The Schrodinger's Cat gedanken experiment was inspired by Heisenberg's uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics. Heisenberg proved that a quantum particle does not have a definite position, velocity or many other properties until that property is actually measured. It's not that the position (for example) is merely unknown until measured; it's that the position doesn't exist until measured. Until measurement, the particle is in a "superposition" of all possible states at the same time, each state having a differential probability that is computed by Schrodinger's (own) Equation.
Schrodinger tried to do a reductio ad absurdum thought experiment extrapolating the uncertainty principle to mean that an unobserved cat in a possibly poisoned box is both dead and alive at the same time. This paradox does not disprove the Heisenberg uncertainty principle for quantum particles, which has been experimentally verified for 100 years. It is true that, to this day, no one understands why the quantum mechanical "measurement problem" works the way it does. There is no agreed-upon interpretation of quantum mechanics. Thus, said Richard Feynman (or David Mermin) to quantum physicists, "just shut up and calculate," instead of trying to figure out quantum reality.
Contrary to the article you linked, a minority of top physicists and philosphers of science today do believe that it is conscious observation that "collapses" a probabilistic superposition into a definite position upon measurement. The seemingly most favored interpretation among physicists today is even more fantastic. It's the Hugh Everett "many worlds (universes) hypothesis", which says that if an experiment has N possible outcomes, then when an experiment is done, all possible outcomes actually come to fruition in N different universes. So, for example, if you open the box and find the cat alive, a clone of you in a different universe will split off and find the cat dead. This infinite splitting into an ever greater infinity of yous in different universes continues infinitely forever. There are reports that "many worlds" is the QM interpretation that is most favored by the current physicists who think about the issue at all.
My interpretation of physicists is that they are engaging in metaphysical speculation and not science when they posit things such as the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, the existence of multiple universes to explain the fine tuning for life in our universe, and the creation ex nihilo of our universe.
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