Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

arXiv:quant-ph/0404068

A Case For Applying an Abstracted Quantum Formalism to Cognition

Diederik Aerts, Jan Broekaert, Liane M. Gabora

Published Jan 1, 2003• 55 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

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

Related papers

From quantum cognition to conceptuality interpretation I: tracing the Brussels group’s intellectual journey

Diederik Aerts, Massimiliano Sassoli de Bianchi, Sandro Sozzo

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)’.

arXiv:2412.06799•Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A Mathematical Physical and Engineering Sciences•Nov 27, 2025•2 citations

Is matter cognitively inert? Quantum pancognitivism and the conceptuality interpretation

Diederik Aerts, Massimiliano Sassoli de Bianchi

We argue that the conceptuality interpretation of quantum theory supports a radical form of pancognitivism, which we call quantum pancognitivism, according to which matter is not cognitively inert. After distinguishing pancognitivism from panpsychism and situating it in relation to contemporary approaches to generalized cognition, we propose that quantum entities can be understood as conceptual entities whose behavior involves contextuality, the actualization of potential properties, and the creation of emergent meaning. Drawing on quantum cognition and the Brussels operational-realistic approach, we suggest that quantum theory may describe not only microscopic physical processes, but also more general dynamics governed by meaning. We further develop this view by considering the bosonic-fermionic dual-track modality of conceptual entities: at a more concrete fermionic level, cognition manifests through exclusive placeholder-states that allow communication and state-based individuality, whereas at a more abstract bosonic level it operates through shared semantic states, potentiality, and global meaning structures. On this view, cognition is not restricted to brains, organisms, or artificial systems, but expresses a structural dimension of reality. Quantum pancognitivism does not claim that matter is conscious or thinks like a human being; rather, it proposes that cognition is already operative at the level of so-called inert matter.

•Sep 14, 2026•0 citations

Quantum Qualia Hypothesis: from Quantum Cognition to Quantum Perception.

Naotsugu Tsuchiya, Peter Bruza, Yamada Makiko +2 more

To arbitrate theories of consciousness, scientists need mathematical models of consciousness or qualia. The dominant view regards qualia as points in a dimensional space. Implicit in this view is that qualia can be in principle measured without any effects on it. This contrasts with intuitions and various empirical findings about qualia that they can change when they are measured. How can we deal with entities that are affected by the act of measurement? We argue that mathematical formalisms of quantum theory are precisely developed to deal with such situations. Here, we propose qualia as “observables” (i.e., entities that can be in principle observed), sensory inputs and internal attention as “states” that specify the context that a measurement takes place, and “measurement outcomes” as expected values of qualia observables in a certain state. We propose to call this formalism as the Quantum Qualia (QQ) hypothesis. QQ proposes that qualia observables in a state interact with the world, as if through an interface of sensory inputs and internal attention. This qualia-interface-world scheme has the same mathematical structure as observables-states-environment in quantum theory. Within this framework, mathematical concepts of “instruments” can precisely formalize how measurements can affect (or update) qualia observables and states. QQ naturally explains intuitions about qualia, such as the nature of qualia as indeterminate entities. Finally, QQ leads to empirical predictions that challenge traditional models, such as order effects and violations of Bell inequalities. With further confirmation of such predictions, we believe that QQ will emerge as a viable alternate mathematical model of qualia, offering an important step towards understanding the nature and structures of consciousness.

•Dec 1, 2023•0 citations

The Quantum Challenge in Concept Theory and Natural Language Processing

Diederik Aerts, Jan Broekaert, Sandro Sozzo +1 more

The mathematical formalism of quantum theory has been successfully used in human cognition to model decision processes and to deliver representations of human knowledge. As such, quantum cognition inspired tools have improved technologies for Natural Language Processing and Information Retrieval. In this paper, we overview the quantum cognition approach developed in our Brussels team during the last two decades, specifically our identification of quantum structures in human concepts and language, and the modeling of data from psychological and corpus-text-based experiments. We discuss our quantum-theoretic framework for concepts and their conjunctions/disjunctions in a Fock-Hilbert space structure, adequately modeling a large amount of data collected on concept combinations. Inspired by this modeling, we put forward elements for a quantum contextual and meaning-based approach to information technologies in which 'entities of meaning' are inversely reconstructed from texts, which are considered as traces of these entities' states.

