If you want to talk about quantum physics, the world where anything is possible, I'd definitely go with "both" on this one. Schrodinger's observations go to show that we can only say that something is true by directly observing it. The options are clearly that the cat can either be dead or alive. However, due to the inability to observe the cat, no one can say for sure which one it is. As Demagog said, there is one situation where it happened and one where it didn't. As long as we don't know which one occured, they both occurred.
...no.
It would really go like this.
"If you want to talk about quantum physics, the world where anything is possible, I'd definitely go with "either" on this one. Schrodinger's observations go to show that we can only say that something is true by directly observing it. The options are clearly that the cat can either be dead or alive. However, due to the inability to observe the cat, no one can say for sure which one it is. As Demagog said, there is one situation where it happened and one where it didn't. As long as we don't know which one occurred, then one or the other occurred. We just don't know which."
You're overcomplicating things. Just because we can't see the cat doesn't mean some quantum marvel is happening. It just means we can't see the cat. The world doesn't disappear when you close your eyes, so why would the mutual exclusiveness of being dead and being alive change because you can't see the cat.
Imagine we put the cat in a box and did the experiment, and then afterwords, we opened the box. While some would argue that the cat was both dead and alive until we opened the box, I say otherwise. If the opened box revealed a living cat, then the cat has been living the whole time. If the opened box revealed a dead cat, it's been dead the whole time. There's no paradox caused by uncertainty. Just because you don't know something doesn't change it's state. Take Purity's above example. His friend was dead, despite him not knowing it. The universe doesn't revolve around him. For all I know, all my friends are dead right now. They are either dead or alive. The fact that I don't know changes nothing.
