The Incoherence of Compatibilist Free Will and the Epistemology of Temporal Determinism

This paper demonstrates that compatibilist frameworks fail to resolve the contradiction between determinism and volitional agency. Using a formal epistemic analysis, we prove that meaningful free will—understood as the capacity to do otherwise—requires forward epistemic access to future states and backward causal influence, conditions forbidden by known physics. We show that neither quantum indeterminacy nor the many-worlds interpretation salvages free agency, as all experiential histories remain single-valued. Drawing on formal logic, temporal epistemology, neuroscience, and physical law, we establish that free will is incoherent within any causally consistent universe. Despite this, consciousness, ethics, and responsibility remain intact within a deterministic framework. The paper concludes with testable predictions, aligning the argument with Popperian standards of scientific falsifiability.