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The connections between Keynes's 1921 logic of probability and the Birkhoff-von Neumann 1936 logic of quantum mechanics

Michael Emmett Brady

Published Jun 7, 2026• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Abstract Birkhoff and von Neumann make it clear what the goal of their October, 1936 paper, “The logic of quantum mechanics”, is: “The object of the present paper is to discover what logical structure one may hope to find in physical theories which, like quantum mechanics, do not conform to classical logic. Our main conclusion, based on admittedly heuristic arguments, is that one can reasonably expect to find a calculus of propositions which is formally indistinguishable from the calculus of linear subspaces with respect to set products, linear sums, and orthogonal complements-and resembles the usual calculus of propositions with respect to and, or, and not.” (Birkhoff and von Neumann, 1936, p.823; underline added). Specifically, “Up to now, we have only discussed formal features of logical structure which seem to be common to classical dynamics and the quantum theory. We now turn to the central difference between them-the distributive identity of the propositional calculus: L6: a U (b ꓵ c) = (a U b) ꓵ (a U c) and a ꓵ (b U c) = (a ꓵ b) U (a ꓵ c) which is a law in classical, but not in quantum mechanics.” (Birkhoff and von Neumann, 1936, p.830; underline added) Continuing, Birkhoff and von Neumann comment: “From a deeper mathematical viewpoint, L6 is the characteristic property of set-combination. More precisely, every "field" of sets is isomorphic with a Boolean algebra, and conversely.21 This throws new light on the well-known fact that the propositional calculi of classical mechanics are Boolean algebras.” (Birkhoff and von Neumann, 1936, p.831). Birkhoff and von Neumann then show on p.831 that the distributive law breaks down in quantum mechanics and that the generalized distributive law of logic breaks down in the related field “in the quotient algebra of the field of Lebesgue measurable sets by the ideal of sets of Lebesgue measure 0, which is so fundamental in statistics and the formulation of the ergodic principle.” (ibid., p.831). However, it must be noted that Birkhoff and von Neumann are talking about the Jevons-Pierce-Schroder interpretation (two -valued) of Boole’s original approach (four -valued), which Boole completely rejected. (See Hailperin, 1986, 1996), The reason for this rejection is that the Jevons-Peircean approach required strict complementation, which translated into additivity and linearity in probability assessments, as opposed to Boole’s realization that real world decision making required sub additivity and non-linearity, Thereafter, we will refer to the Jevons-Pierce-Schroder approach as Jevons’s approach to the interpretation of Boolean logic, which uses standard classical logic to underpin discussions of standard probability logic. Jevons’s approach removed the basic algebra which Boole combined with his new relational, propositional logic, so as to deal with indeterminate, imprecise probabilities, which are nonstandard. Jevons’s approach can’t deal with the non-standard probability logics used by Boole in chapters XVIII-XX of The Laws of Thought (1854) and by Keynes in chapters XII, XV-XVII of the A Treatise on Probability (1921) in order to deal with indeterminate, interval valued probabilities.

