Answer

Hello Y.,
First, I should clarify that I am not a brain researcher. I did a doctorate in physics (among other things I studied under Haim Sompolinsky, and in recent years I have had a bitter disagreement with him on these matters). In my view, the outrageous and puzzling consensus that has arisen in your field (and that I encountered when I came to hear Haim’s course together with Yemima Ben-Menahem) is an assumption or a starting point, not a finding. As far as I understand, it has no scientific basis whatsoever. By the way, Ido Segev is one of Haim’s greatest admirers, and it is hard for me to see him forming an opposing position. This is a matter of fashion and underlying assumptions, and the more careful researchers, including the deterministic ones, are careful to present it that way. Others speak rashly, as if this were a scientific result, but it is not.
 
Thomas Kuhn already pointed out that there is no sharp boundary beyond which a community of researchers reaches the conclusion that a paradigm must be replaced. This is a decision that contains no small amount of arbitrariness. All the more so, it is difficult, if it is possible at all, to set a boundary for when we decide that there are things that cannot be explained without assuming free will. I imagine that those whose starting point is deterministic will always assume there is an explanation and will continue to look for it. This is a question of paradigm, and therefore they will do so until Thomas Kuhn’s line is crossed, though I cannot determine when that will happen. Until then they will always search for an explanation and assume there is one, even if they have not yet found it. By the way, that is a good thing, because that is the purpose of science: to understand, not to posit non-scientific hypotheses. It is somewhat parallel to the problem of the god of the gaps.
 
By the way, that is exactly the reason such a consensus came into being. This is a common phenomenon among scientists who rely on a useful methodological assumption and see it as scientific truth. For example, vitalism in biology. It is certainly true and useful to assume that there is no vital substance beyond matter, but the fact that this has methodological justification in order to advance science does not mean it is a true claim. These are two entirely different planes.
 
I should note that in the past I gave lectures at brain research institutes at the Weizmann Institute and at Bar-Ilan, and it seemed to me that almost all of them agreed with my claim that their position (and the overwhelming majority of them were determinists) was a starting position, not a finding. Some of them even considered changing their position after hearing what I said, and perhaps did so as well (I am not in continuous contact with them, so I do not know). Several of them told me they had not thought about the direction I presented. I think quite a few excellent brain researchers are not sufficiently sensitive to philosophical nuances (and therefore you can hear them saying hair-raising nonsense about free will. One can argue whether there is or is not such a thing, but most of the arguments that come up in these discussions are nonsense).
 
I think that as a young researcher this is not an easy experience, since there are quite a few researchers who, if you tell them you are not a determinist, will treat you as unintelligent, outdated, or rigid. Still, you must choose whether to state your position or not and when to do so (a tactical question), and also what to think (a substantive question). Tchekhanover from the Technion won the Nobel Prize after insisting, against the opinion of all his colleagues, that he had found a fivefold crystal (which was mathematically forbidden in crystallography).
 
All the best and much success,