when is Schroedinger's cat dead, and when is it not?

You did not answer my own question though.

How can a cat NOT be considered a valid observer of his own death, that's what bugs me in this thought experiment...

Of course, the Copenhagen Interpretation could also be wrong.

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Of course, the Copenhagen Interpretation could also be wrong.

In what I learnt as kosher QM, what makes the wave function of any particle collapse is simply any interaction with another particle or body. That other body doesn't need to belong to a physicist doing an observation.

This thought experiment would work just the same with Schrodinger himself in the box instead of his cat. Assuming an essential difference between a man and a cat is a religious reflex, a form of superstition or metaphysics.

It's a thought experiment so there's no legal issue.

I just think Schrodinger did not give sufficient thoughts to this. The idea that having an observer or not would enduce reality to behave a certain ways is absurd, and metaphysical.

It's only "bad philosophy" to a naive realist. The idea that observer and observed are inextricable could be said to be self evident from the point of non-duality. (Note too that the concept of "physical force" is also predicated on naive realism).

The key issue is of course with the word "existence" which naive realists assume has meaning independent of observation. The counter-argument that "things should disappear" when your back is turned is irrelevant since "things" are still "existent" in the mind's eye of the skeptic who is suggesting the disappearance scenario. We are all so steeped in the naive realism of daily life, and the language which supports it, that non-duality seems far-fetched or dysfunctional.

What is dysfunctional are the people who tout it as THE answer to the REALITY of existence (or the weaselly way they tend to phrase that notion)...to the exclusion of any other possibilities.

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What is dysfunctional are the people who tout it as THE answer to the REALITY of existence (or the weaselly way they tend to phrase that notion)...to the exclusion of any other possibilities.

No. What is dysfunctional is the person who thinks the phrase "reality of existence" has any meaning at all at this level of analysis. No "answer" is being offered because "the problem" has been identified by an established process of linguistic deconstruction as a pseudo-problem. You are playing a game with nobody but yourself.