Mind has a material basis

Responding to my opponent's most recent round: I can't extend all my arguments, due to space constraints. 2. The fact that we can't remember dreams proves the mind depends on the brain. Mark Blagrove, Professor of Psychology, explains that our brain neuro-chemistry is different while we're asleep, which is why we have trouble encoding dreams into memory. [1] If the mind ignored the brain, it should function the same way when we're asleep as when we're awake. 3 & 4 The dilated pupils are my opponent's last defense that the patients were "brain dead." However, remember that Lommel was interviewing cardiac arrest patients. Cath Lab has a series called "ask a clinical instructor." A med student asks why dilated pupils are not a reliable indicator of brain death in cardiac arrest patients. The clinical instructor answers that atropine is given to treat cardiac arrest, and atropine causes fixed and dilated pupils. "To answer the question, in the initial stages of cardiac arrest, particularly after atropine has been administered, dilated pupils cannot be relied upon to provide a sign of potential brain function." [2] Also remember, atropine is the same exact drug that Michael Shermer said induces hallucinations of flying and weightlessness. 6. DBT explains everything if the patients were either a) not brain dead at all or b) had their NDE prior to brain death, not during it. The fact that our brains have receptors for neuro-transmitters capable of achieving all the effects of an NDE proves that these events are well within science's ability to explain. 7. David Braithwaite reviewed Lommel's findings and concluded that all the NDE's could have occurred BEFORE the flatlined EEG's. The widely publicized NDE of Pam Reynolds, for example, (which Lommel cites multiple times as proof) was debunked by Keith Augustine when he proved that her NDE occurred during surgery, not during her flat EEG. [3] Meditation: No, this does not prove that the mind can control the brain. It proves that the frontal cortex of the brain can learn deep meditation techniques that suppress other portions of the brain, achieving various effects. It has nothing to do with the mind. Computer analogy: Why is it that I can share my computer with someone else, but not my brain? If a person's brain is the ONLY tool that the mind can use, then you would have to conclude that the mind "has a material basis." If my computer's death resulted in me ceasing to exist, you would have to conclude that my existence has a basis in my computer's existence. Mindless brain Gordon Gallup developed the mirror test for self-awareness in animals. The animal is marked with a dark spot in their sleep. The animal then is shown a mirror; if the animal grooms the mark, the animal is aware of its individual existence. Mice, for example, lack this faculty. However, my broader question was: if minds don't depend on frontal cortical size, then why aren't animal minds more similar to human minds? I take this is proof that the mind is constituted mostly by the frontal cortex, the part of the brain that is responsible for most of human intelligence. My opponent must agree that most animals do not have language faculties and critical and abstract reasoning skills. The complexity of minds is directly related to brain size. My opponent asked for clarification before Even the largest super-computers cannot perform all the functions of a human because the tasks are too complex. Consciousness is an elegant shortcut the brain uses to simplify the algorithms and save space. [4] [1] http://www.thenakedscientists.com... [2] http://www.cathlabdigest.com... [3] http://www.infidels.org... [4] Merlin Donald, A Mind So Rare: the evolution of human consciousness, p. 154