We analyze different aspects of our quantum modeling approach of human concepts and, more specifically, focus on the quantum effects of contextuality, interference, entanglement, and emergence, illustrating how each of them makes its appearance in specific situations of the dynamics of human concepts and their combinations. We point out the relation of our approach, which is based on an ontology of a concept as an entity in a state changing under influence of a context, with the main traditional concept theories, (...) that is, prototype theory, exemplar theory, and theory theory. We ponder about the question why quantum theory performs so well in its modeling of human concepts, and we shed light on this question by analyzing the role of complex amplitudes, showing how they allow to describe interference in the statistics of measurement outcomes, while in the traditional theories statistics of outcomes originates in classical probability weights, without the possibility of interference. The relevance of complex numbers, the appearance of entanglement, and the role of Fock space in explaining contextual emergence, all as unique features of the quantum modeling, are explicitly revealed in this article by analyzing human concepts and their dynamics. (shrink)

We model a piece of text of human language telling a story by means of the quantum structure describing a Bose gas in a state close to a Bose–Einstein condensate near absolute zero temperature. For this we introduce energy levels for the words (concepts) used in the story and we also introduce the new notion of ‘cogniton’ as the quantum of human thought. Words (concepts) are then cognitons in different energy states as it is the case for photons in different (...) energy states, or states of different radiative frequency, when the considered boson gas is that of the quanta of the electromagnetic field. We show that Bose–Einstein statistics delivers a very good model for these pieces of texts telling stories, both for short stories and for long stories of the size of novels. We analyze an unexpected connection with Zipf’s law in human language, the Zipf ranking relating to the energy levels of the words, and the Bose–Einstein graph coinciding with the Zipf graph. We investigate the issue of ‘identity and indistinguishability’ from this new perspective and conjecture that the way one can easily understand how two of ‘the same concepts’ are ‘absolutely identical and indistinguishable’ in human language is also the way in which quantum particles are absolutely identical and indistinguishable in physical reality, providing in this way new evidence for our conceptuality interpretation of quantum theory. (shrink)

We model a piece of text of human language telling a story by means of the quantum structure describing a Bose gas in a state close to a Bose–Einstein condensate near absolute zero temperature. For this we introduce energy levels for the words used in the story and we also introduce the new notion of ‘cogniton’ as the quantum of human thought. Words are then cognitons in different energy states as it is the case for photons in different energy states, (...) or states of different radiative frequency, when the considered boson gas is that of the quanta of the electromagnetic field. We show that Bose–Einstein statistics delivers a very good model for these pieces of texts telling stories, both for short stories and for long stories of the size of novels. We analyze an unexpected connection with Zipf’s law in human language, the Zipf ranking relating to the energy levels of the words, and the Bose–Einstein graph coinciding with the Zipf graph. We investigate the issue of ‘identity and indistinguishability’ from this new perspective and conjecture that the way one can easily understand how two of ‘the same concepts’ are ‘absolutely identical and indistinguishable’ in human language is also the way in which quantum particles are absolutely identical and indistinguishable in physical reality, providing in this way new evidence for our conceptuality interpretation of quantum theory. (shrink)

How can we explain the strange behavior of quantum and relativistic entities? Why do they behave in ways that defy our intuition about how physical entities should behave, considering our ordinary experience of the world around us? In this article, we address these questions by showing that the comportment of quantum and relativistic entities is not that strange after all, if we only consider what their nature might possibly be: not an objectual one, but a conceptual one. This not in (...) the sense that quantum and relativistic entities would be human concepts, but in the sense that they would share with the latter a same conceptual nature, similarly to how electromagnetic and sound waves, although very different entities, can share a same undulatory nature. When this hypothesis is adopted, i.e., when a conceptuality interpretation about the deep nature of physical entities is taken seriously, many of the interpretational difficulties disappear and our physical world is back making sense, though our view of it becomes radically different from what our classical prejudice made us believe in the first place. (shrink)

