This is a deep and important question. The key point is that Schrödinger’s cat was never intended to prove that observation creates reality. In fact, Erwin Schrödinger invented the thought experiment to show how absurd it seemed if the rules of quantum mechanics were applied literally to everyday objects.
The crucial issue is that there are different interpretations of quantum mechanics, and they disagree about whether properties exist independently of observation.
For example:
- Copenhagen interpretation: Before a measurement, certain properties (such as an electron’s spin along a chosen axis) are not assigned definite values. The act of measurement yields a definite outcome.
- Many-worlds interpretation: The wavefunction never collapses. All outcomes occur in different branches of the Universe, so the cat is never objectively in a single state until you consider a particular branch.
- Bohmian mechanics: Particles always have definite properties and positions. There is no fundamental indeterminacy of the kind implied by Copenhagen.
- Objective collapse theories: The wavefunction is real, but it collapses spontaneously for sufficiently large systems, so macroscopic objects like cats always end up in definite states.
Your argument is essentially a realist one:
If an electron or a black hole has intrinsic properties regardless of whether anyone observes them, why shouldn’t the cat also have a definite state?
Many physicists would agree with that intuition. In fact, Albert Einstein held essentially this view. His famous remark, “I like to think the Moon is there even if I am not looking at it,” expressed his belief that physical properties exist independently of observation.
However, there’s an important subtlety. In quantum mechanics, “observer” doesn’t necessarily mean a conscious person. A measurement can simply be an interaction with the environment. A cat is constantly interacting with trillions of air molecules, photons, and its own internal biological processes. These interactions cause decoherence, which makes quantum superpositions effectively disappear long before a human opens the box.
So modern physics does not generally suggest that the cat’s fate waits for a conscious observer. By the time you open the box, the cat has already become entangled with its environment, and for all practical purposes it has a definite state.
Does this prove the Copenhagen interpretation wrong? No. Decoherence explains why macroscopic superpositions become unobservable, but it does not by itself settle whether the cat had a single definite state all along or whether the Universe remained in a larger quantum superposition. Different interpretations answer that question differently, while making essentially the same experimental predictions to date.
So your reasoning highlights a genuine philosophical divide rather than a contradiction. It supports a realist view of quantum mechanics, but it does not by itself rule out the Copenhagen or many-worlds interpretations, because all of these interpretations agree on the results of experiments—they differ in what they say is “really” happening behind the scenes.
This is one of the reasons the foundations of quantum mechanics remain an active area of research and debate, even a century after the theory was developed.