What is fascinating is how strongly and without proof many people believe the argument that "Consciousness is mortally bound to the physical body". If anything, this fixation seems like both an interesting study of the blind-spots of human mental process and as evidence that the situation is, in fact, rather unlikely.
This particular, uh, delusion, seems similar to the recurrent theme that an "intelligent" enough computer would/could "develop self-conscious" (whatever that is) and start "thinking for itself". Here, we have strong ideas about the properties of "self-consciousness", without, as you say, having a ghost of an idea of what it is.
This particular, uh, delusion, seems similar to the recurrent theme that an "intelligent" enough computer would/could "develop self-conscious" (whatever that is) and start "thinking for itself". Here, we have strong ideas about the properties of "self-consciousness", without, as you say, having a ghost of an idea of what it is.