Schrodinger's President

From Richard Fernandez:

And so Chavez can rule for so long as he lives. And he lives for as long as Castro says he does. Since no one is allowed to examine Chavez without the permission of the Cuban officials no one can gainsay the continued existence of the virtual Hugo Chavez except Fidel Castro.

Chavez is in a box. There are only two possibilities: He is alive or he is not. The likelihood of him being alive cannot be determined, so I am going to arbitrarily assign it a probability of precisely 50%. Therefore, according to Schrodinger, until the box is opened, Chavez is both alive and dead.