The semantically ambiguous nature of the sign and aspects of non-classicality of elementary matter as described by quantum theory show remarkable coherent analogy. We focus on how the ambiguous nature of the image, text and art work bears functional resemblance to the dynamics of contextuality , entanglement , superposition , collapse and decoherence as these phenomena are known in quantum theory. These quantumlike properties in linguistic signs have previously been identified in formal descritions of e.g. concept combinations and mental lexicon representations and have been reported on in the literature. In this approach the informationalized, communicated, mediatized conceptual configuration—of e.g. the art work—in the personal reflected mind behaves like a quantum state function in a higher dimensional complex space, in which it is time and again contextually collapsed and further cognitively entangled (Aerts et al. in Found Sci 4:115–132, 1999 ; in Lect Notes Comput Sci 7620:36–47, 2012 ). The observer–consumer of signs becomes the empowered ‘produmer’ (Floridi in The philosophy of information, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2011 ) creating the cognitive outcome of the interaction, while loosing most of any ‘classical givenness’ of the sign (Bal and Bryson in Art Bull 73:174–208, 1991 ). These quantum-like descriptions are now developed here in four example aesthetic signs; the installation Mist room by Ann Veronica Janssens ( 2010 ), the installation Sections of a happy moment by David Claerbout ( 2010 ), the photograph The Falling Man by Richard Drew (New York Times, p. 7, September 12, 2001 ) and the documentary Huicholes. The Last Peyote Guardians by Vilchez and Stefani ( 2014 ). Our present work develops further the use of a previously developed quantum model for concept representation in natural language. In our present approach of the aesthetic sign, we extend to individual —idiosyncratic—observer contexts instead of socially shared group contexts, and as such also include multiple idiosyncratic creation of meaning and experience. This irreducible superposition emerges as the core feature of the aesthetic sign and is most critically embedded in the ‘no-interpretation’ interpretation of the documentary signal.
The semantically ambiguous nature of the sign and aspects of non-classicality of elementary matter as described by quantum theory show remarkable coherent analogy. We focus on how the ambiguous nature of the image, text and art work bears functional resemblance to the dynamics of contextuality , entanglement , superposition , collapse and decoherence as these phenomena are known in quantum theory. These quantumlike properties in linguistic signs have previously been identified in formal descritions of e.g. concept combinations and mental lexicon representations and have been reported on in the literature. In this approach the informationalized, communicated, mediatized conceptual configuration—of e.g. the art work—in the personal reflected mind behaves like a quantum state function in a higher dimensional complex space, in which it is time and again contextually collapsed and further cognitively entangled (Aerts et al. in Found Sci 4:115–132, 1999 ; in Lect Notes Comput Sci 7620:36–47, 2012 ). The observer–consumer of signs becomes the empowered ‘produmer’ (Floridi in The philosophy of information, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2011 ) creating the cognitive outcome of the interaction, while loosing most of any ‘classical givenness’ of the sign (Bal and Bryson in Art Bull 73:174–208, 1991 ). These quantum-like descriptions are now developed here in four example aesthetic signs; the installation Mist room by Ann Veronica Janssens ( 2010 ), the installation Sections of a happy moment by David Claerbout ( 2010 ), the photograph The Falling Man by Richard Drew (New York Times, p. 7, September 12, 2001 ) and the documentary Huicholes. The Last Peyote Guardians by Vilchez and Stefani ( 2014 ). Our present work develops further the use of a previously developed quantum model for concept representation in natural language. In our present approach of the aesthetic sign, we extend to individual —idiosyncratic—observer contexts instead of socially shared group contexts, and as such also include multiple idiosyncratic creation of meaning and experience. This irreducible superposition emerges as the core feature of the aesthetic sign and is most critically embedded in the ‘no-interpretation’ interpretation of the documentary signal.
