You could be right, but history is against you. Ghosts and spirits are the age old animators of just about everything in nature, from sunsets to earthquakes.
I find it odd to see such a vehement disconnect between humans and animals, a kind of Imaginot line designed to resist invaders rather than to clarify thought. What can possibly motivate you to deny that animal brains are like human brains, only simpler and less capable? Do you deny that animals dream? Have you ever watched a dog or cat sleep?
What's going on there? (Actually, this has been studied, using MRI and comparing scans done during wakeful activity with those done during sleep.)
I need to have something clarified about your position. Are you asserting that humans, and only humans, have some sort of non-tangible gizmo interacting with the brain?
Yes. It's called free will. Which seems to be predicated on a self-reflecting consciousness. Brains do not reflect on themselves -- perhaps the picture of a deterministic universe as described by classical physics might give us this idea. But classical physics doesn't have much to say about consciousness. If there is to be any "reflecting on brains," or any other system in the universe, there needs to be a "thinker" who is somehow independent of the brain itself. We -- self aware -- know that it is our consciousness that is doing the reflecting.
I do not denigrate animal consciousness in noting that it is strongly doubtful to me that animals reflect on the structure of their brains. They either dream; or undergo some strange motor contortions while they sleep. I cannot "enter into" the mind of a cat or dog, wakeful or sleeping. But I do assume that the consciousness of other humans is rather like my own.
Are you asserting that humans, and only humans, have some sort of non-tangible gizmo interacting with the brain?
I certainly have asserted this, that the brain is the transmitter/receiver for the spirit (the neshama in Hebrew.) My post 865