Please explain Schroedinger's cat -- the "so what"?

It was originally a theoretical experiment proposed musingly in Schroedinger's journal. He tries to explain how something can be in multiple states at once, a fundamental principal of quantum mechanics. It becomes philosophical when you think about the possibility that what we can't observe is unknown, and therefore unprovable. As to practicality, the hope is that quantum theory will one day develop teleportation, a very handy tool. To your gonzo journalism comparison, they hardly have the same implications. While Thompson suggests that being a part of his stories changed them, Schroedinger leans more toward the possibility that what we observe cannot be entirely trusted. Also, it's important to remember that he was a physicist, not a philosopher.

It is in no way a practical experiment. It is a thought experiment stating that if you left a cat in a box with a bottle of poison for a certain amount of time until you open the box you will not know if the cat is alive or dead. In this time of unknowing the cat could be either and yet is neither, and in this is the Schroedinger theory.

I think one of the most important things that the experiment shows is that there could potentially be many different realities. Until you look into the box, you have no idea whether the cat is dead, alive, or even still in the box. Therefore there are infinite possibilities until you make the decision to jump into one of them. Perhaps in another reality you opened the box and the cat was alive, while in this one it was dead.

It does have philosophical implications.

Think about it. The cat is either dead or alive, that is its reality.

But is reality what we perceive it to be?

If we know things only by our own experience, then....

What is reality, if there is no one there to perceive it?