Over the past two decades, quantum-like modeling (QLM) has emerged as a powerful framework for describing non-classical features of cognition and decision-making. Rather than assuming physical quantum processes in the brain, QLM employs the Hilbert space formalism to model contextuality, incompatibility of mental observables, and entanglement-like correlations. In this paper, we develop a quantum-informational model of mental markers within the broader information field approach. We propose that, under conditions of information overload and limited cognitive resources, individuals primarily respond not to detailed semantic content but to compact content labels - mental markers - carrying cognitive and affective components. We formalize mental markers as structured quantum-like states and analyze the nonclassical correlations between their cognitive and affective components using the Contextuality-Incompatibility-Entanglement triad. Special attention is given to intra-system entanglement between rational (cognitive) evaluation and emotional (affective) coloring, accounting for context-dependent judgments, order effects, and affect-driven decision shifts. Illustrative examples with psychological interpretation and experimental perspectives are provided. Appendix B briefly discusses neurobiological analogues of information overload in neural networks, highlighting structural parallels with the proposed marker-based framework; coupling to the origin and diagnostics of neurological diseases is analyzed. The paper contributes to QLM by distinguishing inter-system and intra-system entanglement and by demonstrating that cognitive-affective entanglement constitutes a fundamental structural feature of mental markers in socially mediated information environments.
Not so long ago, humans were a group of primates living on the savannah. We are reasonably proficient at estimating the trajectory of medium-sized objects, such as falling rocks and arrows, moving at moderate speeds. However, one must acknowledge that our intuition falters when it comes to understanding the behaviour of micro objects moving at very high speeds.Consider, for instance, the famous double-slit experiment. If you throw a ball towards two slits, the ball will pass through one slit, according to a common-sense prediction. However, when small particles, such as photons or electrons, are projected through two closely spaced apertures, the result is as if the particles simultaneously pass through the two apertures. In quantum physics, this unintuitive observation is explained by the wave-particle duality. It means that, physical entities can possess wavelike as well as particle-like characteristics. The duality is analogous to the two sides of a coin; the same reality can be described from different perspectives. Unfortunately, this knowledge does not cause that quantum mechanisms are entirely understandable and intuitional. Therefore, the following question remains open, how can we define quantum art when we are unable to fully grasp quantum mechanics? On a similar note, art itself is challenging to understand, albeit for different reasons. It is widely accepted that art is, to a significant extent, a subjective experience. An artist creates a piece of art that evokes diverse emotions and interpretations when presented to different people. Consequently, how can we bridge the gap between quantum mechanics, which is primarily comprehended through mathematics, and art, which is intuitively understood without the need for conscious reasoning? In other words, how can quantum art make the enigmatic world of quantum more intuitive and accessible?To address these questions, we created a challenge for the HackYeah! hackathon, one of the most prominent stationary events in Europe. We invited people to find an artistic way to illustrate the principles of quantum mechanics, including quantum superposition, entanglement, and decoherence. Approximately 700 individuals attended the event. Multiple challenges were submitted by different companies, and the Quantum Art challenge was chosen by 15 teams that ranged in size from two to seven people. After a short description of the challenge in Section 2, we explore some of these contributions in Section 3. Lastly, Section 4 concludes the paper. In our opinion, the artwork presented, especially the visual ones, helped to makes quantum principles more understandable, intuitive.The purpose of the challenge was to find an artistic way to illustrate quantum mechanics, specifically quantum superposition, entanglement, and decoherence.Quantum superposition refers to a phenomenon where a single particle can exist in two states simultaneously. In contrast to a 'normal' bit, which can be either 0 or 1, a quantum bit is a superposition of both 0 and 1.The measurement operation is the process through which a quantum state is collapsed to either the state 0 or 1. Let us consider two quantum bits; the possible measurement outcomes can be one of the following four combinations: 00, 01, 10, or 11. When only two of these combinations are possible, such as 00 and 11 or 10 and 01, one can state that the quantum bits are entangled because the state of one qubit affects the state of the second qubit and vice-versa.Decoherence of the quantum state is an effect that results from microscopic interactions between the quantum bits and the environment. This environmental noise impacts the state of the quantum bits and can lead to errors in computation. In other words, multiple measurements of the same quantum computation may yield different results. Different quantum computer architectures exhibit varying levels of noise.Here, the following question arises: How can people represent the principles of quantum mechanics in a way that it is tangible, visible, or even audible?In this section, we present a selected panel of examples that were implemented during the HackYeah! hackathon.This project effectively demonstrates the concept of quantum decoherence. It showcases a mosaic in which the arrangement of image elements is determined by the outcomes of quantum measurements (Figure 1). Various mosaics are generated following these measurements and are subsequently combined into an animated GIF. Notably, the greater the instability of the quantum computer, the more pronounced the glitches become within the mosaic. As a testament to its excellence, this project emerged as the winner of the challenge. The project is available on GitHub at https://github.com/lukilesny/quantmosaic.This code is based on the previous quantum art of Wiktor Mazin, 1 which exploits the Julia fractal set for image generation. Julia fractals are fractals based on a recursive suite of a complex number.The code performs a straightforward computation that involves the measurement of two qubits. The probabilities of these qubits being in either state 0 or 1 are employed to initialise the real and imaginary part of the complex numbers in the Julia set. The resulting Julia fractal is