The rules of physics postulate that we should have the ability to be in two places at the same time, so why do we never actually see it happen, or experience this phenomenon of fundamental reality?

If an Electron Can Be in Two Places at Once, Why Can't You?

http://discovermagazine.com/2005/jun/cover

.... by this, do you mean that while submerged in the moment of experiencing, we view our experiential perceptions from an external (metaphorical) mental balcony?

If we obey quantum mechanics the mere act of observation triggers or causes a wavefunction collapse
and the superimposed states in the mind collapse to a single state and the other states become unobservable or vaporize, depending on your taste in wavefunction collapse mechanisms (Copenhagen or Many Worlds/Universes).

If our brains or minds or our perceived realities are truly "classical" then you don't have free will, your a mechanical automaton. Classical physics died 75 years ago, the neuroscientists of today would be well advised to take heed that classical physics is a mere approximation to the reality of the quantum world that we live in.

Yes, I can elaborate if necessary if your interested.

This very convenient collapse when observing reminds me of something - oh yes, the excuses of religions when evidence is lacking. Isn't it time we (I say we, but not including me as I'm too thick as a mere biologist) thought about this problem more (yes, more!) in order to circumvent the issue of hiding reality (whatever that is) by not being able to observe it. As with so many hidden mysteries, it will not be able to hide forever.

Re automata - remember survival for reproduction. Whether individual or species, life forms are evolutionary automata. Some of us can deal with that.

ps Nice to see you here blake. I look forward to reading more of your posts.

Even if religion is not regarded as real, there is still a divide between those who treat it as definitive and entirely subjective, and those who are non-committal or agnostic about the subject. Most religions are non-falsifiable theories with a multitude of singular existential statements, and as such, are not scientifically interesting to me.

On the subject of automata, my point was that 'free choice' enters the picture for humans. Those that can make choices or pose questions to themselves or their enviornment would benefit more greatly in the natural selection process or an evolutionary process.

can anyone tell me what 'free will' or 'free choice' means? I have never seen a convincing definition for these.

Wikipedia has pages on the subject. My specific reference to free will discusses a human agent's
ability to trigger a type 1 event and the rate at which they fire, in the context of a orthodox quantum
theory postulated by John von Neumann.

this is not a convincing definition as it fails to address many details, including those underlying a human agent's claimed ability to trigger events. Also, the wave function in QM is fully deterministic, and the randomness that is a part of 'observation' and wave function collapse according to the Copenhagen interpretation seems to have absolutely nothing to do with whether there exists a coherent and convincing definition of free will.

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is worth looking at:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill/

Here's an excerpt you might find interesting:

A recent trend is to suppose that agent causation accounts capture, as well as possible, our prereflective idea of responsible, free action. But the failure of philosophers to work the account out in a fully satisfactory and intelligible form reveals that the very idea of free will (and so of responsibility) is incoherent (Strawson 1986).

Try these papers.
http://www-physics.lbl.gov/~stapp/stappfiles.html

I am familiar with some of Stapp's ideas and have read "The Mindful Universe: Quantum Mechanics and the Participating Observer" but it doesn't change the fact that QM contributes nothing to clarifying this chimera called 'free will'.

The choices via von Neumann’s "abstract ego" are not limited by the known rules of
quantum theory, same as Bohr’s "experimentor". These are the "free" choices and
are subjectively controllable input variables for process 1 actions.

Where are we not in synch, I feel like im failing to explain, which is different that
you are in synch and disagree. :/

That amounts to saying QM is not sufficient to explain biology.

What's wrong with avoiding Copenhagen references to an "observer" by having wave function collapse through decoherence? Or Bohm's deterministic interpretation which is in many ways superior to the Copenhagen interpretation?

I don't beleive that QM sufficiently explains the mind in whole, in fact quite frankly my personal opinon is that we operate in a "classical" sense almost all the time, this would be equivalent to "thinking" which I consider to be a passive process, concousiness kicks in in active, attention based mode when anomolies appear in the wave like interactions between our predicted inputs and our actually received inputs, which I beleive can be mathmatically described quite beautifully in a model I'm currently building, neuron spiking in my mind is simply the "wave crests" of these interactions as they occur and my model its biologically consistent with some minor changes to the "model" neuron, which begs for very small subtle changes which have tremendous impacts when considered on the whole, the ideas are strictly research based.

Decoherence is fine with me, in fact kill Copenhagen ( which in my estimation is quite subjective ) and use many worlds/universes, pick your collapse methodology, Neumann never specified between the yes and no choice at all in his writings. The choice being made by nature at large, his point was that the choice of which specific question would be posed what was in the hands of the agent, and that that the choice made "observes" a "quantum like probability rule".

I am a Bohm fan. His pilot waves are beautiful and well defined mathmatically, they are lost in his infinite tower and implicate order, and is less mathmatically appealing, perhaps I have a naive understanding of it.

In summary, I'm trying to integrate and model a system that exihibits mind/brain interaction in a testable way. Biological significance is important and a factor, but if someone asked me to built a locomotive device and the wheel did not exist, i wouldn't be upset if my rapidly moving 4 legged running robot failed, I beleive in a quantum like computer, I'm sure it can be modeled and created in software, and I don't feel the desire or necessity to approach absolute zero or flip atoms around to do it.