The question of whether the universe is or is not deterministic is kind of fundamental to the idea of free will. If the universe is deterministic do we have free will? Some compromises try to propose that we could have some kind of free will internally as to how we choose to experience the deterministic experiences our material forms go through in a deterministic physical universe, but much more satisfactory would be a universe that somehow is able to avoid being strictly deterministic. Quantum mechanics has inspired many speculations that somehow some aspect of quantum mechanics and/or the uncertainty principle might somehow permit the universe to be non-deterministic in some sense or way.

Of particular interest with regard to the question of free will is the work of Evan Harris Walker such as his examination of the neural synaptic gap and its optimisation for the quantum mechanical process of electron tunnelling.