Frank:

Your conviction that mind and brain are synonymous, more or less, is interesting. There is a lot of experiential data that indicates that thought occurs separately from the brain, such as the various OOB experiences and NDE's that have been discussed here in different threads. Just upthread from here there is a link to a case of a man who was totally flat-lined--brain-dead as far as the instruments could tell--but who was called back to life by pleas from his wife.

I am just saying that your hard-over conclusion might be a bit premature.

There are a lot of possible reasons for not wanting to consider anything spiritual about an individual and to lock onto the materialist interpretation, but I don't think they are good reasons.