presented as an image, which is then further customised through user input. This customised image is subsequently passed to the text-to-image artificial intelligence model Stable Diffusion to create both personalised and quantum artwork. This project also illustrates the concept of quantum decoherence. The project is available on GitHub at https://github.com/Havystar/QUANTIUM.This work is also inspired by the contributions of Wiktor Mazin; however, it diverges by focusing on the creation of music rather than images. It resonates with the European project on Quantum Music2 (e.g., (1)), with the distinction being that instead of encoding notes into quantum states, it employs fractals to generate eight distinct musical notes.The project is available on GitHub at https://github.com/kmazrolina/Quanterpoint.This project is also an application of quantum music. It breaks down musical compositions into 4/4 tempo measures. Each measure is encoded using a set of four qubit quantum circuits, with each quantum bit symbolising a distinct musical element, encompassing notes, rhythm, and pauses. Diverse variations of a melody are generated, each of which is closely tied to a specific quantum architecture. It is akin to experiencing music through a quantum lens that unveils the distinctive quantum voice of each architecture.The project is available on GitHub at https://github.com/git-stashic/quantum-art.This project serves as an in-depth exploration of variational quantum circuits (VQCs) applied to the classification of the IRIS dataset. The classification results are then presented through Seaborn graphs (a library for scientific visualisation). This project is classified as scientific visualisation rather than art, but the effort merits our attention. A similar approach with VQCs can be observed in the pyRiemann-qiskit library (2), as showcased in the library documentation. 3 In this example, the learning parameters of the VQC are ingeniously illustrated as a spiral, with each branch signifying the variation in weight of a specific parameter.Additionally, the project delves into Bubble Art, drawing inspiration from the work of Radha Pyari Sandhir. 4 The core concept involves encoding a string into qubits and subsequently measuring the outcomes of computations performed on them. The resulting measurements are then transformed into bubbles. The size and number of bubbles convey information, with smaller, numerous bubbles indicating more noise, while larger bubbles represent measurements that yield the same results.The project is available on GitHub at https://github.com/dr3du4/Quantium.Autoencoders are a class of neural networks that are commonly employed to extract an efficient representation of specific data, akin to dimension reduction techniques. In this particular scenario, the team proposed the use of a variational autoencoder, with its parameters initialised with the measurement of a quantum circuit. The autoencoder's purpose is to learn a concise representation of a cat by using the Kaggle CAT dataset. Dimensionality reduction essentially serves as a means of compressing the data, resulting in a deliberately artistic blurring or fuzziness effect on the original image.The project is available on GitHub at https://github.com/polish-mountain/quantum-vae.Here, the concept revolves around the initialisation of a quantum circuit with brain wave frequencies, such as alpha and beta waves. Quantum operations are run on these states, and the outputs are measured in classical bits. Then, the resulting measurements are translated into values of saturation and luminance, ultimately contributing to the customisation of a piece of artwork.Essentially, it can be described as an electroencephalography (EEG) state personalised through quantum randomness. What makes this idea particularly intriguing is its potential for expansion. By introducing different qubits that represent the mental states of other users, brain synchronisation could be further represented by entangled states. When two users are competing or cooperating to solve a task, the synchronization between their mental states only allow for certain measurement probabilities, which is akin to a form of entanglement. This notion also resonates with the concept of the quantum brain hypothesis (3), according to which the brain coexists in multiple states simultaneously, which subsequently collapse. In this idea, EEG measurements become a measurement of these quantum brain states, and the task executed by the user while recording the electroencephalogram could be further represented by specific quantum operations. Just to be clear, we do not pretend that this is actually the case, but this project could lead to interesting metaphors between brain states and quantum representation.The project is available on GitHub at https://github.com/kinga-marszalkowska/QuantumBrainArt.Various artistic viewpoints were submitted as part of the Quantum Art challenge at the HackYeah! hackathon, including images, animations, and music. By far, quantum decoherence -that is, quantum noise -was the most exploited quantum concept. While quantum superposition was used internally, it was not -in our opinion -sufficiently highlighted by the presented artworks. As for quantum entanglement, it was explored under the concept of quantum music. Apparently, it is not always intuitive for people to understand quantum entanglement simply by hearing music. Saying that, you need a certain level of knowledge to build appreciation. For example, children need to learn different tastes to appreciate food. Among the aforementioned works, we noticed the use of quantum principles for creating artistic visualisations of mental states through EEG, as well as the use of art to enhance the visualisation of machine learning techniques. Here, we see art's potential to enhance the comprehensibility and natural intuition of quantum phenomena. This is an interesting approach to make quantum more accessible, intuitive, especially for neophytes.The question that lingers is whether visualisation truly qualifies as art. The answer is nuanced and may rely on the intent itself. A good visualisation can be a piece of art if the machine learning model was created with the sole purpose of producing art rather than for merely explaining a machine learning algorithm.Another perspective is that of Japanese contemporary artist Matsuzawa Yutaka (1922-2006), although we admit that we have not had the opportunity to read the original Japanese text. Our understanding is based on the writings of Alan Longino from the Department of Art at the University of Chicago (4):"Trough Quantum Art, Matsuzawa invited future readers, viewers, and participants to conceive of a world where objects, bodies, images, and matter become less defined, more permeable, and bound together in limitless intimacy".In essence, the artist's manifesto is a call for renewal, a break from artistic conventions, similar to the role of quantum physics in the physical sciences.
