Thanks for the comment, Alan. I agree that thoughts are always brain activity. It still makes sense to discuss minds vs brain activity — they’re just different levels of explanation.

The brain activity that is your first intention to act had to initiate itself somehow. It did that through causes beyond our immediate awareness, and most likely, it fired after other connected neurons (that didn’t produce a conscious experience related to that first intention) made it fire.

Regardless of those specific causes, the point is every conscious experience must be caused by some brain cells firing. You can have brain activity without a conscious experience but you cannot have a conscious experience without brain activity. In other words, even when “the thought is the brain activity” as you say, the brain activity still comes first, and you only experience your first conscious thought after that activity happens (even if we’re only talking about a millisecond difference in timing between brain activity and conscious thought).

Many people struggle to find free will in that sequence of unconscious-to-conscious, but as I mentioned, compatibilists have no problem with it! Thanks again for sharing your thoughts.