So, the cat in the box has an implanted wireless-enabled chip running a full TCP/IP stack, powered by the cat’s own heartbeat, and this chip has an IP address and responds to ICMP packets (that’s pings to you, pal) for as long as the cat’s alive. I’ve got a shell script running in a terminal window on my Gnome desktop, which displays ping response times to the screen while logging them to a timestamped log file. I’m watching, and I’m watching, and the cat’s still alive…eventually I get bored and walk away to make a cup of tea. After a minute or so the screensaver kicks in.

I come back a few minutes later and wiggle the mouse, banishing the flying penguins from the screen. The terminal window shows no ping response - OMG, the cat’s died! When did it die? I look at the log file. Five minutes ago, while I was boiling the kettle for my cup of tea.

Now, if you want to tell me that the cat only died-five-minutes-ago when I wiggled the mouse just now, “observing” the cat’s vital signs and “collapsing the waveform”, I want you to tell me how you can possibly believe that.