This revolves round a principle of quantum theory called "superposition", which basically claims that if you don't know what the state of any object is, then - as long as you don't look to check - it is actually in all possible states simultaneously. "echotolosa" therefore is simultaneously male, female and hermaphrodite according to superposition, until you meet me and see I'm female ! It's the checking that limits it to a single possibilty.Erwin Schrodinger proposed a theoretical experiment in which a cat was put in a steel box along with a vial of hydrocyanic acid along with a tiny amount of a radioactive substance. If just one atom of this decayed during the test period, it would trigger a sequence in which a hammer would break the vial and kill the cat. As long as the box stayed closed, you wouldn't know whether this had happened or not, so according to quantum law and the superposition of states, the cat is both alive and dead at one and the same time. It's only when you take a measurement, ie look in the box, that the superposition ceases to be and the cat is either alive or dead. The paradox is that observation (=measurement) affects the outcome, so the outcome doesn't exist until the measurement is made.Apparently superposition does occur on the subatomic level, ie as regards electrons, and this could have implications about reality on the observable level, when dealing with cats rather than electrons.