The ghost in the machine was coined in Gilbert Ryle's 1949 critique of Cartesian dualism.
If this ghost is considered like energy flowing around a material substrate, then via E = mc2 the ghost and the machine are made of the same stuff, just in different forms.
Life and spirit is sometimes likened to a flame, a reactive process, e.g. Heraclitus, fragment 30.
ΠΕΡΙ ΤΟΥ ΠΑΝΤΟΣ
XX. Κόσμον τόνδε τὸν αὐτὸν ἁπάντων οὔτε τις θεῶν οὔτε ἀνθρώπων ἐποίησε, ἀλλ᾿ ἦν αἰεὶ καὶ ἔστι καὶ ἔσται πῦρ ἀείζωον, ἁπτόμενον μέτρα καὶ ἀποσβεννύμενον μέτρα.On the Universe
XX. This world, which is the same for all, was made neither by a god nor by man, but it ever was, and is, and shall be, ever-living Fire (πῦρ ἀείζωον), in measures being kindled and in measures going out.
And in Derrida & Heidegger, Of Spirit (Derrida, 1989), pages 84 & 98.
"Doch was ist der Geist?" Heidegger indeed asks. What is spirit? Reply: "Der Geist ist das Flammende." Further on, "Der Geist ist Flamme."
How to translate? Spirit is what inflames? Rather, what inflames itself, setting itself on fire, setting fire to itself? Spirit is flame. A flame which inflames, or which inflames itself: both at once, the one and the other, the one the other. Con-flagration of the two in the very con-flagration.
the originary meaning (in der ursprünglichen Bedeutung) of the word "Geist," for gheis means: to be thrown (aufgebracht), transported [or transposed, deported: entsetzt, again — and I believe this is the most determining predicate], outside itself (ausser sich).
The reactive process shines beyond itself revealing its spirit to others.
These are layers of analogy, but how chemical is mind? In feelings chemistry is tangible in hunger or a sugar rush. And psychoactive materials can even more tangibly affect mind, even to the point of deep anesthesia.
So how close can the nature of mind be brought to its chemical reactive component?