If consciousness is fundamental, is the concept of free will still important to anyone?

When people are arguing about whether we have free will or not, the assumption always seems to be that the world is purely physical / deterministic. But if Orchestrated Objective Reduction, Integrated Information Theory, or any other theory of consciousness is true, then the concept of free will would seem to be more complicated than just "do we or don't we have it?".<br><br>In this case, it seems impossible to reject the idea that both hard and soft determinism are true at the same time. I'm not trying to sound too woo-woo here, but if consciousness is fundamental to the universe, then that would suggest that consciousness determine matter. But if the universe is also ultimately deterministic, then wouldn't the chain of causality just shift from "matter -> consciousness" to "consciousness -> matter -> consciousness"? Consciousness would still seem determine just as much as our brain chemistry, and free will wouldn't really exist.<br><br>On the other hand, the second part of that chain ("matter -> consciousness") would seem to introduce enough "external" influence to suggest that the universe as a whole, or consciousness at a universal level, is constantly making decisions for us. With that in mind, the concept of free will would seem even less relevant than it would be under strict determinism. <br><br>Is anyone here a compatibilist though, and if so, what would you make of this?