In the context of the OP, couldn't it be the case that exercising free will causes all that brain activity, rather than being the result of it? To the marionette of the mind, who holds the strings and how would we tell the difference anyway?
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'
