By way of example, consider the following quote from the Wikipedia article on Schrodinger:
Schrödinger's famous thought experiment poses the question, when does a quantum system stop existing as a mixture of states and become one or the other?
This is the same as saying:
Schrödinger's famous thought experiment poses the question, when does a quantum system stop existing as a one or the other and become one or the other?
If you don't believe these two statements are equivalent, follow the link which clarifys "mixture" and you will see that my substitute of "one or the other" for "mixture" is an entirely appropriate substitute.
Perhaps you disagree that my substitute has the same meaning as the concluding "one or the other" - but what does the concluding phrase mean if not what the former means?
There isn't any other meaning. Schrodinger's question - like Wikipedia's paraphrasing - is a completely silly question. No wonder nobody can answer it.
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I agree with you. Both formulations are physically equivalent for an elementary system that can be only in one state (dead or alive). A mixture of states has physical meaning only for composite systems.
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