> Materialism cannot account for the mental, and so it doesn't matter if it's simpler here anyway because it can't do the job.

A LOT of people would disagree with this. Practically every neuroscientist, most AI researchers, etc...

We know pretty well how the "material" brain works, and how this leads to intelligence, etc... We don't know every detail exactly, but there is a clear path leading there.

There are precisely zero coherent non-material models for cognition. They're about as concrete as a random shower thought ("what if we have a ghost inside us?").

Fundamentally, all non-materialist models would make at least one testable prediction: brains would have to operate in ways that defy their physical natures. Signals go in and then instead of whatever it is that nerves do, something else happens, and then signals based on that something else go out.

If you say that everything proceeds as per whatever the nerves do, then you're a materialist.

If you say the nerves are superfluous to cognition, then you should be fine with having your brains scooped out.

Pick one.