Following up...

Having (almost) finished the Quantum Physics sequence since this last comment, and come to the point at which this particular assignment is referred to, I figured I'd post my final conclusion here before 'looking at the answer', as it were.

Given a basic understanding of QM, and further understanding that macroscopic phenomenon are an extension of those same principles... Knowing that nothing 'epiphenomenal' is relevant to the question of consciousness... And assuming that no previously unobserved micro-phenomenon is responsible for consciousness, by virtue of the fact that even if there were, there is, at present, no reason to privilege that particular hypothesis...

There's no question left. What we call consciousness is simply our view of the algorithm from the inside. I believe that I have free will because it seems like the choices I make change the future I find myself in... but there are a great many other factors implicit in my thinking before I even arrive at the point of making a choice, and the fact that the probabilities involved in defining that future are impossible to calculate under existing technology does not mean that such a feat will never be possible.

That said, even full knowledge of the state of a given brain would not allow you to predict it's output in advance, as even in isolation, that brain would divide into a very large number of possible states every instant, and QM proves that there is no way of determining, in advance, which state that brain will arrive at at any given time. This is not randomness, per se... given sufficient information, and isolation from contaminating entanglements, one could theoretically plot out a map of possible states, and assign probabilities to them, and have reasonable expectations of finding that mind in the predicted states after a determined time... but could never be certain of finding any given result after any amount of time.

That doesn't mean that I don't have control over my actions, or that my perception of consciousness is an illusion... what it does mean is that I run on the same laws of physics as anything else, and the algorithms that comprise my awareness are not specially privileged to ignore or supersede those laws. Realizing this fact is no reason to do anything drastic or strange... this is the way that things have been all along, and my acknowledgment of it doesn't detract from the reality of my experiences. I could believe that my actions are determined by chance instead of choice, but that would neither be useful, nor entirely true. Whatever the factors that go into the operation of my cognitive algorithms, they ultimately add up to me. Given this, I might still believe that I have free will... while at the same time knowing that the question itself does not have the meaning I thought it had before I seriously considered the question.