[mountainboy]

This goes to the age old debate between vitalists and materialists.

In other words, does conciousness/spirit precede and shape matter, or does matter precede and shape conciousness/spirit?

Modern/western science is pretty firmly entrenched in a materialist view. Although it seems more are questioning that these days.

Personally I think that the brain is probably closer to a radio than a CPU. In other words, it is the bridge that enables our ethereal spirit/conciousness to experience and interact with the material world.

Just as hackernews does not exist in my laptop, neither does my "self" exist in my brain. Rather my laptop and my brain are each providing a terminal to a remote realm.

No amount of examining and dissecting my computer will reveal the code that runs hackernews, youtube, google, etc. It would be foolish to suggest it.

Yet that is exactly what neurologists try to do... with predictably miserable results.