DOI
10.5281/zenodo.20577084

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Abstract Birkhoff and von Neumann make it clear what the goal of their October, 1936 paper, “The logic of quantum mechanics”, is: “The object of the present paper is to discover what logical structure one may hope to find in physical theories which, like quantum mechanics, do not conform to classical logic. Our main conclusion, based on admittedly heuristic arguments, is that one can reasonably expect to find a calculus of propositions which is formally indistinguishable from the calculus of linear subspaces with respect to set products, linear sums, and orthogonal complements-and resembles the usual calculus of propositions with respect to and, or, and not.” (Birkhoff and von Neumann, 1936, p.823; underline added). Specifically, “Up to now, we have only discussed formal features of logical structure which seem to be common to classical dynamics and the quantum theory. We now turn to the central difference between them-the distributive identity of the propositional calculus: L6: a U (b ꓵ c) = (a U b) ꓵ (a U c) and a ꓵ (b U c) = (a ꓵ b) U (a ꓵ c) which is a law in classical, but not in quantum mechanics.” (Birkhoff and von Neumann, 1936, p.830; underline added) Continuing, Birkhoff and von Neumann comment: “From a deeper mathematical viewpoint, L6 is the characteristic property of set-combination. More precisely, every "field" of sets is isomorphic with a Boolean algebra, and conversely.21 This throws new light on the well-known fact that the propositional calculi of classical mechanics are Boolean algebras.” (Birkhoff and von Neumann, 1936, p.831). Birkhoff and von Neumann then show on p.831 that the distributive law breaks down in quantum mechanics and that the generalized distributive law of logic breaks down in the related field “in the quotient algebra of the field of Lebesgue measurable sets by the ideal of sets of Lebesgue measure 0, which is so fundamental in statistics and the formulation of the ergodic principle.” (ibid., p.831). However, it must be noted that Birkhoff and von Neumann are talking about the Jevons-Pierce-Schroder interpretation (two -valued) of Boole’s original approach (four -valued), which Boole completely rejected. (See Hailperin, 1986, 1996), The reason for this rejection is that the Jevons-Peircean approach required strict complementation, which translated into additivity and linearity in probability assessments, as opposed to Boole’s realization that real world decision making required sub additivity and non-linearity, Thereafter, we will refer to the Jevons-Pierce-Schroder approach as Jevons’s approach to the interpretation of Boolean logic, which uses standard classical logic to underpin discussions of standard probability logic. Jevons’s approach removed the basic algebra which Boole combined with his new relational, propositional logic, so as to deal with indeterminate, imprecise probabilities, which are nonstandard. Jevons’s approach can’t deal with the non-standard probability logics used by Boole in chapters XVIII-XX of The Laws of Thought (1854) and by Keynes in chapters XII, XV-XVII of the A Treatise on Probability (1921) in order to deal with indeterminate, interval valued probabilities.
. We put forward a new take on the logic of quantum mechanics, following Schrödinger's point of view that it is composition which makes quantum theory what it is, rather than its particular propositional structure due to the existence of superpositions, as proposed by Birkhoff and von Neumann. This gives rise to an intrinsically quantitative kind of logic, which truly deserves the name ‘logic’ in that it also models meaning in natural language, the latter being the origin of logic, that it supports automation, the most prominent practical use of logic, and that it supports probabilistic inference. The physics and the logic of quantum-ish logic. In 1932 John von Neumann formalized Quantum Mechanics in his book “Mathematische Grundlagen der Quantenmechanik”. This was effectively the official birth of the quantum mechanical formalism which until now, some 75 years later, has remained the same. Quantum theory underpins so many things in our daily lives including chemical industry, energy production and information technology, which arguably makes it the most technologically successful theory of physics ever. However, in 1935, merely three years after the birth of his brainchild, von Neumann wrote in a letter to American mathematician Garrett Birkhoff: “I would like to make a confession which may seem immoral: I do not believe absolutely in Hilbert space no more.” (sic)—for more details see [73]. Soon thereafter they published a paper entitled “The Logic of Quantum Mechanics” [13]. Their ‘quantum logic’ was cast in order-theoretic terms, very much in the spirit of the then reigning algebraic view of logic, with the distributive law being replaced with a weaker (ortho)modular law. This resulted in a research community of quantum logicians [68, 71, 47, 30]. However, despite von Neumann's reputation, and the large body of research that has been produced in the area, one does not find a trace of this activity neither in the mainstream physics, mathematics, nor logic literature. Hence, 75 years later one may want to conclude that this activity was a failure. What went wrong? The mathematics of it. Let us consider the raison d'être for the Hilbert space formalism.
