Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T03:13:55.186Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Quantum Cognition – Quantum Analogy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2021

Michael Fortescue
Michael Fortescue*
Affiliation:
Department of Nordic Studies and Linguistics, University of Copenhagen. Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Attempts to apply the apparatus of quantum mechanics to cognition and language have met, understandably, with a degree of scepticism within the disciplines concerned, but they nevertheless have the potential for opening exciting new perspectives. In this article, I address the question as to what it is exactly about these attempts that has drawn such attention – both positive and negative – in recent years. I shall argue for distinguishing those aspects of quantum cognition that do warrant serious consideration by cognitive psychologists and linguists irrespective of the exact nature of its relationship to classical quantum mechanics. The key lies in the important role played by analogy in both disciplines.

Type
Article
Information
European Review , Volume 30 , Issue 5 , October 2022 , pp. 708 - 724
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Academia Europaea

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aerts, D, Gabora, L and Sozzo, S (2013) