Not really. There ARE some bright minds at my university and I doubt all of them would say that "my strong sense of independence and free will are good forms of adaptation" (especially - seeing how well such intuitions allow me to adapt to the rest of the society ;)). After all - if there are people with the audacity to put everything they've learned to doubt, they are most likely studying philosophy. The rest of the world seems to be mostly brainwashed (as much as I hate the term) either by religion or science. I honestly don't know what's worse...

Not really. It's like a difference between reincarnation and having a clone. In the first case - it's you and you live on. In the second - it looks the same but has a mind of it's own.
Although - I know why you're too blind to see the difference. I also find it hilarious that you admit you don't care if you're dead (i.e: mind-less) or alive as long as your body remains intact and does some things...

At this point, I'd like to point it out explicitly: there is a difference between phenomenological and functional consciousness. The first one is the one you experience on daily basis, no matter how much you'd like to be a zombie.
Also - remember that correlation =/= causality. If certain states of the brain occur with certain states of the mind, either can be the cause, as well as we might have a third thing (for example: will) that can be the cause of both or one (with the other being affected by the former).

You might also want to consider the famous "Black and White Mary" example.

I have read a LOT about what a person is, although - mostly from the wonderful period of time when psychology was a part of philosophy and true to its name (it dealt with the "psyche", the soul). I've also had half a year of "Psychology 101 for philosophers" and half a year of "philosophycal problems in biology", where I was forced to read modern, empirically-focused text on a regular basis.
So - yeah. Psychology is not major, but I'm no ignorant either.
I was trying not to disrupt the discussion, yet at some point it became apparent that in most cases modern psychology can "explain" everything, yet predict next to nothing. Better yet - in most cases both action A and action ~A were considered rational, while different theories were applied to explain why. While it doesn't prove anything straight off the bat, it was sometimes hilarious to observe.

For your own amusement: we were to read a part of Geoffrey Miller's "The Mating Mind" (one of those wonderful books that might render the reader asexual if taken seriously), where he reminds the readers that the stereotype of "Man: the Hunter" had been proven wrong quite some time ago in the book "Woman: the Gatherer". Basically - in those wonderful, primitive times, men WERE hunting, yet most of the time they were NOT successful at it. To top it all up - they were hunting huge beasts, where their chances were minimal, while women were hunting bunnies and gathering food. Not only hadn't men provide the basic form of nutrition - a successful hunt was split among everyone in the group/tribe, so we can't even say that women traded sex for meat. In short - "hunting" was a prehistorical form of SPORT, entertainment. To further add insult to the injury - Miller claims that not only did women not find it irritating that they were the ones to gather food, hunt, take care of the kids, saw clothes, etc; they actually were attracted to those lazy bastards that were successful. At this point it's twisted, but conceivable, as we MAY find an evolutionary use for such behavior (despite of the fact that man taking less risks would provide a steadier "income"). What stunned me was the conclusion, that "this is why women find succesful sportsmen so attractive". They DO ? Really ?
My first thought was that there are very few people into sports (actively, at least) and those that are aren't exactly perceived as SO much more attractive (I know I can't back up this claim - but bear with me). Then, in a flash of understanding, one question came to my mind: is Miller American ? Why, YES, he sure is. And that explains a LOT, because I've heard a lot about how Americans treat sport (I sure you know this better than I do) - cheerleaders, high school baseball teams, etc. The problem is - it's NOT a universal behavior. It's culturally-dependent. I'd venture a guess that in Europe most sport fans are male and women... don't really care.

Of course - we could also discuss how poets, spiritual leaders, rich guys and men with power are found attractive by women, which leads to the conclusion that the Pope is the hottest hunk on the planet... but that's a lot more likely ;).

The point is - while physicists try to form laws (like gravity) that are universal and explain the world, empirical psychologists try to do the same with human behavior... and fail miserably, because for every "rule" they create there are hilariously counterintuitive cases. They mostly deal with this, saying that people who act differently are "insane". While this is a safe move, in the long run it suggests that the world's going more and more crazy.
Then again - I spoke a while ago with a girl who had a PhD in psychology, and she said that it's just the way things used to be... and it didn't work. As such, much to my appreciation, I heard that psychology finally starts to be aware that it deals with statistics, not universal laws. That is: it doesn't say "people must act this way" but rather "most people act like this".

