Many of these cultures believe that brain structure and function are not relevant to the idea of self.
Well that’s one of the reasons why they haven’t made any progress in this field then.
Nor would they also make the arbitrary decision to examine pathology as illustrative case. Rather, they look to those who have perfected the art of being conscious—a concept that isn’t even defined in the Western scientific world.
WTF? There’s nothing arbitrary about examining pathology as a means to investigating function - it’s an extremely powerful tool that has told us a vast amount about how our bodies work. And the brain is an organ of the body - this may come as a shock to some cultures, I know :)