It used to be "the soul". Then it was "the mind" during the Enlightenment. Now its "the brain". Its all the same, no matter what word is used to describe it. This is something that I haven't been able to put into words. I think that you both have legitimate arguments, and I can't help but think that we need better language to describe this. I don't consider that I am my conscious part of my brain anymore than I am the part that drives 200 miles and can't remember it. I for one, embrace dualism, in that it means we are not more than how we relate. We needn't be internally consistent, just externally definable. The road defines my consciousness as I drive, and my friend defines my consciousness as I converse with him. You two have defined an aspect of my consciousness here. I wouldn't say that the mind is an emergent part of the body, but exists as the interaction of the body with the environment. Arrington does have unconscious bias, and it is his fault.
IMHO, if we can accept that these aren't contradictions, I think we can move forward. It's not that I don't think a self doesn't exist, but I do think that it has no seat. The more ways we can describe it, the better we can characterize it. We know what is necessary for the self, but it doesn't reside within those necessary components. It's like wheels are necessary for a car, and to make it drive, but if we remove the wheels, it's still a car.
Certainly our brain has immutable functions, without which we would not be conscious. It does not, however think, trick us, make decisions, or any of the other myriad activities or properties that are ascribed to it in both scientific and popular literature. That's my issue with using language like "our brains deceive us"; whether consciously (pun intended) or not, when this language is used, consciousness is being ascribed to the brain, which inevitably leads to the supernatural because it creates and infinitely long chain of who is thinking for whom.