The best answer I can come up with to the free will thing is that it doesn't matter what the answer is and it's probably an unsound question, sorta like asking what the internet was like before the internet existed.

It's possible the uncertainty principle analogy works here in that the act of observation changes the information. This could work in that if free will is perceived in a determined world, it is free will. It could also work in what are ultimately the same properties behave both in determined and free ways. As paradoxical as that may sound, I have little problem with suggesting that the foundation of existence is itself a paradox