How can we explain the strange behavior of quantum and relativistic entities? Why do they behave in ways that defy our intuition about how physical entities should behave, considering our ordinary experience of the world around us? In this article, we address these questions by showing that the comportment of quantum and relativistic entities is not that strange after all, if we only consider what their nature might possibly be: not an objectual one, but a conceptual one. This not in (...) the sense that quantum and relativistic entities would be human concepts, but in the sense that they would share with the latter a same conceptual nature, similarly to how electromagnetic and sound waves, although very different entities, can share a same undulatory nature. When this hypothesis is adopted, i.e., when a conceptuality interpretation about the deep nature of physical entities is taken seriously, many of the interpretational difficulties disappear and our physical world is back making sense, though our view of it becomes radically different from what our classical prejudice made us believe in the first place. (shrink)

We model a piece of text of human language telling a story by means of the quantum structure describing a Bose gas in a state close to a Bose–Einstein condensate near absolute zero temperature. For this we introduce energy levels for the words used in the story and we also introduce the new notion of ‘cogniton’ as the quantum of human thought. Words are then cognitons in different energy states as it is the case for photons in different energy states, (...) or states of different radiative frequency, when the considered boson gas is that of the quanta of the electromagnetic field. We show that Bose–Einstein statistics delivers a very good model for these pieces of texts telling stories, both for short stories and for long stories of the size of novels. We analyze an unexpected connection with Zipf’s law in human language, the Zipf ranking relating to the energy levels of the words, and the Bose–Einstein graph coinciding with the Zipf graph. We investigate the issue of ‘identity and indistinguishability’ from this new perspective and conjecture that the way one can easily understand how two of ‘the same concepts’ are ‘absolutely identical and indistinguishable’ in human language is also the way in which quantum particles are absolutely identical and indistinguishable in physical reality, providing in this way new evidence for our conceptuality interpretation of quantum theory. (shrink)

In the first half of this two-part article, we analyzed a cognitive psychology experiment where participants were asked to select pairs of directions that they considered to be the best example of Two Different Wind Directions, and showed that the data violate the CHSH version of Bell’s inequality, with same magnitude as in typical Bell-test experiments in physics. In this second part, we complete our analysis by presenting a symmetrized version of the experiment, still violating the CHSH inequality but now (...) also obeying the marginal law, for which we provide a full quantum modeling in Hilbert space, using a singlet state and suitably chosen product measurements. We also address some of the criticisms that have been recently directed at experiments of this kind, according to which they would not highlight the presence of genuine forms of entanglement. We explain that these criticisms are based on a view of entanglement that is too restrictive, thus unable to capture all possible ways physical and conceptual entities can connect and form systems behaving as a whole. We also provide an example of a mechanical model showing that the violations of the marginal law and Bell inequalities are generally to be associated with different mechanisms. (shrink)

We present a cognitive psychology experiment where participants were asked to select pairs of spatial directions that they considered to be the best example of Two different wind directions. Data are shown to violate the CHSH version of Bell’s inequality with the same magnitude as in typical Bell-test experiments with entangled spins. Wind directions thus appear to be conceptual entities connected through meaning, in human cognition, in a similar way as spins appear to be entangled in experiments conducted in physics (...) laboratories. This is the first part of a two-part article. In the second part we present a symmetrized version of the same experiment for which we provide a quantum modeling of the collected data in Hilbert space. (shrink)

In the first half of this two-part article, we analyzed a cognitive psychology experiment where participants were asked to select pairs of directions that they considered to be the best example of Two Different Wind Directions, and showed that the data violate the CHSH version of Bell’s inequality, with same magnitude as in typical Bell-test experiments in physics. In this second part, we complete our analysis by presenting a symmetrized version of the experiment, still violating the CHSH inequality but now (...) also obeying the marginal law, for which we provide a full quantum modeling in Hilbert space, using a singlet state and suitably chosen product measurements. We also address some of the criticisms that have been recently directed at experiments of this kind, according to which they would not highlight the presence of genuine forms of entanglement. We explain that these criticisms are based on a view of entanglement that is too restrictive, thus unable to capture all possible ways physical and conceptual entities can connect and form systems behaving as a whole. We also provide an example of a mechanical model showing that the violations of the marginal law and Bell inequalities are generally to be associated with different mechanisms. (shrink)