You want proof ? Stop for a moment and focus on your mind. You'll feel as if a mirror was to reflect itself. Choose to think about something and then realize that you are conscious of yourself thinking it. Perform an action and see that you both controlled it and received the feedback.
If you're still not convinced - imagine two bodies doing the same thing. One of them is aware of doing it, while the other is simply a machine that is performing the said actions as a part of its program. What is the difference between the two ? It's that "you" could only be one of them - the one that is conscious. Otherwise - there would be no "you" (no person/mind/soul) to speak of.
The funny thing is - both bodies would act exactly the same on the outside. You have no way of determining which is conscious. Yet - you can be SURE that YOU are.

Reducing our minds to our brains is ridiculous. Reducing our minds to the ACTIVITY of our brains is even more absurd (as I like to put it: "it's like mistaking the blinking of a LED with the activity of a hard drive"). If it was possible to prove that our consciousness has a cause and is deterministic in a rigid way - it would be an epiphenomena. It would be like watching a film while being lied to that everything we see is caused by us. At this point - you have to ask yourself: what's the point ? There is no way this could help the Almighty Evolution. Acting AS IF having a mind does. Being AWARE of one's actions doesn't help a bit.

My soul and God are on the opposite sides of the epistemic spectrum. That is - there is no way I can deny that I have a mind/soul, but there is absolutely no reason for me to assume that there is a God (in the colloquial meaning). God is as close to a round square as it gets.
There ARE some ways to make the existence of a God remotely possible, but all of them require people to dismiss the naive images (of "devils with pitchforks", as I like to simplify it) most people have...

What the hell does it do, then ? Play checkers in heaven ;) ?

Let me use the computer analogy again - if your own one that is far from being modern there are some apps it will run poorly and some that it will not even run at all. While this limits the possibilities, it doesn't change the fact that you choose what it WILL do out of what it CAN do.
In short - a body is a tool you use. Some parts you can repair easily, for others it's not possible at this point.

Don't we all ? Besides - if there is anything I am certain of, it is that I have a mind/soul. When I post here - it's a choice made by me and I am aware of it happening.
I only ASSUME that other people MIGHT also have minds. There is no way I can verify that. Just like there is no way to prove that there even exists a physical world that I cannot reduce to things I experience (let alone the assumption that there is a world 1* that I don't experience at the moment 2* that I have never experienced 3* that I can't experience). Perhaps it's just me and a world put before my mind's eyes. Who knows ?

You know what ? Call me crazy but there was some kind of a mental splinter in my mind since I was about four years old. I was told that the world I live in is deterministic, yet there was SOMETHING that I could NEVER reduce to chemical reactions and laws of thermodynamics. Of course, for the longest time, I wasn't even able to express it properly (and it's difficult to get answers when you don't know what the question is). Now I know.

Why are you yourself ? Why are you self-aware ?
If there is a thing we call "gravity" it works the same way everywhere at any time. To different degrees but in exactly the same way. Why the hell am I only experiencing things from a single perspective ? Why is there only a single body I control ?
Death is when my consciousness is extinguished - if I were only a machine, I wouldn't have ever existed at all.

QFT. It's somewhat sad that people overlook the most basic experience they have... Even Descartes, when he wanted to put every bit of knowledge he had to doubt, still could not doubt that his soul exists. After all - without a soul, we would merely be biological machines (the kind La Mettrie spoke of), which would not be aware of their own existence, but would simply do what their brains would order them to.

Let me use my favourite quote:
"It must be confessed, moreover, that perception, and that which depends on it, are inexplicable by mechanical causes, that is, by figures and motions, And, supposing that there were a mechanism so constructed as to think, feel and have perception, we might enter it as into a mill. And this granted, we should only find on visiting it, pieces which push one against another, but never anything by which to explain a perception. This must be sought, therefore, in the simple substance, and not in the composite or in the machine."

It would be hard to do per genus proximum et differentia specifica... Let me just say that it's what creates time and space, enables you to make choices (free will) and controls the body via the brain.
Some people (like Dawkins, IIRC) like to say that the brain is an on-board computer, of sorts, for the body. It's a great analogy, because a computer is blind and inert without someone to either operate it or program it. The soul is the "user", what you experience is the "software", your body is the "hardware".