We Have Free Will but not Free Agency
In a nondual framework, wherein all of reality emanates from a primordial nonlocal field of consciousness, there is a distinction between will and agency which corresponds to the distinction between "consciousness" and “mind”, the former coming from the nonlocal field while the latter is a product of the physical brain.
Within this framing consciousness is the observing awareness, the perceiver of the qualia produced by the mind imbued with the powers of attention and intention (will, essentially), while the mind is the agent enacting this will. But the mind is not a perfect agent, being the output of the brain it is bound by physical causality/effects so the influence of the will is imperfect.
There exists a feedback loop between these two systems, conscious intention/attention influences the physical actions of the agent, the results of these actions then influence the subjective experience produced by the mind, the conscious observer perceives this experience, and then the observer can alter its attention/intention. This change is only influenced by the physical world and not bound by it, because "consciousness” is part of the nonlocal field it has a degree of freedom from the chain of physical causality.
Hence we have free will but not free agency.
Consider addiction, a chemical influence that may work against the conscious intention. One still has free will here, their intention/attention is not ruled by this chemical influence, but the mind’s ability to make decisions and choices can become overwhelmed by this influence, essentially removing our agency.
Personally I find this framing to be a bit optimistic and empowering; our intentions matter in a causal sense, we’re not just automatons with the illusion of free will (sorry compatibilists, but you’re deluding yourselves if you think actual free will is possible under strict physicalism). But at the same time the exercise of this free will is limited, so we have some culpability for our actions, but not total culpability. (And yes, my desire for this optimistic framing to be true is steering is partially why I believe it, but experiential knowledge is playing a role too).
While I intended this post to be about the free will implications within this framework and not about the veracity or metaphysics of the framework itself, I’ll add a bit more detail to head off some reasonable qualms. A plausible mechanism for this influence of the nonlocal conscious observer on the physical brain is via coordinated collapse of quantum states in the nervous system. The brain is a chaotic system, the smallest perturbations can have macro effects, that's how this small conscious influence on "randomness" can have a causal impact. So nonduality is not actually in conflict with any laws of physics, it’s only in conflict with the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics.
Also I want to acknowledge that all conceptual frameworks are inherently dualistic, so trying to conceptualize a nondual framework is bound to have seeming inconsistencies. One worth highlighting is how the nonlocal consciousness can be influenced by the physical world if it’s outside of time, space, and causality. This is actually the point of departure between different forms of nonduality, in Advaita Vedanta the innermost self (Atman) cannot be influenced by the physical world, whereas in nondual Tantra (the framework I am using here) it can be. I’m afraid the “how” of this is beyond my metaphysical understanding.
I understand that nondual frameworks are not super popular here, so I get why some people will nope out on this from the jump (this is why I didn’t include nonduality in the title), but I hope even those that reject this framing found it to be at least mildly interesting.