Changes in the field of quantum theory taking place in modern science have also affected linguistics. Quantum mechanics is one of the major achievements of past difficulties. The object of study of quantum theory is a minimal, weekly particle - a quantum. The functional liquidity of quanta and linguistic units has been revealed, which makes it possible to transfer research from quantum mechanics to the field of cognitive linguistics. The quantum-cognitive approach expands the view of the concept of nature, highlights its quantum properties and allows us to consider its dynamics as a quantum wave process. In the article, the subject of research is the concept, its dynamics as a change in the states of the concept and its interaction in various combinations. The work pays attention to such phenomena as quantum entanglement, quantum nonlocality, measurement, and contextuality. Modeling in the quantum-cognitive aspect involves considering changes in the state of a concept under the influence of context. The state of the concept through the prism of quantum mechanics is considered as a wave function that changes under the influence of context. To apply general methodological approaches to describing both phenomena, we will focus on such phenomena as “quantum uncertainty” and “quantum entanglement.” The article explores the concept through the prism of quantum theory. The material for the study was scientific publications and articles selected by a continuous sampling method on the topics “Quantum Physics”, “Quantum Mechanics”, “Quantum Physics”, “Cognitive Linguistics”. The object of study of the article is the concept as a quantum immaterial cognitive formation that exists in the human mind. The study of the concept is based on a synthesis of the principles of two scientific directions: quantum mechanics and cognitive linguistics.
Changes in the field of quantum theory taking place in modern science have also affected linguistics. Quantum mechanics is one of the major achievements of past difficulties. The object of study of quantum theory is a minimal, weekly particle - a quantum. The functional liquidity of quanta and linguistic units has been revealed, which makes it possible to transfer research from quantum mechanics to the field of cognitive linguistics. The quantum-cognitive approach expands the view of the concept of nature, highlights its quantum properties and allows us to consider its dynamics as a quantum wave process. In the article, the subject of research is the concept, its dynamics as a change in the states of the concept and its interaction in various combinations. The work pays attention to such phenomena as quantum entanglement, quantum nonlocality, measurement, and contextuality. Modeling in the quantum-cognitive aspect involves considering changes in the state of a concept under the influence of context. The state of the concept through the prism of quantum mechanics is considered as a wave function that changes under the influence of context. To apply general methodological approaches to describing both phenomena, we will focus on such phenomena as “quantum uncertainty” and “quantum entanglement.” The article explores the concept through the prism of quantum theory. The material for the study was scientific publications and articles selected by a continuous sampling method on the topics “Quantum Physics”, “Quantum Mechanics”, “Quantum Physics”, “Cognitive Linguistics”. The object of study of the article is the concept as a quantum immaterial cognitive formation that exists in the human mind. The study of the concept is based on a synthesis of the principles of two scientific directions: quantum mechanics and cognitive linguistics.
The aim of the article is to analyze the ontological foundations of quantum mechanics and the relationship of various interpretations of quantum mechanics with the question of truth in scientific knowledge. The theoretical material (various interpretations of quantum mechanics) was analyzed. The research methods were analysis, comparative-historical and institutional approaches. On the basis of the study, it can be concluded that physicists are only able to predict the probabilities of physical phenomena or processes, without any knowledge of the structure of entity in itself. The study helps to complement the theoretical picture of the ontology of quantum mechanics and to get an idea about the development prospects of the methodology of physical sciences. We should not ascribe properties that are unobservable in experience to the entity because science can truly interpret only the representation of entity in itself in experience and the ways of dealing with it, not future events or possible states of the entity. Otherwise, science “slides” down to the level of dialectical (rhetorical) exercises based not on true premises, but on generally accepted or “authoritative” biases, which gives room to extreme forms of relativism and takes natural scientists away from studying nature to inventing empirically unsupported hypotheses. When, in accordance with the Cartesian ontology, the scientist assumes that the entity is as the “subject” observes it (that is, the “reflection” of the entity in consciousness is identified with entity in itself), this assumption leads the scientist to attempts to “scientifically” describe the future events or the possible states of the entity. The criterion for the truth of a scientific theory put forward by Einstein in his dispute with Bohr remains a fundamentally unattainable ideal. Cognition of nature is probabilistically and fundamentally incomplete since a person can consciously comprehend natural phenomena only within the framework of their representation in the existing being. The probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics is due to the impossibility of knowing things as they exist by themselves, that is, as they exist outside of representation in the mind of the observer. This does not mean that physical entities did not exist before their knowledge: they existed potentially, but were not valid for the observer, that is, conscious. Quantum physics is as incomplete as any other physical theory when compared with an unattainable ideal, but this fact does not negate its truth for modern scientists since quantum theory is based on the results of verified experiments.
