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Originally Posted by QuikSand
But I do not want to just settle for "it's too hard to calulate" as the answer here. I recognize that there are countless variables and effects happening... and that we can't buidl a model to understand it. But I still want it to be.
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But isn't this the key to your problem? The belief in free will is little more than human arrogance - the wish to believe that we're not merely a consequence of predictable mechanisms. It may well be that all we have is unpredictability.
It should also be remembered that scientific theories are not absolute truths - they're useful descriptions that allow us to "understand" phenomena. The behaviour of light - some behaviour requiring a wave model, other behaviour a particular model - illustrates this. If you treat, say the wave theory as "true", then you will have problems with other phenomena. The theory is "good" as long as you respect its limitations.
Quantum theory and Relativity are similarly two theories that are not compatible. It doesn't matter in most cases because the first deals with sub-atomic particles and the second with astronomical events. The two theories are "useful" within their own spheres but the contradictions illustrate that one or both are far from "true".
Thus we hit a problem when the two come together in the "big bang" when the astronomical is reduced to the sub-atomic. The search for a single theory (unification theory I believe they call it) is at the forefront of theoretical physics.
So, if these theories lead to philosophical problems, then there is still room for doubt as to the degree to which they validate arguments. It may be that the theories are being applied beyond the boundaries of their applicability.
I think the problem of measurement and existence arises because of a limited idea of "measurement". I think this really only implies that we should be able to interact with the phenomenon (directly or indirectly) for it to "exist" not that we should be able to "measure" in the sense of "quantity".
The problem of "intuition" and common sense I think is not with the theories but with our own mental limitations. We "understand" something when we can describe it in terms of previous experience. Just as we "understand" the idea of molecules in a gas by likening it to billiard balls on a table in three dimensions we can find nothing in our direct experience which corresponds in any meaningful way with the quantum mechanics description of sub-atomic particles. Electrons as probability distributions doesn't quite hit home like the idea of them as tiny ball bearings. The "understanding" of both relativity and quantum mechanics is through mathematics not correspondence to everyday experience.
Surely the problems of our developing "understanding" of nature comes from the limitations of human intelligence and psychology.