Your premise that "nobody has inquired" is incorrect. There have been abundances of people trying to do exactly that in the history of physics. Quantum mechanics wasn't accepted easily back in the day and there were plenty of physicists putting out alternative theories in the early 20th century.

Nowadays, as I already explained on your other question, if you want to replace one theory by another, you can't just make up one simplified thing that works for one experimental effect, you have to provide something that explains all existing experiments equally well and goes beyond for at least one existing effect. Otherwise it's just an approximation to the existing theory.

By the way, the claim that superposition is the main thing behind Schrödinger's cat is not correct: the point of entanglement is that you have inseparable state entities, so what you have is not a simple product of things. I personally don't like the cat paradox particularly because it has created so much didactic confusion. Schrödinger's original intention behind it was to make a joke about how absurd it would be to blindly apply a microscopic theory like quantum mechanics to a macroscopic object like a cat. In modern physics courses, it is used to demonstrate that in quantum systems, there may be inseparable state entanglements which can't be received by simply multiplying individual components. However, in pop culture both of these aspects are ignored and it's just "hah hah the cat is dead and alive at the same time".

So, I favor abandoning this cat, but superposition will probably not be gotten rid of.

Jürgen Weippert,

You are saying that the environment of the cat is entangled to the cat so that the environment dictates the properties of the cat (dead or alive) ? While this is not scientifically wrong, it is not what Schrodinger had in mind or what I think the thought experiment argues about.

I still think Schrödinger's cat is primarily about illustrating superposition and that entanglement is more related to causing decoherences i.e. when considering the cat's interaction with its environment (e.g., the observer or the box), entanglement could play a role in how the cat's state becomes correlated with these external factors, leading to decoherence and the loss of quantum properties

I said explicitely in my post that Schrödinger's original intention was to make a joke about the absurdity of applying a principle for microscopic domain to the macroscopic world. Here is his original quote:

"It is typical of these cases that an indeterminacy originally restricted to the atomic domain turns into a sensually observable [macroscopic] indeterminacy, which can then be resolved by direct observation. This prevents us from so naïvely accepting a "blurred model" as representative of reality. Per se, it would not embody anything unclear or contradictory. There is a difference between a shaky or out-of-focus photograph and a snapshot of clouds and fog banks."

The usage in modern day physics teaching deviates from this in the manner described above.

Dear colleagues,

The superposition principle is undeniably central to quantum mechanics, providing the foundation for Hilbert space representations and enabling predictions that match observations. However, it also introduces paradoxes such as Schrödinger’s cat, where states seem to exist in multiple configurations until measurement collapses them.

Pure Time Theory (PTT) offers an alternative perspective where superposition may be reinterpreted as a consequence of time’s fundamental role in quantum evolution rather than a strict necessity for the theory itself.

1. Time Evolution Instead of Static Superposition

In standard QM, superposition exists because states "live" in Hilbert space until measurement collapses them.

PTT suggests that quantum states are not in superposition but rather exist in an evolving temporal sequence, constrained by their local relaxation time .

Instead of assuming that a particle is in multiple states at once, PTT describes quantum evolution as a function of how time itself unfolds locally, leading to an alternative resolution of quantum transitions.

2. Quantum Measurement as a Temporal Stabilization

The measurement problem in QM forces us to think of collapse as a physical process, but PTT suggests that what we perceive as "collapse" is instead a transition between different temporal states, each governed by its .

The so-called "superposition" states may actually be different temporal configurations of a system, rather than a coexistence of multiple possibilities.

In this view, the paradoxical nature of superposition disappears, replaced by a deterministic yet still probabilistic sequence of states that naturally unfold over time.

3. The Role of Time in Quantum Mechanics Without Superposition

Instead of relying on Hilbert space and wavefunction superposition, a quantum mechanics built under PTT principles would focus on:

Tracking the evolution of quantum states through changes in local relaxation time.

Defining measurement not as collapse but as stabilization into a particular temporal frame.

Reinterpreting entanglement as a synchronization of time states rather than a "spooky" link across space.

4. Can This Framework Be Tested?

If PTT is correct, quantum interference effects should depend on the temporal configuration of the system, rather than an abstract superposition principle.

This could be tested by looking for deviations in interference patterns based on controlled modifications of time constraints in the experiment.

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Conclusion

While superposition is a powerful tool in standard QM, PTT suggests it may be an emergent consequence of time dynamics rather than a fundamental necessity.

Instead of requiring multiple states to "exist simultaneously" in Hilbert space, quantum states may evolve naturally in a time-structured sequence, eliminating the paradoxical nature of superposition while preserving QM’s predictive power.

This opens up the possibility of a quantum framework that does not rely on superposition, Hilbert spaces, or wavefunction collapse—but instead treats quantum evolution as a structured process within time itself.

Would love to hear your thoughts on whether time-based quantum evolution could provide a viable alternative to the standard superposition-based formulation.

Best regards,

Essam Allou