It seems to me that the argument against dualism from the conservation of energy is question begging.  The conservation laws in effect say, "If a physical system is closed, then the mass-energy sum of the system must remain constant."  The entire question at issue is the truth of the antecedent.

A more interesting argument (I think David Papinau gives a version of it somewhere) goes like this:

1. If interactionist dualism were true, then there should be physical events, presumably in the brain, that add to the net energy of the physical system (I take it because it would involve bits of matter being "pushed" by something other than bits of matter).
2. Search as we may we have yet to find any such events.
3. If such events exist we should expect to have found them by now, so probably, given (2), there are no such events.
4. Therefore, probably interactionist dualism is false (via (3) and modus tollens).

I think the points to attack this argument are (1) and (3).  I can imagine ways that an immaterial entity could cause a change in the state of a physical system without adding to the net mass--energy.  (For instance, imagine a simple circuit with a battery and an electric motor.  Suppose a demon has the ability to instantaneously flip the battery.  The state of the system would be importantly different with the motor beginning to turn the other way, but the net energy would be no different.) Such a solution, however, would mean that the current laws of physics do not fully describe the system (duh), and we could simply construct a parallel version of the argument replacing "there should be...that add..." with "there should be...that violate some known physical law."  Alternatively, I can easily imagine that such events do occur only in ways beneath what we can observe (either in practice right now or even in principle).

Here's a pretty straight-forward argument, found somewhere in C. S. Lewis (although you can find a version in Kant too):

1. If the mind were purely physical, rational inference would be impossible.
2. Rational inference is possible
3. So therefore the mind is not purely physical

Why should we think (1) is true?

4. If the mind were purely physical, then all its operations would be governed by purely efficient causation.
5. Rational inference cannot be a type of efficient causation.
6. So therefore (1)

Why should we think (2)? Because any argument to the contrary would be self-undermining.

Thank you for pointing me toward these articles.  This should be good reading.

If I may ask: What led you to distributism?  I've been trying to think these issues through myself, but have not gotten very far yet.

So can I translate your signature: "don't mess up my groove"?

I voted no, but I do agree with 90% of the things that both Thomas and Aristotle say.  How can this be?