If you sufficiently disrupt brain structure, it stops producing abstract thought. This means that either the brain is producing abstract thought or that the br

If you sufficiently disrupt brain structure, it stops producing abstract thought. This means that either the brain is producing abstract thought or that the brain is some sort of dualist mechanism for interacting with a soul of some description. We have a very good theory describing how (in principle) the chemical structure of the brain can lead to observed behavior. The hard part now is figuring out the implementation details. I can tell you how a computer works in general even though I can't tell you how, exactly, a particular model running a particular OS works. On the other hand, we have no physical evidence that dualism is correct (i.e. that thought arises from some non-physical mechanism), and any theory posited to account for this is vastly more complicated than the relatively simple behaviour governing the activity of neurons in the brain. Non sunt multiplicanda entia sine necessitate. It also seems strange to me, if there is a non-physical mechanism of thought, that imbibing certain chemicals can vastly alter the behavior of this mechanism. On the other hand, this makes perfect sense if the source of thought is chemical interaction between neurons.