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.
Well, sure, but that's a semantic point rather than a scientific one. The colorectal basis of peristalsis is likewise not peristalsis, but if you want to understand it, you are best off studying the bowels.
OK, that was vulgar, but this is the Smok'y Backroom. A more genteel analogy might be to say that the paint is not the image, and in fact I like that better, because the same image can be expressed equally well on a computer screen or a t-shirt as on a canvas. I see no reason not to expect that the same will be true of minds, with what is now instantiated in fragile wetware being expressed in greater detail on a grain of sand, a mote of dust, or a beam of light.
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.
Unless, of course, the hypothesis is the correct one, after all.
The problem here is that we're using nouns ("The" Mind, consciousness, "soul", if you will) to express what is probably better off as a verb. "Mind" is the action performed, for instance, by the brain.