Of course, the mind is dependent on the brain. All you have to do is drink some wine, like I did last night, to realize that. But that doesn't mean that the mind is the brain, or that the brain can create a mind. How is it going to do this? How does mere increasing complexity and quantity of neural connections emerge into a "thought"?
Is thought an algorithm? Then it can be implemented on a neural net. The data can be the representation from sensory memory that can be transformed.
I am thinking awareness as the subjective witness of the sensory contents and the processing of symbols (thought/language) is not the same as mind, which is the operation of the brain and not conscious. Consciousness is OF the mind but not the mind. This is based on my reading of Buddhist and Advaita Vedanta. Thus awareness is a primitive function of the universe and not derived or emerged. How it is aware of the brain function I've no idea. The only clue I have is that all we directly experience is our mind. Matter and energy though we can manipulate and model them our not directly experienced by our consciousness but interfered from our sensory, motor, and symbolic systems.
lfen