Cofty wrote: “All the evidence from neuroscience shows that we are our brains. There is no 'ghost in the machine'.”
Let neuroscience come with full explanation. At present neuroscientists have only partial view. That is why you find both group in neuroscience—those who believe like you and those who believe ‘there is a ghost in the machine.’ Spiritual Brain--A Neuroscientist’s Case for the Existence of the Soul, written by Mario Beauregard and Denyse O’Leary)
It is true that when brain is damaged, or when brain chemistry is changed it affects functional activities of the mind because they are based on the physical substance of the brain (just like damage in the hardware of your computer would affect the functional activities of the software you use) because of which some may feel that the mind is what the brain does. It only says about the correlation between the mind and the brain; but would correlation imply causation?
Here is an interesting quote: “Has neuroscience revealed an empirical identity between psychological states and brain states? It clearly has not, nor does it seem that it ever could. What neuroscience does is to provide us with ever more precise descriptions of the goings-on in our brains that are correlated with our psychological states ….. Correlation is a far cry from identity; two phenomena can be perfectly correlated, without being identical.” (Mind, Matter and Nature, James Madden, page 108)
But Jesus was talking about something that has control even over mind. He was in link with God; hence to which level his consciousness would move we do not know because there are crude consciousness filled with physical reality, subtle consciousness filled with subtle reality, pure consciousness … etc. When the mind tells a physically crippled man ‘this is how I am, I can only accomplish this much’ it becomes a reality for him. But something in Stephen Hawking overruled his mind when it told him the same. That something is different from mind. That is why he could prove that one who has a physically challenging disability can overcome it in spirit and do even more than ‘able’ people can do.