6 research outputs found
Modeling Meaning Associated with Documental Entities: Introducing the Brussels Quantum Approach
We show that the Brussels operational-realistic approach to quantum physics
and quantum cognition offers a fundamental strategy for modeling the meaning
associated with collections of documental entities. To do so, we take the World
Wide Web as a paradigmatic example and emphasize the importance of
distinguishing the Web, made of printed documents, from a more abstract meaning
entity, which we call the Quantum Web, or QWeb, where the former is considered
to be the collection of traces that can be left by the latter, in specific
measurements, similarly to how a non-spatial quantum entity, like an electron,
can leave localized traces of impact on a detection screen. The double-slit
experiment is extensively used to illustrate the rationale of the modeling,
which is guided by how physicists constructed quantum theory to describe the
behavior of the microscopic entities. We also emphasize that the superposition
principle and the associated interference effects are not sufficient to model
all experimental probabilistic data, like those obtained by counting the
relative number of documents containing certain words and co-occurrences of
words. For this, additional effects, like context effects, must also be taken
into consideration.Comment: 27 pages, 6 figures, Late
A Hilbert Space Geometric Representation of Shared Awareness and Joint Decision Making
Two people in the same situation may ascribe very different meanings to their experiences. They will form different awareness, reacting differently to shared information. Various factors can give rise to this behavior. These factors include, but are not limited to, prior knowledge, training, biases, cultural factors, social factors, team vs. individual context, time, resources, and technology. At the individual level, the differences in attaining separate actions by accessing shared information may not be considered as an anomaly from the perspective of rational decision-making. But for group behavior, reacting differently to the shared information can give rise to conflicts and deviations from an expected behavior, and are categorized as an anomaly or irrational behavior. The lack of proper recognition of the reasons for differences can even impede the shared action towards attaining a common objective. The manifestation of differences becomes noticeable in complex situations.
The shared awareness approaches that originate from available situational awareness models fail to recognize the reasons of an unexpected decision in these situations. One reason for this is that in complex situations, incompatible events can become dominant. Human information processing is sensitive to the compatibility of the events. This, and various other human psychological characteristics, require models to be developed that include comprehensive formalisms for both compatible and incompatible events in complex situations.
Quantum probability provides a geometrical probabilistic formalism to study the decision and the dynamic cognitive systems in complex situations. The event representation in Hilbert space provides the necessary foundation to represent an individual\u27s knowledge of a situation. Hilbert space allows representing awareness as a superposition of indefinite states. These states form a complete N-dimensional Hilbert space. Within the space generated, events are represented as a subspace.
By using these characteristics of Hilbert space and quantum geometrical probabilities, this study introduces a representation of self and other-than-self in a situation. An area of awareness with the possibility of projection onto the same event allows representing shared awareness geometrically. This formalism provides a coherent explanation of shared awareness for both compatible and incompatible events. Also, by using the superposition principles, the dissertation introduces spooky action at a distance concept in studying shared awareness
Testing Quantum Models of Conjunction Fallacy on the World Wide Web
© 2017 Springer Science+Business Media New YorkThe ‘conjunction fallacy’ has been extensively debated by scholars in cognitive science and, in recent times, the discussion has been enriched by the proposal of modeling the fallacy using the quantum formalism. Two major quantum approaches have been put forward: the first assumes that respondents use a two-step sequential reasoning and that the fallacy results from the presence of ‘question order effects’; the second assumes that respondents evaluate the cognitive situation as a whole and that the fallacy results from the ‘emergence of new meanings’, as an ‘effect of overextension’ in the conceptual conjunction. Thus, the question arises as to determine whether and to what extent conjunction fallacies would result from ‘order effects’ or, instead, from ‘emergence effects’. To help clarify this situation, we propose to use the World Wide Web as an ‘information space’ that can be interrogated both in a sequential and non-sequential way, to test these two quantum approaches. We find that ‘emergence effects’, and not ‘order effects’, should be considered the main cognitive mechanism producing the observed conjunction fallacies
Quantum Structure in Cognition: Human Language as a Boson Gas of Entangled Words
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.Comment: 45 pages, 11 figure