We show that Bell inequalities can be violated in the macroscopic world. The macroworld violation is illustrated using an example involving connected vessels of water. We show that whether the violation of inequalities occurs in the microworld or the macroworld, it is the identification of nonidentical events that plays a crucial role. Specifically, we prove that if nonidentical events are consistently differentiated, Bell-type Pitowsky inequalities are no longer violated, even for Bohm's example of two entangled spin 1/2 quantum particles. We (...) show how Bell inequalities can be violated in cognition, specifically in the relationship between abstract concepts and specific instances of these concepts. This supports the hypothesis that genuine quantum structure exists in the mind. We introduce a model where the amount of nonlocality and the degree of quantum uncertainty are parameterized, and demonstrate that increasing nonlocality increases the degree of violation, while increasing quantum uncertainty decreases the degree of violation. (shrink)

We elaborate on a new interpretation of quantum mechanics which we introduced recently. The main hypothesis of this new interpretation is that quantum particles are entities interacting with matter conceptually, which means that pieces of matter function as interfaces for the conceptual content carried by the quantum particles. We explain how our interpretation was inspired by our earlier analysis of non-locality as non-spatiality and a specific interpretation of quantum potentiality, which we illustrate by means of the example of two interconnected (...) vessels of water. We show by means of this example that philosophical realism is not in contradiction with the recent findings with respect to Leggett’s inequalities and their violations. We explain our recent work on using the quantum formalism to model human concepts and their combinations and how this has given rise to the foundational ideas of our new quantum interpretation. We analyze the equivalence of meaning in the realm of human concepts and coherence in the realm of quantum particles, and how the duality of abstract and concrete leads naturally to a Heisenberg uncertainty relation. We illustrate the role played by interference and entanglement and show how the new interpretation explains the problems related to identity and individuality in quantum mechanics. We put forward a possible scenario for the emergence of the reality of macroscopic objects. (shrink)

We outline the rationale and preliminary results of using the State Context Property (SCOP) formalism, originally developed as a generalization of quantum mechanics, to describe the contextual manner in which concepts are evoked, used, and combined to generate meaning. The quantum formalism was developed to cope with problems arising in the description of (1) the measurement process, and (2) the generation of new states with new properties when particles become entangled. Similar problems arising with concepts motivated the formal treatment introduced (...) here. Concepts are viewed not as fixed representations, but entities existing in states of potentiality that require interaction with a context---a stimulus or another concept---to `collapse' to observable form as an exemplar, prototype, or other (possibly imaginary) instance. The stimulus situation plays the role of the measurement in physics, acting as context that induces a change of the cognitive state from superposition state to collapsed state. The collapsed state is more likely to consist of a conjunction of concepts for associative than analytic thought because more stimulus or concept properties take part in the collapse. We provide two contextual measures of conceptual distance---one using collapse probabilities and the other weighted properties---and show how they can be applied to conjunctions using the pet fish problem. (shrink)

We support the authors' claims, except that we point out that also quantum structure different from quantum probability abundantly plays a role in human cognition. We put forward several elements to illustrate our point, mentioning entanglement, contextuality, interference, and emergence as effects, and states, observables, complex numbers, and Fock space as specific mathematical structures.

We propose a theory for modeling concepts that uses the state-context-property theory (SCOP), a generalization of the quantum formalism, whose basic notions are states, contexts and properties. This theory enables us to incorporate context into the mathematical structure used to describe a concept, and thereby model how context influences the typicality of a single exemplar and the applicability of a single property of a concept. We introduce the notion `state of a concept' to account for this contextual influence, and show (...) that the structure of the set of contexts and of the set of properties of a concept is a complete orthocomplemented lattice. The structural study in this article is a preparation for a numerical mathematical theory of concepts in the Hilbert space of quantum mechanics that allows the description of the combination of concepts. (shrink)

The sets of contexts and properties of a concept are embedded in the complex Hilbert space of quantum mechanics. States are unit vectors or density operators, and contexts and properties are orthogonal projections. The way calculations are done in Hilbert space makes it possible to model how context influences the state of a concept. Moreover, a solution to the combination of concepts is proposed. Using the tensor product, a procedure for describing combined concepts is elaborated, providing a natural solution to (...) the pet fish problem. This procedure allows the modeling of an arbitrary number of combined concepts. By way of example, a model for a simple sentence containing a subject, a predicate and an object, is presented. (shrink)