In The Conceptual Development of Quantum Physics, Max Jammer observes that “certain philosophical ideas of the late nineteenth century not only prepared the intellectual climate for, but contributed decisively to, the formation of the new conceptions of the modern quantum theory”—specifically, “contingentism, existentialism, pragmatism, and logical empiricism,” which, argues Jammer “united in rejecting causality though on different grounds” and “prepared, so to speak, the philosophical background for modern quantum mechanics.” Regarding this same rejection of causality in physics in Weimar Germany—a rejection central to the quantum interpretation—Paul Forman argues that “substantive problems in atomic physics played only a secondary role in the genesis of this acausal persuasion, [and] that the most important factor was the social-intellectual pressure exerted upon the physicists as members of the German academic community.” Along these same lines, in an interview with Einstein in 1932, James Gardner Murphy said, “scientists live in the world just like other people…. They cannot escape the influence of the milieu in which they live. And that milieu at the present time is characterized largely by a struggle to get rid of the causal chain in which the world has entangled itself.” In all of these cases, the development of quantum physics is attributed to the zeitgeist of the time, with the critics adopting a “hypodermic” model wherein intellectual currents have a direct influence on scientific discovery.
Language isn't just a rigid system of symbols. Instead, it's a living, embodied phenomenon, deeply intertwined with our physical experience and shaped by our interaction with the environment (Wang, 2019;Zhou & Luo, 2024). However, the dynamic nature of language brings a significant challenge to cognitive science: the well-known "stability-plasticity dilemma" (Grossberg, 1980). On one hand, for clear communication, meanings of words need to be stable and widely recognized, so everyone can understand them, no matter when or who speaks them. On the other hand, these meanings must also be flexible and adaptable in varying contexts. While traditional computational models, from early generative grammar to standard Bayesian approaches, have excelled at modeling these stable meanings, they often treat semantic ambiguity as "noise" that needs to be eliminated, rather than a valuable resource (Gärdenfors, 2014).Even with the significant "probabilistic turn" in cognitive science, which brought Bayesian models to handle uncertainty, most of these models still rely on classical probability theory. They assume the meaning of a concept is a pre-defined distribution over a set of fixed features. As Bruza and Cole (2005) pointed out, this dependence on classical set theory creates a major epistemological barrier because it treats semantic ambiguity as "noise" rather than a fundamental part of meaning construction. Though scholars have recently developed more complex tools, like Gradient Symbolic Representations (GSR), to model meanings as weighted mixtures (Smolensky et al., 2014;Mondal, 2024), these approaches are still limited by Kolmogorovian probability. They still follow the Law of Total Probability, which forces conflicting meanings to be simply added together and mixed. We argue that this basic "mixture" method isn't enough to describe or handle complex situations where meanings are incompatible or interfere with each other in context. Therefore, much empirical evidence suggests that capturing these dynamic features requires a non-classical, quantum probability framework (Surov et al., 2021).The importance of this paradigm shift becomes most clear when we analyze how everyday language works and how we interpret deep meanings in complex literary works. A classic example of such "semantic superposition" is the iconic "big fish" in Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea.Within the novel's narrative structure, this phrase isn't a static label. Instead, it operates simultaneously on multiple, even mutually exclusive, semantic levels. Here, it serves as a biological marlin, a worthy adversary, and a transcendent symbol of life's ultimate tragedy. A classical probabilistic model fails to capture the dynamic tension that a reader feels, because it forces these meanings to compete for probability mass, implying only one can be dominant. In contrast, human reading suggests that meaning exists in a "superposition" state. It stays that way until a specific context makes it "collapse" into a concrete interpretation. Crucially, these overlapping meanings aren't simple probabilistic blends. They are coherent "quantum states" within a complex adaptive system.This study proposes that Quantum Cognition offers the necessary mathematical formalism to resolve the "stability-plasticity dilemma". This is supported by its proven success in solving decision-making paradoxes in psychology (Busemeyer & Bruza, 2012;Widdows et al., 2023;Huang