Why does Schr\"odinger's cat refuse to be quantic

Abstract

Both at formal and philosophical levels, decades of efforts have been devoted to a deciphering of the `quantum enigma', the `crazy way quantum objects behave', to quote R.P. Feynman's words. We posit that the enigma cannot recede without resorting to a thorough questioning of the quantum ontology. In the current paper this questioning is introduced through a revisitation of the famous Schr\"odinger's cat paradox, and of the main attempts at solving it. Our proposal thereof, is that the quantum world enjoys a sound physical reality (complying, in particular, with the scientifc requirement of experimental reproducibility), but also, that this physical reality calls for an enlarged, and however precise notion of `what is real', such that what is real and actual can be distinguished from what is real but potential