We present a cognitive psychology experiment where participants were asked to select pairs of spatial directions that they considered to be the best example of Two different wind directions. Data are shown to violate the CHSH version of Bell’s inequality with the same magnitude as in typical Bell-test experiments with entangled spins. Wind directions thus appear to be conceptual entities connected through meaning, in human cognition, in a similar way as spins appear to be entangled in experiments conducted in physics (...) laboratories. This is the first part of a two-part article. In the second part (Aerts et al. in Found Sci, 2017) we present a symmetrized version of the same experiment for which we provide a quantum modeling of the collected data in Hilbert space. (shrink)

Many advocates of the Everettian interpretation consider that theirs is the only approach to take quantum mechanics really seriously, and that this approach allows to deduce a fantastic scenario for our reality, one that consists of an infinite number of parallel worlds that branch out continuously. In this article, written in dialogue form, we suggest that quantum mechanics can be taken even more seriously, if the many-worlds view is replaced by a many-measurements view. This allows not only to derive the (...) Born rule, thus solving the measurement problem, but also to deduce a one-world non-spatial reality, providing an even more fantastic scenario than that of the multiverse. (shrink)

Elaboramos aquí una nueva interpretación propuesta recientemente de la teoría cuántica, según la cual las partículas cuánticas son consideradas como entidades conceptuales que median entre los pedazos de materia ordinaria los cuales son considerados como estructuras de memoria para ellos. Nuestro objetivo es identificar qué es lo equivalente para el ámbito cognitivo humano de lo que el espacio-tiempo físico es para el ámbito de las partículas cuánticas y de la materia ordinaria. Para ello, se identifica la noción de "historia" como (...) el equivalente en la esfera cognitiva humana de lo que la materia ordinaria es en el ámbito físico cuántico. Analizamos también el papel desempeñado por los conectivos lógicos de disyunción y de conjunción con respecto a la noción de localidad. De manera similar a lo que hemos hecho en investigaciones anteriores referidas a esa nueva interpretación de la teoría cuántica, se utiliza el entorno cognitivo específico de la Internet para dilucidar las comparaciones que hacemos entre el ámbito cognitivo humano y el ámbito físico cuántico. We elaborate the new interpretation of quantum theory that we recently proposed, according to which quantum particles are considered conceptual entities mediating between pieces of ordinary matter which are considered to act as memory structures for them. Our aim is to identify what is the equivalent for the human cognitive realm of what physical space-time is for the realm of quantum particles and ordinary matter. For this purpose, we identify the notion of 'story' as the equivalent within the human cognitive realm of what ordinary matter is in the physical quantum realm, and analyze the role played by the logical connectives of disjunction and conjunction with respect to the notion of locality. Similarly to what we have done in earlier investigations on this new interpretation of quantum theory, we use the specific cognitive environment of the Internet to elucidate the comparisons we make between the human cognitive realm and the physical quantum realm. (shrink)

We put forward a new view of relativity theory that makes the existence of a flow of time compatible with the four-dimensional block universe. To this end, we apply the creation-discovery view elaborated for quantum mechanics to relativity theory and in such a way that time and space become creations instead of discoveries and an underlying non temporal and non spatial reality comes into existence. We study the nature of this underlying non temporal and non spatial reality and reinterpret many (...) aspects of the theory within this new view. We show that data of relativistic measurements are sufficient to derive the three-dimensionality of physical space. The nature of light and massive entities is reconsidered, and an analogy with human cognition is worked out. (shrink)

We prove that if the physical entity S consisting of two separated physical entities S1 and S2 satisfies the axioms of orthodox quantum mechanics, then at least one of the two subentities is a classical physical entity. This theorem implies that separated quantum entities cannot be described by quantum mechanics. We formulate this theorem in an approach where physical entities are described by the set of their states, and the set of their relevant experiments. We also show that the collection (...) of eigenstate sets forms a closure structure on the set of states, which we call the eigen-closure structure. We derive another closure structure on the set of states by means of the orthogonality relation, and call it the ortho-closure structure, and show that the main axioms of quantum mechanics can be introduced in a very general way by means of these two closure structures. We prove that for a general physical entity, and hence also for a quantum entity, the probabilities can always be explained as being due to a lack of knowledge about the interaction between the experimental apparatus and the entity. (shrink)

To cope with problems arising in the description of (1) contextual interactions, and (2) the generation of new states with new properties when quantum entities become entangled, the mathematics of quantum mechanics was developed. Similar problems arise with concepts. We use a generalization of standard quantum mechanics, the mathematical lattice theoretic formalism, to develop a formal description of the contextual manner in which concepts are evoked, used, and combined to generate meaning.

