Determinism and Free Will

I believe that there is a continuum in space-time (a chain of events such that every object involved in the chain is related with each of the other objects and events in a system that I will call holistic) and that we are physical objects in it, but my intuition tells me that I am free to exert my will.
If we base the debate about free will in the nature of consciousness, we have a better chance to understand the nature of our will. Either we are able to give an account of the physical world (or even of our own minds for that matter) in holistic terms (like an equation to figure out the whole universe), or it is impossible to do such a thing. The issue of free will can be tackled by figuring out which of the disjuncts is the case and how the outcome affects determinism.