if it does, then the vagus nerve orchestrates the brain-body connection.
the mind-body problem, or if you prefer the mind-brain problem, remains unsolved. and apparently, mind-brain confusion persists as well.
I had the exact same reaction: "mind" as in "mind-body" for me refers to things such as reasoning, qualia, intentionality, the fact that neural patterns somehow receive "real meaning".
The mind may or may not be immaterial. This age-old question has not been resolved in any way, not even close.
you are presenting an untestable-and-only-descriptive-hypothesis as a theory.
if we assume that what we know about it today is all there is, then yes, it must be your way. But why assume that what we know is all there is, that assumption has always turned out wrong for thousands of years? Better to say "we don't know what the nature of the mind is or where it comes from beyond the clear evidence that it's tied to the brain."
It seems very possible the mind is just a superstitious artifact but this idea persist in various forms because to let go of it truly means the lights go out at death. We seem incredibly good at telling ourselves stories to deny that reality.
I don't think it's necessary a fear of death which makes theories that eliminate the mind unappealing to many either, personally I find the idea of oblivion a lot less unsettling than many of the proposed afterlifes!
that's not a problem. you have proof there is no soul? if there is another "physics-cal" ingredient for the mind that we don't know about, and it is discovered in a particle accelerator, "it" could even be the soul.
I was an atheist from my earliest beginnings (when my 5 years older sister tried to teach little-me what she learned in Sunday school, I did not believe it, at all), and I have never believed, and still don't. HOWEVER, intellectually it freed my mind to figure out/learn/realize that "scientific materialism" is based on just as much pure FAITH as religion; only it's generally accompanied by less doubt so it comes off as, forget about arrogant, blind. I try now to no longer to say things that are based on assumption.
Correlation is not causation, right? you know what the implications of that is? We have no evidence of causation of anything anywhere in the universe, all we have is very good correlation, even through our popperian refutable hypotheses, "well, it's worked every time we've made a prediction and tried it" is not causation any more than just correlation.
so what people said 400 years ago about souls, and what they say today about minds, you still should not claim to know the answer to, simply because you don't. And I know this from the perspective of holding the same BELIEFS as you.
and before anybody writes to tell me I'm wrong, be prepared to answer these questions: what is the mechanism for gravity? what is the mechanism for momentum? what is the mechanism for electric charge? you won't be able to say anything except "it's a property we observe"
> if we assume that what we know about it today is all there is,
This is a contradiction. It's easy to falsify the hypothesis: Show us that this isn't all there is. Until that time, it's a good hypothesis.