Scientific data can't prove any hypothesis, it can only support or disprove it. There is, of course, plenty of data supporting the idea that the mind is electrochemical in nature: mind-altering drugs and anesthetics, electroshock therapy and PMS all point in that direction. I would say that there's no data to refute the electrochemical basis of the mind, and no other hypothesis with better factual support.
But that doesn’t mean that we humans are reduced to a linear series of neural synaptic events electrochemically induced and somehow sorted out by the “mechanism” called brain. It also doesn’t mean we ought to devalue or delegitimate human conscious experience, introspectively examined. For if we do this, then ultimately there is no way to guard against the depredations of folks who think it’s O.K. “to enjoy the infliction of cruelty.”
But of course we can guard against it. Consider: when a bacterial infection strikes a rat, there's no objective way--either in the domain of logic or of moral sentiment--for us to say that the rat is "better" than the bacteria that are killing it, or that its genes should be favored for propagation over theirs. This moral toss-up doesn't trouble the immune system of the rat, however: it recognizes the threat and does its level best to destroy it. Somehow this unjustified intolerance doesn't give us a moment's philosophical pause.
Whether or not we can come up with a strictly objective moral justification for neutralizing sociopaths, our society will do either do it or succumb.
You wrote: "I would say that there's no data to refute the electrochemical basis of the mind, and no other hypothesis with better factual support."
The point is, the putative electrochemical basis (it may well be so!) of the mind is still not the MIND, it is only "basis." But if we're gonna rest on our laurels at this juncture, and not pursue other hypotheses, if only to "cross-check" the one we've already got, then we're not going to learn anything new about the mind. I call this "resting on doctrine." Which is what a whole lot of scientists, not to mention religious people, seem to do these days.
Here's an analogy to illustrate what I mean: Christians are called to faith, not in a doctrinal text, but faith in a direct relationship (i.e., communion) with God. To put the "doctrine" in the place of the "reality" (which is God) is to commit a very grave act of idolatry.
Analogously, it is particularly noticeable in Darwinism that the "doctrine" is often the end in view; the reality is made to conform to it, as if the doctrine were a kind of template designed to filter all reality to a set of preferred "statements" or categories. Thus, resorting to the doctrine primarily, we say we understand something. But what do we understand? Is it reality? or only the doctrine?
The only alternative to doctrinaire thinking is complete openness of conscious existence to its ground -- similar to the analogy of what Christianity requires of its faithful ones. Otherwise, all we do (arguably) is to shape our understanding of nature in our own image.
JMHO FWIW.
Other able physicists, Evan Harris Walker and Roger Penrose among them, would not agree, if this is argument from authority.
The speed of light in classical physics is constant relative to what? To the observer. Or am I mistaken?
Physicist, the mind cannot be this easily discounted or dismissed.
Of course it can, else we would not be able to build up knowledge by 'piling on' one scientific theory upon another. If nothing were true, then the scientific advances we have seen the last two centuries would have been totally impossible. You cannot build castles on sand, but you can build great edificices upon scientific knowledge.
This silly know-nothingism is a complete denial of reality.