Indian American neuroscientist Vilayanur Subramanian “Rama” Ramachandran (born in 1951) explains the situation a little differently. Given that we have on the order of 30 billion neurons in the neocortex, there is always a lot going on there, and we are consciously aware of very little of it. Decisions, big and little, are constantly being processed by the neocortex, and proposed solutions bubble up to our conscious awareness. Rather than free will, Ramachandran suggests we should talk about “free won’t”—that is, the power to reject solutions proposed by the nonconscious parts of our
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