A Case For Applying an Abstracted Quantum Formalism to Cognition
Diederik Aerts, Jan Broekaert, Liane M. Gabora
This chapter outlines some of the highlights of efforts undertaken by our group to describe the role of contextuality in the conceptualization of conscious experience using generalized formalisms from quantum mechanics. Conscious experience is filtered not just through innate categories to give rise to stimulusresponse reflexes, but also learned categories, including concepts such as ‘container’, ‘democracy’, ‘truth’ and ‘falsehood’. The meanings of these concepts are not rigid or static but shift fluidly depending on context, increasing dramatically our potential to both inform and be informed by the world. As Edelman and Tonini (2000, p. 101) put it: “Every act of perception is, to some extent, an act of creation, and every act of memory is, to some degree, an act of imagination.” Elements of conscious experience, such as perceived stimuli, retrieved memories, and concepts are considered entities of the personal cognitive sphere, referred to collectively as ‘conceptual entities’. These can be modelled by considering them as configurations of properties, which are consistently testable through personal and interpersonal cognitive processes such as perception, reflection, and social interactions. Specifically, we are concerned with the interface between the conceptual entity and its extraneous surroundings: the context. The interrelation and concatenation of concepts consciously experienced as a stream of thought is particularly affected by context, being influenced not only by the ever-fluctuating
arXiv:quant-ph/0404068•Jan 1, 2003•55 citations