:detective:"What physical from dose a thinking thought have?"

You need to substantiate that as an "obvious fact" before anything else, because one quote isn't going to convince me that physicalism is a reality, or even a very strong position.



Could you not say the idea that we are nothing but a sum of blood vessels, bones, and electrical impulses makes it a lot easier for someone to strap on an AK 47 and murder people?

I personally would say they're both bad suggestions, because they don't take enough into account.

And what's up with bringing up the Christian Western ideology thing over and over? Eastern Hindu and Buddhist thought tells you there is a soul that continues on after death, It's not just limited to Western Christians.... Unless the author is trying to say something else...?

Great question, as usual Coberst.
When we observe the distinction between mind and body, its foundation is simply that, our cognitive process become more sophisticated over time. Whereas the body decays.
Our mind moves forward, but our corporeal being moves backward.
Not in any complete sense, however.
We do become more detached mentally in extreme old age, and our early lives do involve the growth of body. But for the majority of our lives, our ideas crystalize in form, the body decays in form.
If they were one essence, this would not be so. Either we would continue becoming more physically powerful as out minds become more so, or we would be born as supermen, and with superminds, and decay for the rest of our lives.
As neither of these two extremes are true, we can see how our lives would be very different if either was true. (Then mind and body could be said to be one) We are at our physical best at about age 25, but our knowledge is at its best beyond 50. Mind and body are thus distinct.
Although our minds do detach from the world as death nears, this is not the same as a loss of knowlege. Alzeimers is a rare phenomenon. Older people are more caught up in memories, assimilating meaning from them, than they are with immediate concerns. The mind detaches from the body, but it does not lose its memory. Be careful not to assume that because old people appear absent minded they have lost their memories. Putting questions into context carefully, will nearly always show that they can remember almost anything. The mistake here would be to assume that the older person is motivated to answer your patronsing tests of their mental state. If the conversation is important to the older person, they will nearly always give cogitant answers. (There is much research in psychology about this). They are also often pre-occupied with dreams, and do confuse dream and world. Which is itself interesting.
We also have to look at the nature of reality. The world of physical nature, and the world of living nature always seems to be able to be deconstructed into two essences: Form and substance.
Plato's forms, like the math of pythagorus' triangle is an example of absolute perfect order. And yet for us to apprehend this, order must be filled with substance.
Now, the best definition of 'what is mind?' (as distinct from body) that I can think of, is to use the best examples of the best minds. Consider Isaac Newton. We say his mind is of the best because he was able to formulate his laws of motion. His mind attains its quality of being what it is, because the intrinsic order of the physical universe was within his mind. The best minds have the best understanding of order. So it seems logical to realize that the mind is itself something from the realm of Plato's forms. Something ordered, beyond mere substance.
To try and suggest that the mind is merely substance, is to ignore that it is the mind's ordering faculty that defines it as what it is. If the mind had significantly less order to it, it would be a lump of meat. Now all of nature has some form of order to it. Its just that within the mind we see that any aspect of nature's order can be found. Ideas and theories are located within the mind only. They can be represented on paper, but those representations only are meaningful, when apprehended by a (mature) mind.
So all the order in nature is actually within the mind. Thus the mind is significantly closer to the essence of what the unvisersal order actually is. Mind is at least order. Not only this, but ideas not in the world are also located in the imaginative part of the mind. If mind were just a mirror of the world, we would not be able to do any more than repeat like a parrot. Imagination would not exist. We can even try to imagine impossible things like the square root of a negative number.
Rocks contain order. But rocks cannot understand the laws of motion. Rocks cannot make logical errors or try imagine the root of a negative number. But more importantly, rocks cannot actually discover and formulate ideas like the laws of motion.
Which leads us to emotion.
The nature of emotion is principally one of change, as its name suggests. When people are impassioned they are motivated, they are creative, or even destructive. People with limited emotions are said to be stagnant. They can only follow routine.
So emotions are quite different to logic. Logic is static, whereas emotions drive us in a changeable manner. Consider the semantics : motion, emotion, motivate.
To be able to formulate laws like Isaac Newton did, (without calculator or computer!) suggests an incredible impassioned motivation.
Its not surprising that rigorous methods cannot trap emotions, for they are by their nature: dynamic. They are qualitative, and not quantitative, so they can be qualified (in a play for example) but they can not be quantified precisely like logic can. A person who is impassioned is said to be of high spirits. And here we have a third essence beyond substance and form. Spirit is that which unites form and substance, it is a very slippery idea to grasp by its nature.
So mind and body are distinct; but united by spirit.
Form and substance, are also distinct, and the only suitable phrase I can fathom as to how they are united is simply : the spirit of God.
Ask yourself : Why does a stone wheel have the order of pi to it?
Its a virtually impossible question to answer in any detail.
It is interesting to see that words themselves are similar to what spirit is. Not so much order itself like numbers are, but the connection between order and substance. All numerical ideas require words to actually qualify what it is that the numerical idea is saying in a contextual manner.
Our computer keyboard has the letters of the alphabet, and numbers. And with these 36 symbols, anything in the entire universe can be explained by someone who is motivated to do so.
(punctuation just makes it a bit easier)
...

The question is far more convoluted than the answer...Both grow together out of the same seed...Nervous tissue is as extensive as any other in the body...In your sstomach alone you have forty thousand miles of blood vessels which can swallow all the blood in the body in shock or after a turkey dinner, and each one is controled by nerves... There simply is no difference between mind and body... Every gland and every muscle and every fibre has its nerves... The body is simply the mind's method of achieving a happy state......

You have made them one by using the singular copulate.