Maggie's Farm

As an engineer (of sorts...long story), it seems these studies of the brain, free will, are asking to diverge between: are we chemical factories with as much free will as a winter (now named by the Weather Channel) storm or hurricane, or sentient beings created (or not) by God, with control, limited and influenced by circumstances, of our actions and destinies. Instead it's far more complex to me and rather like the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. Studying something at a certain micro level influences the results of the study. The brain is far too complex at the micro level. One can build a dam, outlet, and canal to channel water and determine various flow patterns, rates, volumes, etc., in the aggregate. One can't select an individual water molecule and mathematically chart its location through the dam, outlet and canal. (I recall in high school thinking, if one had an equation that mapped the elevations of the John Muir trail, I could know, through calculus, the instantaneous slope of the trail at all locations...to my knowledge, 35 years later, that information is still unavailable).
It seems trying to accurately and consistently isolate locations or neurons in the brain that affect single thoughts, memories, feelings, or actions is as difficult as tracking that single water molecule. It's simply too complex a system...perhaps even as complex as our weather.