The quantum logical `or' is analyzed from a physical perspective. We show that it is the existence of EPR-like correlation states for the quantum mechanical entity under consideration that make it nonequivalent to the classical situation. Specifically, the presence of potentiality in these correlation states gives rise to the quantum deviation from the classical logical `or'. We show how this arises not only in the microworld, but also in macroscopic situations where EPR-like correlation states are present. We investigate how application (...) of this analysis to concepts could alleviate some well known problems in cognitive science. (shrink)

In this paper we concentrate on the nature of the liar paradox asa cognitive entity; a consistently testable configuration of properties. We elaborate further on a quantum mechanical model (Aerts, Broekaert and Smets, 1999) that has been proposed to analyze the dynamics involved, and we focus on the interpretation and concomitant philosophical picture. Some conclusions we draw from our model favor an effective realistic interpretation of cognitive reality.

The creation discovery view and together with it its technically underlying hidden measurement formalism has been elaborated from the early eighties on, and many aspects of it have been exposed in different places [6, 7, 12, 13, 15, 16, 19, 20, 22, 23, 30–37]. In this paper we give an overview of the most important of these aspects.

For the first time in history, scholars working on language and culture from within an evolutionary epistemological framework, and thereby emphasizing complementary or deviating theories of the Modern Synthesis, were brought together. Of course there have been excellent conferences on Evolutionary Epistemology in the past, as well as numerous conferences on the topics of Language and Culture. However, until now these disciplines had not been brought together into one all-encompassing conference. Moreover, previously there never had been such stress on alternative (...) and complementary theories of the Modern Synthesis. Today we know that natural selection and evolution are far from synonymous and that they do not explain isomorphic phenomena in the world. ‘Taking Darwin seriously’ is the way to go, but today the time has come to take alternative and complementary theories that developed after the Modern Synthesis, equally seriously, and, furthermore, to examine how language and culture can merit from these diverse disciplines. As this volume will make clear, a specific inter- and transdisciplinary approach is one of the next crucial steps that needs to be taken, if we ever want to unravel the secrets of phenomena such as language and culture. (shrink)

Quantum Structures and the Nature of Reality is a collection of papers written for an interdisciplinary audience about the quantum structure research within the International Quantum Structures Association. The advent of quantum mechanics has changed our scientific worldview in a fundamental way. Many popular and semi-popular books have been published about the paradoxical aspects of quantum mechanics. Usually, however, these reflections find their origin in the standard views on quantum mechanics, most of all the wave-particle duality picture. Contrary to relativity (...) theory, where the meaning of its revolutionary ideas was linked from the start with deep structural changes in the geometrical nature of our world, the deep structural changes about the nature of our reality that are indicated by quantum mechanics cannot be traced within the standard formulation. The study of the structure of quantum theory, its logical content, its axiomatic foundation, has been motivated primarily by the search for their structural changes. Due to the high mathematical sophistication of this quantum structure research, no books have been published which try to explain the recent results for an interdisciplinary audience. This book tries to fill this gap by collecting contributions from some of the main researchers in the field. They reveal the steps that have been taken towards a deeper structural understanding of quantum theory. (shrink)

We analyze the meaning of the violation of the marginal probability law for situations of correlation measurements where entanglement is identified. We show that for quantum theory applied to the cognitive realm such a violation does not lead to the type of problems commonly believed to occur in situations of quantum theory applied to the physical realm. We briefly situate our quantum approach for modeling concepts and their combinations with respect to the notions of “extension” and “intension” in theories of (...) meaning, and in existing concept theories. (shrink)

A correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10699-021-09793-2.

