It seems that 1. the ability of drugs to warp the mind and 2. the ability of researchers to implant memories into the minds of rats by altering proteins both suggest that the mind is a strictly materialistic phenomenon.
How is that a jump? The contents and behavior of everything else are the same thing. We just think our minds are special because we have no external reference frame. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, the most likely explanation by far is that our minds are vastly complex chemical reactions, computers with some of our outputs connected back to our inputs giving us the illusion of dualistic self awareness.
With as many neurons and synapses as we have, there is more than enough complexity to expect the mind to be purely physical. I don't see why that bothers so many people; I think it's incredibly awesome.
