We put forward a possible new interpretation and explanatory framework for quantum theory. The basic hypothesis underlying this new framework is that quantum particles are conceptual entities. More concretely, we propose that quantum particles interact with ordinary matter, nuclei, atoms, molecules, macroscopic material entities, measuring apparatuses,..., in a similar way to how human concepts interact with memory structures, human minds or artificial memories. We analyze the most characteristic aspects of quantum theory, i.e. entanglement and non-locality, interference and superposition, identity and individuality in the light of this new interpretation, and we put forward a specific explanation and understanding of these aspects. The basic hypothesis of our framework gives rise in a natural way to a Heisenberg uncertainty principle which introduces an understanding of the general situation of ‘the one and the many ’ in quantum physics. A specific view on macro and micro different from the common one follows from the basic hypothesis and leads to an analysis of Schrödinger’s Cat paradox and the measurement problem different from the existing ones. We reflect about the influence of this new quantum interpretation and explanatory framework on the global nature and evolutionary aspects of the world and human worldviews, and point out potential explanations for specific situations, such as the generation problem in particle physics, the confinement of quarks and the existence of dark matter. 1
The conceptuality interpretation, proposed by Diederik Aerts in 2009, is presented here as a possible theoretical perspective for achieving a unified understanding of many fundamental aspects of quantum mechanics and relativity. After discussing the notion of reality and the role of choice and possibility in the construction of the real, we note how the interpretation emerges from the successes of quantum cognition, and show how it allows us to reinterpret phenomena and experiments such as the double-slit experiment, quantum erasure, entanglement, Bose–Einstein condensation, and the measurement problem by assigning a central role to dynamics governed by meaning, within a pancognitivist perspective. It is further suggested that the metric of relativistic spacetime can also be coherently understood using the same interpretive key. Quantum mechanics and relativity would thus find, in the conceptuality interpretation, an ontological and foundational framework capable of making them not only more intelligible but, in some respects, even intuitive. The price to be paid for this explanatory advantage, however, is that we must relinquish the idea that we live in a world populated primarily by spatiotemporal entities, and instead conceive of reality as a fundamentally cognitive-conceptual structure, in which every interaction ultimately takes the form of a communication.
This work proposes a minimal ontological framework aimed at systematically resolving key conceptual paradoxes of contemporary physics. The central claim is that many foundational difficulties of twentieth- and twenty-first-century physics arise not from empirical anomalies or mathematical inconsistencies, but from a conflation of mathematical formalism with ontological interpretation. On the basis of a small set of minimal ontological axioms, the work addresses and resolves ten fundamental paradoxes, including wave–particle duality, the measurement problem and collapse, the arrow of time, irreversibility, quantization, the nature of gravity, cosmological origin, the finiteness of the Universe, the status of singularities, and the information paradox. The proposed framework introduces no new physical entities and does not modify existing physical equations. Instead, it imposes strict ontological constraints from which these phenomena follow as necessary consequences. The work does not present an alternative physical theory, but rather an ontological foundation explaining why modern physical theories are successful and why they encounter inherent explanatory limits.