Quantum Reality and Identity

So earlier today I was perusing some of the magazines we have here at the Greenwood Library, and I came across a few sort of interesting topics that reminded me of some of our club discussions. I probably won't remember most of them, but the one that I definitely do remember had to do with quantum reality and identity.

The article I was reading was actually about trying to create "quantum internet" (which to me sounds like a pretty dumb idea), but the part that interested me was a paragraph in which examples of unexplainable and unpredictable quantum behavior were described. Taken from Science News Magazine: "Quantum information is notoriously wobbly. An object tends to live in a superposition of states — for example, an electron can spin in two directions at once, or an atom can be simultaneously in two different places — until interaction with the rest of the world forces the object to pick one state. Quantum reality is a limbo of coexisting possibilities."

One good way of establishing a given physical object's identity, as we discussed on occasion, is to observe its spatial relationship to other physical objects. We can say that two physical objects, even nearly identical ones, are distinct from each other because they do not (and cannot) occupy the same space at the same time. Even two or more objects identical in every other way are distinguished simply by their spatial separation from each other. Similarly, two objects that do not occupy the same space are not the same object. In other words, I guess, if there are two spaces occupied by the same object, what you've actually got is two separate objects, not one.

What's interesting is that the quote above seems to directly claim that one single atom can simultaneously occupy more than one distinct space, and somehow not be two. I don't really understand the whole "interaction with the rest of the world" bit, but I don't even think that's all that relevant. The claim still stands that one single object can...well it can be two and one at the same time. This does seem to be qualified by the last sentence, which states that quantum reality is a realm of possibilities, but then in what sense can it be true that a single atom is actually occupying more than one distinct space at the same time?

I have similar problems with the idea of an electron spinning in two directions at once, especially since it's unclear whether there are smaller particles of which electrons are made, some of which could be spinning one way and some of which could be spinning opposite. Even if that were the case, though, the electron as a whole wouldn't really be spinning both directions at once.

In some of our talks on identity, the physical origins and locations of objects were fairly important factors in determining individuality. It looks to me like this idea of a "superposition of states" is sort of a blending of "A and not-A," or something like that. Do you guys see a way to reconcile this problem? How do we identify objects that transcend normal physical laws?