et al., 2025). We introduce an integrated quantum theoretical model. In this model, the interaction between embodied experience and linguistic context is characterized as a genuine quantum interference phenomenon.This framework reinterprets the tension between stability and plasticity through the lens of Wave-Particle Duality. In our model, the "particle" corresponds to the stable, discrete symbols used for communication. The "wave" captures the fluid, context-sensitive potential that allows for creative interpretation.Next, by employing the mathematical formalism of Hilbert space, we will mathematically demonstrate how semantic ambiguity can be maintained as a useful resource, rather than mere noise.This approach effectively overcomes the limitations inherent in traditional methods like static vectors and gradient symbolic mixtures. To ground these abstract formalizations, we focus on the "Big Fish" motif in Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea. Through this case analysis, we will reveal how meaning dynamically evolves, similar to "state vector collapse". Our study also extends to address the fundamental limitations of current Artificial Intelligence, particularly Large Language Models (LLMs). We argue that current LLMs, relying heavily on static statistical correlations, lack the "grounding" for true understanding. 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The representation and processing of concepts is one of the hardest challenges in cognitive science. While computer scientists and engineers have focused on developing advances for particular tasks, philosophers and cognitive scientists have focused on elucidating the structural nature of meaning. A remarkable bridge between these two limited-success approaches can be found in behavioral research, since, in a variety of tasks, humans process information at a conceptual level in a way that is incompatible with classical probability and fuzzy set theory. Recently, attempts have been made to use mathematical schemes founded on quantum structures as alternative approaches. For this reason, the application of quantum structures to this type of phenomena has received increasing attention. The quantum approach allows to faithfully model a number of non-classical deviations observed in experimental data. Moreover, it shows that genuine quantum theoretical notions, such as contextuality, superposition, emergence, and entanglement, are powerful epistemic tools to understand and represent cognitive phenomena. In this thesis, we identify the limitations of classical theories to handle some important cognitive tasks, and introduce the fundamentals of the quantum cognitive approach to concepts. Next, we perform a mathematical analysis of current concept combination models and develop an extension that allows for concrete representations of multiple exemplars simultaneously. Our analysis indicates that a superposition of logical reasoning and a specific form of non-logical reasoning, where non-logical reasoning is dominant, allows to faithfully represent the experimental data. Therefore, the non-logical reasoning introduced by this model represents an important but unexplored form of reasoning in humans. In addition, we develop novel experimental methodologies to identify quantum conceptual structures for concept combinations in the context of natural language processing and psychological experiments. Namely, we present a methodology to build entangled concepts represented as sets of words with respect to a corpus of text, and present a computational and psychological methodology to discern if a collection of concepts behaves statistically as a collection of quantum or classical particles. Using both methodologies we have identified a significant presence of quantum conceptual structure in the context of natural language processing and psychological experiments.
Art has the remarkable capacity to reveal things previously unrecognisable until they emerge visually, allowing us to accept new images and expand our ability to interpret the world. Such images become additions to the mental archive we use to recognise and understand our surroundings. Imagining something entirely new is, perhaps, altogether impossible insofar as our understanding is rooted in mental models we compare with external images. When it comes to quantum theory, for instance, we struggle to find any existing schema in our reliquary of mental images to draw from—with attempts to visualise quantum phenomena frequently creating only greater confusion as we try to make sense of its novel qualities within more traditional frameworks. An artwork expressing something unfamiliar about the world can challenge viewers to expand their canvas of consciousness, welcoming new possibilities. By attentively examining a work of art, we can sidestep preconceptions that might otherwise cast the unknown as alien. Art invites us to ask, “What sensations does this image offer me? What gift is it extending?”