///You say " the cat is a quantum object". No, it isn't. That is precisely the point. It is a macroscopic object that obeys the rules of classical physics. It does not exist in a superposed state of dad and alive.///

You seem to think that there is a rigid difference between quantum and classical. Anything that can be explained by classical physics can be explained by quantum physics. The reverse is not true. That's why there's quantum physics in the first place. Classical physics breaks down on the subatomic level. Quantum physics does not break down at the macrophysical level. We don't really need two system. We use classical physics at the macro level because it is easier and yields the same answers. But classical physics is incomplete!!! It is just a quick shorthand for quantum physics on the macro level!!! My goodness!!!!!!

"Any macro body (the cat or any observing machine), however, is ultimately a quantum object; there is no such thing as a classical body unless we are willing to admit a vicious quantum/classical dichotomy in physics. It is true that a macro body's behavior can be predicted in most situations from the rules of classical mechanics. (Quantum mechanics gives the same mathematical predictions as does classical mechanics in such cases--this is the correspondence principle that Bohr himself pioneered.) For this reason we often loosely refer to macro bodies as being classical. The measurement process, however, is not such a case, and the correspondence principle does not apply to it. Bohr knew this, of course. In his celebrated debates with Einstein, he often invoked quantum mechanics for describing macro bodies of measurement in order to refute the acute objections that Einstein raised to probability waves and to the uncertainty principle."

--Amit Goswami, Ph.D. physics professor at the Institute of Theoretical Sciences at the University of Oregon.

And yes the cat is 50% and 50% alive simultaneously in potentia before we open the box to look. If you don't understand this, I can only wonder in utter bewilderment what you're reading.

Dr. Goswami also writes, "The paradox of a cat that is dead and alive at the same time is a consequence of the way in which we do our calculations in quantum mechanics. However bizarre its consequences, we must take this mathematics seriously because the same mathematics gives us the marvels of transistors and lasers."

He also states, "Since our observations magically resolves the dichotomy of the cat, it must be us--our consciousness--that collapses the cat's wave function. Material realists do not like this idea, because it makes consciousness an independent, causal entity; admitting that would be like putting nails in the coffin of material realism. Materialism notwithstanding, such luminaries as John von Neumann, Fritz London, Edmond Bauer, and Eugene Paul Wigner have endorsed this resolution to the paradox."

Any other questions--ask away.