Free will is an entirely different issue. Consciousness is about subjective experience, and why any physical system would have it. Determinism is completely irrelevant.
No it isn't. At the very least, it may be distinguishable for clarity, but clearly they are joined at the hip.
If you accept that the biophysical system is deterministic, then the subjective experience is a deterministic, objective physical occurrence. That is unless you're proposing that there is a another system which mediates between them the distinction doesn't really exist. This 'interceptor' system must non-deterministic and outside the boundaries of the biochemical system that itself mediates free will and changes the outcome of the physical system itself.
That's what Penrose says. He says there's some kind of quantum stuff happening on another level we don't understand that's changing your brain chemistry in some near-purposive manner because he can't reconcile the physics with how he feels about what his brain does. This is despite the fact that we understand the brain chemistry and aren't confused about how it works.
The likelier answer is that he just doesn't like the fact that his world class "self-directed thinking" is just the neural perception of patterns he didn't put into motion.
The question of whether our choices are free, what being free means, and what impact that has on our being held responsible for our actions is completely separate from the question of how subjective experience fits within a physical framework, assuming one ascribes to physicalism or some form of objective reality.
They're only related in terms of both being potentially part of the mind/body problem, but they are clearly separate topics. What position you take on free will need not impact your position on consciousness, at all.
>What position you take on free will need not impact your position on consciousness, at all.
But the reverse is not true. If your position is that consciousness is the result of a deterministic biophysical process, then your premises also inform your position on free will, unless you're willing to invent new systems to rebuild free will, as stated earlier.
Free will is often discussed without being defined very well. What does it mean for something to be a "choice" rather than just something that happens in the universe?
A lot of people talk about non-determinism solving the problem, but randomness doesn't seem much more like a "choice" to me than determinism. We wouldn't say that a dice "chose" to land on six (even a quantum one).
And so to me, the only meaningful way to identify a "choice", is the conscious experience of making that choice. As far as we know, a rock does not experience choosing to fall, nor does a dice experience choosing to land on six. But when I move my arm, I do experience choosing to do so.
