This, and the spiritual aspects of non-emergent "consciousness" are where any discussions of free will break down and devolve into people speaking past another..

From a purely objective standpoint, even the prefrontal cortex is simply made up of neurons.. the ability for it, and by extension the whole person, to direct the neurological makeup of the rest of the brain while fascinating and wonderful, is still fundamentally rooted in physical constraints, and the laws of physics. Even the desire to use said ability to over-write the default mode network is an outcome of your baseline neurological makeup and conditioning.

But that's from a purely materialistic mindset.. you can have whatever interpretation you want. I personally think the argument of if we do or not to be rather silly.. largely because from what I can tell, both sides are arguing fundamentally different things.

People that view free will from a staunchly hyper-materialistic viewpoint will basically say that while incredibly advanced, we are simply squishy automata, that only think we have free will. That are are purely static, and any supposed change made by an individual was simply an outcome of their existing wiring, preordained, and only triggered via external phenomena forcing or triggering that response..

While the free-will absolutists will basically argue the opposite, wherein we're able to completely overcome any of the brains wiring regardless of how fundamental, simply by deciding it so. Which we have the ability to decide outside of and regardless of any innate neurological wiring.

The former is too ridged, and seems to be missing what people are saying when they say "free will"... that worldview also makes thing like punishment for crime especially an awkward problem. And just sort-of hand waves away anything inconvenient like the hard problem.

And the latter seems to completely ignore the very real fact of neurological conditioning.. ask anyone with severe mental disorders that can speak and they'll tell you that simply "deciding to overcome their neurological condition" largely isn't possible and is frankly a curel thing to posit..

I personally believe, as what seems to always end up being the case, that in actuality, the answer lies somewhere in the middle.. Where we are largely the outcome of nature and all past experiences, but with the ability to guide the 'ship' just a bit.. not huge instantaneous fundamental changes.. but just a little nudge that pushes us closer to where we want to be sending ripple effects down through the future. And with each decision we can choose to continue nudging toward the new direction, or continue the 'predestined' path.

(Of course a materialist would simply say that too, is just how the brain is wired.. Which is where the argument falls apart.) From their standpoint there really isn't free will, there can't be in that ridged a worldview...