[maurile]

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Sure, the quantum state something collapses into can have an impact on the system, but it is not an impact we control.

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Yes. This is an important point that many people don't grasp. If we have free will, it's not because of quantum randomness. And act isn't freely chosen because it was random. Hook me up to a geiger counter such that I blink whenever it clicks -- are my blinks manifestations of free will?

To the extent we have free will (in the sense of doing something because we want to), it is a consequence of our universe's deterministic aspects rather than its indeterministic aspects. What could be more free than doing whatever you want because there's a deterministic cause-and-effect linkage between wanting and doing?

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The notion of sentience is very hard to reconcile here. Is there an area of physics surrounding conciousness that we just have not discovered?

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I'm not sure I understand the question, but you may be interested in Dan Dennett's book, Consciousness Explained. It is fascinating.