In recent years, the application of quantum mechanics in life sciences has given rise to quantum biology, which deeply investigates the impact of quantum effects on biological processes, such as quantum transfer in photosynthesis and quantum coherence phenomena in bird navigation. However, the connection between quantum mechanics and the social sciences, particularly linguistics, has not been widely explored. This paper draws analogies between the discrete nature, superposition states, and entanglement phenomena in quantum mechanics, and the discreteness, ambiguity, and context-dependence in linguistics, revealing interdisciplinary similarities between the two fields. This analogy provides a new perspective for understanding the uncertainty and complexity involved in human language processing, and suggests the possible existence of macroscopic quantum states. Future research may uncover the impact of quantum effects on higher cognitive functions and promote a deeper integration of quantum physics and social sciences.
The conceptuality interpretation of quantum mechanics proposes that quantum entities have a conceptual nature, interacting with the material world through processes that are the physical counterpart of the meaning-based processes, which typically occur in human cognition. This interpretation emerged from the early developments in quantum cognition , a field that uses quantum mathematics to model human cognitive activity. It benefited from the specific approach taken by the Brussels research group , modelling concepts themselves as quantum entities and minds as measuring apparatus. The article sketches the essential steps of the intellectual journey, going from the first applications of quantum notions and formalisms to human cognition to the proposal of a potentially groundbreaking interpretation of quantum mechanics, offering profound explanations for major quantum phenomena. This was done by drawing numerous parallels with the human conceptual domain and suggesting the existence of a level of cognitive activity that would underlie our physical reality. This means that an increased cross-fertilization between the conceptuality interpretation and quantum cognition is to be expected in the future, both of which are synergistic in furthering our understanding of the nature of reality. This is the first part of a two-part article. In the second part, which can be read independently of the first, the successes of the interpretation will be described in a more systematic way, providing a brief overview of what has been achieved so far. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Quantum theory and topology in models of decision making (Part 1)’.
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.
Introduction: the study considers the problem of observer’s status during specific quantum-mechanical experiments, in which the empirical result directly depends on the participation of the experimenter's mind. Here the problem arises of the connection between the mind of the observer and the quantum-mechanical description of physical reality. The paper pays attention to modern trends in physics and philosophy devoted to the study of this phenomenon. Some aspects of the philosophical interpretation of the mind as a quantum mechanism are presented. Materials and Methods: the research materials demonstrate an overview of several common quantum-philosophical theories. Attempts have been made to search for the connection of quantum phenomena with the mechanisms of the functioning of human mind. The experimental background of quantum physics is demonstrated, providing material for analyzing the possibility of applying modern quantum theory to the question of identifying the relationship of the quantum approach and describing the problem of the influence of the observer’s mind on the result of a physical experiment. Results: the concept of quantum mechanics, taking into account the latest achievements and results of physics, philosophy and psychology, allows us to consider the mind of the observer as an integral part of the mechanism responsible for the formation of the surrounding physical reality. The anthropic principle of participation considered in the work gives the observer's mind a special role allowing to form a quantum-mechanical description of physical reality. Discussion and conclusions: it is shown that the mind of the observer plays an important role in quantum theory. Moreover, mind as a psychic phenomenon may be in fact identical with the quantum-mechanical concept of choosing an alternative. Given the fact that the brain's thought processes influence the measurement results, it can be assumed that mind changes quantum probabilities. This assumption allows us to take a different look at the concept of reality itself.
Abstract Language is not fixed. It is entangled, probabilistic, and observer-dependent. This paper introduces a new paradigm in linguistic theory named "Quantum Linguistics," inspired by the principles of Quantum Physics. Quantum physics and Linguistics have long been regarded as unrelated disciplines,describing nature at the inanimate microlevel on the one hand and language and its scientific study on the other hand. Over the past decades the linguistics has succeeded in providing ever more and refined explanations of generative grammar. Since quantum physics and linguistics deal with the symbolic, rule-governed structure of human language and the non-classical, probabilistic behaviour of subatomic particles, respectively, they have historically been seen as two separate disciplines. This framework allows modeling of polysemy, ambiguity, free word order, and argument structure in a unified, mathematically rigorous manner.To operationalize the model, we implement a Quantum Syntax-Semantics Integration (QSSI) pipeline, which encodes sentences into vector states, applies quantum operations for compositional syntax and semantics, and produces contextually resolved meanings through measurement. Two variants of the pipeline are considered: a classical simulation for experimental validation and a quantum-simulated version for future hardware implementation. The linguistic theory with quantum principles such as superposition, entanglement, and measurement, our model provides a novel probabilistic and context-dependent approach to understand language, explore new insights into human cognitive-linguistic processes, semantic ambiguity observation, and advanced natural language processing applications.