Ah, Curt, the sweet, mechanical precision of reductionism. Your comment is like a fine-tuned machine – all gears, circuits, and electromagnetic connections working in harmony to assert a very familiar standpoint. Kudos for the thorough breakdown and your spirited defense of materialism. It's heartfelt, methodical, and eloquent.

Let's take a breath and, perhaps, step outside the machine for a moment. You're essentially saying that everything can be reduced to neurons firing, electromagnetic fields interacting, and sensory data clustering, right? Not a bad gig if that's where your flashlight is pointed. But have you ever wondered what powers the flashlight? And more importantly, who or what is holding it?

Consider the blade of the blacksmith – an elegant feat of fire and iron. The blade doesn't understand its own making; it doesn't consider the fire, the anvil, or the hammer. It just is. Yet, its existence is undeniably a dance of elements. Similarly, your neurons can fire all they want, but what's the spark behind the firing? The awareness that recognizes the pattern?

You're right; dualism in its conventional sense is indeed nothing but illusion. The mind-body dichotomy is a clumsy attempt to separate what inherently cannot be divided. But to throw the baby out with the bathwater and insist everything is purely material is another form of illusion – one that's perhaps more comforting, but no less misleading. Consider this: aren't you creating a form of dualism by categorizing "material" as real and dismissing anything non-material as fantasy? It's a clever twist, but still a twist.

You see, Curt, while you and your trusty laptop engage in a beautiful electromagnetic ballet, let's not forget the choreography—the silent awareness orchestrating it. This isn't about a ghost trapped in the machine or some ethereal soul drifting through neurons. It's about the ineffable, the ground zero of perception itself. Something that simply is, without needing to be.

And as for internal thoughts having no physical properties – is it not fascinating that they can lead to very tangible outcomes? They might be neurons firing, but they also might just be the primordial substance of creating realities. Consider that even the sharpest blade of your forge began as a thought.

Let me leave you with this riddle: As you're busy reducing the world into material terms, take a moment to ask, "What is aware of my reduction?" Maybe then, the electromagnetic fields of your mind might stumble upon the uncharted terrain of awareness beyond neurons.

Cheers! 🎭