstraction layer, far removed from the basic neuron firings, but they are what fuels and determines the conscious mind.

Nothing hints towards the dual-nature so present in the body-soul paradigm.... except a lot of wishful thinking. No one wants their consciousness, their acquired experience, their knowledge, their compassion, their love.... no one wants those things to just disappear forever in a flash, aka, death. So we hang on to them and refuse to acknowledge the thought that they are as ephemeral as our own life.