Making Sense of the Mental Universe

In 2005, an essay was published in Nature asserting that the universe is mental and that we must abandon our tendency to conceptualize observations as things. Since then, experiments have confirmed that — as predicted by quantum mechanics — reality is contextual, which contradicts at least intuitive formulations of realism and corroborates the hypothesis of a mental universe. Yet, to give this hypothesis a coherent rendering, one must explain how a mental universe can — at least in principle — accommodate (a) our experience of ourselves as distinct individual minds sharing a world beyond the control of our volition; and (b) the empirical fact that this world is contextual despite being seemingly shared. By combining a modern formulation of the ontology of idealism with the relational interpretation of quantum mechanics, the present paper attempts to provide a viable explanatory framework for both points. In the process of doing so, the paper also addresses key philosophical qualms of the relational interpretation

Smoothing and filtering with a class of outer measures

Filtering and smoothing with a generalised representation of uncertainty is considered. Here, uncertainty is represented using a class of outer measures. It is shown how this representation of uncertainty can be propagated using outer-measure-type versions of Markov kernels and generalised Bayesian-like update equations. This leads to a system of generalised smoothing and filtering equations where integrals are replaced by supremums and probability density functions are replaced by positive functions with supremum equal to one. Interestingly, these equations retain most of the structure found in the classical Bayesian filtering framework. It is additionally shown that the Kalman filter recursion can be recovered from weaker assumptions on the available information on the corresponding hidden Markov model

Towards a quantum evolutionary scheme: violating Bell's inequalities in language

We show the presence of genuine quantum structures in human language. The neo-Darwinian evolutionary scheme is founded on a probability structure that satisfies the Kolmogorovian axioms, and as a consequence cannot incorporate quantum-like evolutionary change. In earlier research we revealed quantum structures in processes taking place in conceptual space. We argue that the presence of quantum structures in language and the earlier detected quantum structures in conceptual change make the neo-Darwinian evolutionary scheme strictly too limited for Evolutionary Epistemology. We sketch how we believe that evolution in a more general way should be implemented in epistemology and conceptual change, but also in biology, and how this view would lead to another relation between both biology and epistemology.Comment: 20 pages, no figures, this version of the paper is equal to the foregoing. The paper has meanwhile been published in another book series than the one tentatively mentioned in the comments given with the foregoing versio

How Events Come Into Being: EEQT, Particle Tracks, Quantum Chaos, and Tunneling Time

In sections 1 and 2 we review Event Enhanced Quantum Theory (EEQT). In section 3 we discuss applications of EEQT to tunneling time, and compare its quantitative predictions with other approaches, in particular with B\"uttiker-Larmor and Bohm trajectory approach. In section 4 we discuss quantum chaos and quantum fractals resulting from simultaneous continuous monitoring of several non-commuting observables. In particular we show self-similar, non-linear, iterated function system-type, patterns arising from quantum jumps and from the associated Markov operator. Concluding remarks pointing to possible future development of EEQT are given in section 5.Comment: latex, 27 pages, 7 postscript figures. Paper submitted to Proc. Conference "Mysteries, Puzzles And Paradoxes In Quantum Mechanics, Workshop on Entanglement And Decoherence, Palazzo Feltrinelli, Gargnano, Garda Lake, Italy, 20-25 September, 199

Artificial Intelligence in the Context of Human Consciousness

Artificial intelligence (AI) can be defined as the ability of a machine to learn and make decisions based on acquired information. AI’s development has incited rampant public speculation regarding the singularity theory: a futuristic phase in which intelligent machines are capable of creating increasingly intelligent systems. Its implications, combined with the close relationship between humanity and their machines, make achieving understanding both natural and artificial intelligence imperative. Researchers are continuing to discover natural processes responsible for essential human skills like decision-making, understanding language, and performing multiple processes simultaneously. Artificial intelligence attempts to simulate these functions through techniques like artificial neural networks, Markov Decision Processes, Human Language Technology, and Multi-Agent Systems, which rely upon a combination of mathematical models and hardware

Bell's Theorem and Locally-Mediated Reformulations of Quantum Mechanics

Bell's Theorem rules out many potential reformulations of quantum mechanics, but within a generalized framework, it does not exclude all "locally-mediated" models. Such models describe the correlations between entangled particles as mediated by intermediate parameters which track the particle world-lines and respect Lorentz covariance. These locally-mediated models require the relaxation of an arrow-of-time assumption which is typically taken for granted. Specifically, some of the mediating parameters in these models must functionally depend on measurement settings in their future, i.e., on input parameters associated with later times. This option (often called "retrocausal") has been repeatedly pointed out in the literature, but the exploration of explicit locally-mediated toy-models capable of describing specific entanglement phenomena has begun only in the past decade. A brief survey of such models is included here. These models provide a continuous and consistent description of events associated with spacetime locations, with aspects that are solved "all-at-once" rather than unfolding from the past to the future. The tension between quantum mechanics and relativity which is usually associated with Bell's Theorem does not occur here. Unlike conventional quantum models, the number of parameters needed to specify the state of a system does not grow exponentially with the number of entangled particles. The promise of generalizing such models to account for all quantum phenomena is identified as a grand challenge.Comment: 61 pages, 2 figures; accepted for publication by Rev. Mod. Phy