Einstein Meets Magritte: An Interdisciplinary Reflection presents insights of the renowned key speakers of the interdisciplinary Einstein meets Magritte conference (1995, Brussels Free University). The contributions elaborate on fundamental questions of science, with regard to the contemporary world, and push beyond the borders of traditional approaches. All of the articles in this volume address this fundamental theme, but somewhere along the road the volume expanded to become much more than a mere expression of the conference's dynamics. The articles not only (...) deal with several scientific disciplines, they also confront these fields with the full spectrum of contemporary life, and become new science. As such, this volume presents a state-of-the-art reflection of science in the world today, in all its diversity. The contributions are accessible to a large audience of scientists, students, educators, and everyone who wants to keep up with science today. (shrink)

We present the fundamentals of the quantum theoretical approach we have developed in the last decade to model cognitive phenomena that resisted modeling by means of classical logical and probabilistic structures, like Boolean, Kolmogorovian and, more generally, set theoretical structures. We firstly sketch the operational-realistic foundations of conceptual entities, i.e. concepts, conceptual combinations, propositions, decision-making entities, etc. Then, we briefly illustrate the application of the quantum formalism in Hilbert space to represent combinations of natural concepts, discussing its success in modeling (...) a wide range of empirical data on concepts and their conjunction, disjunction and negation. Next, we naturally extend the quantum theoretical approach to model some long-standing ‘fallacies of human reasoning’, namely, the ‘conjunction fallacy’ and the ‘disjunction effect’. Finally, we put forward an explanatory hypothesis according to which human reasoning is a defined superposition of ‘emergent reasoning’ and ‘logical reasoning’, where the former generally prevails over the latter. The quantum theoretical approach explains human fallacies as the consequence of genuine quantum structures in human reasoning, i.e. ‘contextuality’, ‘emergence’, ‘entanglement’, ‘interference’ and ‘superposition’. As such, it is alternative to the Kahneman–Tversky research programme, which instead aims to explain human fallacies in terms of ‘individual heuristics and biases’. (shrink)

We present the fundamentals of the quantum theoretical approach we have developed in the last decade to model cognitive phenomena that resisted modeling by means of classical logical and probabilistic structures, like Boolean, Kolmogorovian and, more generally, set theoretical structures. We firstly sketch the operational-realistic foundations of conceptual entities, i.e. concepts, conceptual combinations, propositions, decision-making entities, etc. Then, we briefly illustrate the application of the quantum formalism in Hilbert space to represent combinations of natural concepts, discussing its success in modeling (...) a wide range of empirical data on concepts and their conjunction, disjunction and negation. Next, we naturally extend the quantum theoretical approach to model some long-standing ‘fallacies of human reasoning’, namely, the ‘conjunction fallacy’ and the ‘disjunction effect’. Finally, we put forward an explanatory hypothesis according to which human reasoning is a defined superposition of ‘emergent reasoning’ and ‘logical reasoning’, where the former generally prevails over the latter. The quantum theoretical approach explains human fallacies as the consequence of genuine quantum structures in human reasoning, i.e. ‘contextuality’, ‘emergence’, ‘entanglement’, ‘interference’ and ‘superposition’. As such, it is alternative to the Kahneman–Tversky research programme, which instead aims to explain human fallacies in terms of ‘individual heuristics and biases’. (shrink)

Quantum theory is perhaps our best confirmed theory for a description of the physical properties of nature. On top of demonstrating great empirical effectiveness, many technological developments in the 20th century (such as the interpretation of the periodic table of elements, CD players, holograms, and quantum state teleportation) were only made possible with Quantum theory.Despite its success in the past decades, even today it still remains without a universally accepted interpretation.This book provides an interdisciplinary perspective on the question; 'What is (...) Quantum Mechanics talking about?', a question which continues to be one of the most fascinating and important questions in science.Using an interdisciplinary approach to foundational problems in Quantum Mechanics (QM), ranging from philosophical questions about the interpretation of QM to technical problems in quantum computation, this book explores quantum mechanics from different perspectives (physical, logical, philosophical and mathematical), by researchers from Europe, North America, and South America. (shrink)

We motivate the possibility of using notions and methods derived from quantum physics, and more specifically from the research field known as ‘quantum cognition’, to optimally model different situations in the field of medicine, its decision-making processes and ensuing practices, particularly in relation to chronic and rare diseases. This also as a way to devise alternative approaches to the generally adopted double-blind gold standard.

The articles collected in this volume point out that society as a whole is changing. Social change is due not only to changes in technology and economy, but also to the changing strategies and discourses of social scientists. To what exactly will this change lead in the 21st century? What kind of society lies ahead? In this book the reader will find many arguments and hints pertaining to these questions. She/he will be confronted by a plethora of enriching conceptions of (...) the relationships between social sciences and social changes. (shrink)