Quantum Logic Distributivity And The Algebraic Structure Of Propositions As with many subatomic particles, the question of under what conditions the electron behaves as a particle or as a wave continues to be the subject of research. It was necessary to employ appropriate logic to organise the propositions describing the behaviour of such an object at the subatomic scale into a precise from and to establish coherent relationships between them. Quantum logic, which can be regarded as an interpretation of quantum mechanics, arose from this need. In classical mechanics, the state and properties of a system are described using the propositions of classical logic, which is based on Boolean algebra. In quantum mechanics, however, the fact that the operators representing the measured quantities do not commute has shown that quantum phenomena cannot be described using the propositions of classical logic. It is therefore necessary to have a formal framework suited to the propositions describing quantum phenomena. In our study, we highlight the various differences between classical logic and quantum logic, examine the distributive property and discuss, from the perspective of Birkhoff and von Neumann, the algebraic structure to which quantum logic might correspond. At the conclusion of our research, we find that, in order to assert that all experimental propositions logically equivalent to a given experimental proposition constitute a physical property, the operators corresponding to the measured quantities must commute with one another. Boolean algebra has an algebraic structure that allows classical logic to be formalised. In such algebra, the distributive property holds; thus, distributivity does not pose a problem for classical logic. Consequently, the distributive property does not always hold in quantum logic and quantum systems can be modelled using orthomodular lattices associated with closed subspaces of Hilbert space. We believe that this model must evolve in parallel with the discovery of new quantum phenomena and that it provides a framework conductive to this evolution. Keywords: Quantum logic; distributivity; partially order sets (posets); lattice; orthomodular lattice; Hilbert space; Boolean algebra.
The book investigates the ontology and logic of quantum physics. The first part discusses the relationship of theory and observation and different views on the ontological status of scientific theories. It introduces the fundamentals of quantum mechanics and some of its interpretations and their compatibility with various ontological positions. In the second part, implications of quantum mechanics on classical logic, especially on the distributive law and bivalence, as discussed by Garrett Birkhoff & John von Neumann (1936) and Hilary Putnam (1968), and their counterarguments are reconstructed and discussed. It is concluded that classical logic is sufficient for dealing with quantum mechanical propositions.
Due to the failure of the classical principles of bivalence and verifunctionality, the logic of experimental propositions relative to quantum systems cannot be interpreted in Boolean algebras. However, we cannot say neither that this logic is captured by orthomodular lattices, as claimed by many authors along the line of Birkhoff's and von Neumann's standard approach. For the alleged violation of distributivity is based on the possibility of combining statements relative to complementary contexts, which does not refer to any experience and, consequently, has no meaning. Indeed, quantum logic should be interpreted in partial, transitive Boolean algebras whose compatibility relation limits the application of the connectives within each of its Boolean sub-algebras, which refer to partial, classical descriptions. Moreover, this approach of quantum logic makes it possible to deal with composite systems, which was not possible to do within the standard approach, and then to deal with the fundamental notion of quantum entanglement. The latter notion can be represented by a series of axioms of the object language that restrict the set of experimental statements bearing on a composite system, while its close link to the notion of complementarity can be expressed in the metalanguage.
In 1933, Kolmogorov synthesized the basic concepts of probability that were in general use at the time into concepts and deductions from a simple set of axioms that said probability was a σ-additive function from a boolean algebra of events into [0, 1]. In 1932, von Neumann realized that the use of probability in quantum mechanics required a different concept that he formulated as a σ-additive function from the closed subspaces of a Hilbert space onto [0,1]. In 1935, Birkhoff & von Neumann replaced Hilbert space with an algebraic generalization. Today, a slight modification of the Birkhoff-von Neumann generalization is called “quantum logic”. A central problem in the philosophy of probability is the justification of the definition of probability used in a given application. This is usually done by arguing for the rationality of that approach to the situation under consideration. A version of the Dutch book argument given by de Finetti in 1972 is often used to justify the Kolmogorov theory, especially in scientific applications. As von Neumann in 1955 noted, and his criticisms still hold, there is no acceptable foundation for quantum logic. While it is not argued here that a rational approach has been carried out for quantum physics, it is argued that (1) for many important situations found in behavioral science that quantum probability theory is a reasonable choice, and (2) that it has an arguably rational foundation to certain areas of behavioral science, for example, the behavioral paradigm of Between Subjects experiments.