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 (i) the measurement process, and (ii) 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 an instantiated form (e.g. 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.
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 (i) the measurement process, and (ii) 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 an instantiated form (e.g. 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.
The mathematics of quantum mechanics was developed to cope with problems arising in the description of (1) contextual interactions, and (2) the generation of new states with new properties when particles become entangled. Similar problems arise with concepts. This paper summarizes the rationale for and preliminary results of using a generalization of standard quantum mechanics based on the lattice formalism to describe the contextual manner in which concepts are evoked, used, and combined to generate meaning. Concepts are viewed not as fixed representations but dynamically `re-constructed' entities generated on the fly through interaction between cognitive state and situation or context.
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, i.e. 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 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 paper by analyzing human concepts and their dynamics.
Purpose To elaborate a theory for modeling concepts that incorporates how a context influences the typicality of a single exemplar and the applicability of a single property of a concept. To investigate the structure of the sets of contexts and properties. Design/methodology/approach The effect of context on the typicality of an exemplar and the applicability of a property is accounted for by introducing the notion of “state of a concept”, and making use of the state‐context‐property formalism (SCOP), a generalization of the quantum formalism, whose basic notions are states, contexts and properties. Findings The paper proves that the set of context and the set of properties of a concept is a complete orthocomplemented lattice, i.e. a set with a partial order relation, such that for each subset there exists a greatest lower bound and a least upper bound, and such that for each element there exists an orthocomplement. This structure describes the “and”, “or”, and “not”, respectively for contexts and properties. It shows that the context lattice as well as the property lattice are non‐classical, i.e. quantum‐like, lattices. Originality/value Although the effect of context on concepts is widely acknowledged, formal mathematical structures of theories that incorporate this effect have not been successful. The study of this formal structure is a preparation for the elaboration of a theory of concepts that allows the description of the combination of concepts.
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
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.
The aim of this article is to represent the general description of an entity by means of its states, contexts and properties. The entity that we want to describe does not necessarily have to be a physical entity, but can also be an entity of a more abstract nature, for example a concept, or a cultural artifact, or the mind of a person, etc..., which means that we aim at very general description. The effect that a context has on the state of the entity plays a fundamental role, which means that our approach is intrinsically contextual. The approach is inspired by the mathematical formalisms that have been developed in axiomatic quantum mechanics, where a specific type of quantum contextuality is modelled. However, because in general states also influence context -- which is not the case in quantum mechanics -- we need a more general setting than the one used there. Our focus on context as a fundamental concept makes it possible to unify `dynamical change' and `change under influence of measurement', which makes our approach also more general and more powerful than the traditional quantum axiomatic approaches. For this reason an experiment (or measurement) is introduced as a specific kind of context. Mathematically we introduce a state context property system as the structure to describe an entity by means of its states, contexts and properties. We also strive from the start to a categorical setting and derive the morphisms between state context property systems from a merological covariance principle. We introduce the category SCOP with as elements the state context property systems and as morphisms the ones that we derived from this merological covariance principle. We introduce property completeness and state completeness and study the operational foundation of the formalism