arXiv:1306.2838•Jun 12, 2013•3 citations

Intrinsic contextuality as the crux of consciousness

Diederik Aerts, Jan Broekaert, Liane M. Gabora

A stream of conscious experience is extremely contextual; it is impacted by sensory stimuli, drives and emotions, and the web of associations that link, directly or indirectly, the subject of experience to other elements of the individual's worldview. The contextuality of one's conscious experience both enhances and constrains the contextuality of one's behavior. Since we cannot know first-hand the conscious experience of another, it is by way of behavioral contextuality that we make judgements about whether or not, and to what extent, a system is conscious. Thus we believe that a deep understanding of contextuality is vital to the study of consciousness. Methods have been developed for handling contextuality in the microworld of quantum particles. Our goal has been to investigate the extent to which these methods can be used to analyze contextuality in conscious experience. This work is the fledgling efforts of a recently-initiated interdisciplinary collaboration.

arXiv:1310.7672•Advances in consciousness research•Mar 22, 2002•18 citations

Prologue

Sudip Patra, Menas C. Kafatos

Is mind quantum-like? Is consciousness quantum physical? Does consciousness have a role to play in the emergence of the classical world from the underlying quantum universe? Or is this dichotomy between classical and quantum an illusion? How can world philosophies enrich our views on these matters and interact with the best scientific theories? These are some questions that motivated us to conceive the current book. We also felt an urgent need to discuss the central philosophical questions haunting the emerging frameworks of quantum cognition and quantum-like framework (QLF). We have observed that there are very good technical or mathematical works being done in the emerging fields of quantum cognition and QLF, but there is still a great need for exploring the underlying and open philosophical questions they demand. Quantum cognition developed as a frontier research programme in understanding various cognitive phenomena that are hard or impossible to describe based on classical cognitive science paradigm. Classical cognitive science draws philosophically and mathematically from classical physics and classical probability theory. For example, cognitive realism thinking is deeply motivated by the scientific realism of classical physics. However, as we explore, there are numerous empirical findings which demonstrate clearly that human mind and cognitive processes exhibit features that are more quantum-like. Central to these features are indeterminacy, context dependence, and complementarity of cognitive phenomena, for example, perception, information retrieval, and even qualia. Many good works in the previous decade have demonstrated the efficacy of quantum-like mathematical modelling in such cases. However, given that efficacy, we cannot simply conclude that mind is quantum. Rather there are features that go beyond what is allowed in standard quantum formalism.

Routledge eBooks•May 26, 2026•0 citations
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
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)’.
We argue that the conceptuality interpretation of quantum theory supports a radical form of pancognitivism, which we call quantum pancognitivism, according to which matter is not cognitively inert. After distinguishing pancognitivism from panpsychism and situating it in relation to contemporary approaches to generalized cognition, we propose that quantum entities can be understood as conceptual entities whose behavior involves contextuality, the actualization of potential properties, and the creation of emergent meaning. Drawing on quantum cognition and the Brussels operational-realistic approach, we suggest that quantum theory may describe not only microscopic physical processes, but also more general dynamics governed by meaning. We further develop this view by considering the bosonic-fermionic dual-track modality of conceptual entities: at a more concrete fermionic level, cognition manifests through exclusive placeholder-states that allow communication and state-based individuality, whereas at a more abstract bosonic level it operates through shared semantic states, potentiality, and global meaning structures. On this view, cognition is not restricted to brains, organisms, or artificial systems, but expresses a structural dimension of reality. Quantum pancognitivism does not claim that matter is conscious or thinks like a human being; rather, it proposes that cognition is already operative at the level of so-called inert matter.
To arbitrate theories of consciousness, scientists need mathematical models of consciousness or qualia. The dominant view regards qualia as points in a dimensional space. Implicit in this view is that qualia can be in principle measured without any effects on it. This contrasts with intuitions and various empirical findings about qualia that they can change when they are measured. How can we deal with entities that are affected by the act of measurement? We argue that mathematical formalisms of quantum theory are precisely developed to deal with such situations. Here, we propose qualia as “observables” (i.e., entities that can be in principle observed), sensory inputs and internal attention as “states” that specify the context that a measurement takes place, and “measurement outcomes” as expected values of qualia observables in a certain state. We propose to call this formalism as the Quantum Qualia (QQ) hypothesis. QQ proposes that qualia observables in a state interact with the world, as if through an interface of sensory inputs and internal attention. This qualia-interface-world scheme has the same mathematical structure as observables-states-environment in quantum theory. Within this framework, mathematical concepts of “instruments” can precisely formalize how measurements can affect (or update) qualia observables and states. QQ naturally explains intuitions about qualia, such as the nature of qualia as indeterminate entities. Finally, QQ leads to empirical predictions that challenge traditional models, such as order effects and violations of Bell inequalities. With further confirmation of such predictions, we believe that QQ will emerge as a viable alternate mathematical model of qualia, offering an important step towards understanding the nature and structures of consciousness.
The mathematical formalism of quantum theory has been successfully used in human cognition to model decision processes and to deliver representations of human knowledge. As such, quantum cognition inspired tools have improved technologies for Natural Language Processing and Information Retrieval. In this paper, we overview the quantum cognition approach developed in our Brussels team during the last two decades, specifically our identification of quantum structures in human concepts and language, and the modeling of data from psychological and corpus-text-based experiments. We discuss our quantum-theoretic framework for concepts and their conjunctions/disjunctions in a Fock-Hilbert space structure, adequately modeling a large amount of data collected on concept combinations. Inspired by this modeling, we put forward elements for a quantum contextual and meaning-based approach to information technologies in which 'entities of meaning' are inversely reconstructed from texts, which are considered as traces of these entities' states.
A stream of conscious experience is extremely contextual; it is impacted by sensory stimuli, drives and emotions, and the web of associations that link, directly or indirectly, the subject of experience to other elements of the individual's worldview. The contextuality of one's conscious experience both enhances and constrains the contextuality of one's behavior. Since we cannot know first-hand the conscious experience of another, it is by way of behavioral contextuality that we make judgements about whether or not, and to what extent, a system is conscious. Thus we believe that a deep understanding of contextuality is vital to the study of consciousness. Methods have been developed for handling contextuality in the microworld of quantum particles. Our goal has been to investigate the extent to which these methods can be used to analyze contextuality in conscious experience. This work is the fledgling efforts of a recently-initiated interdisciplinary collaboration.
Is mind quantum-like? Is consciousness quantum physical? Does consciousness have a role to play in the emergence of the classical world from the underlying quantum universe? Or is this dichotomy between classical and quantum an illusion? How can world philosophies enrich our views on these matters and interact with the best scientific theories? These are some questions that motivated us to conceive the current book. We also felt an urgent need to discuss the central philosophical questions haunting the emerging frameworks of quantum cognition and quantum-like framework (QLF). We have observed that there are very good technical or mathematical works being done in the emerging fields of quantum cognition and QLF, but there is still a great need for exploring the underlying and open philosophical questions they demand. Quantum cognition developed as a frontier research programme in understanding various cognitive phenomena that are hard or impossible to describe based on classical cognitive science paradigm. Classical cognitive science draws philosophically and mathematically from classical physics and classical probability theory. For example, cognitive realism thinking is deeply motivated by the scientific realism of classical physics. However, as we explore, there are numerous empirical findings which demonstrate clearly that human mind and cognitive processes exhibit features that are more quantum-like. Central to these features are indeterminacy, context dependence, and complementarity of cognitive phenomena, for example, perception, information retrieval, and even qualia. Many good works in the previous decade have demonstrated the efficacy of quantum-like mathematical modelling in such cases. However, given that efficacy, we cannot simply conclude that mind is quantum. Rather there are features that go beyond what is allowed in standard quantum formalism.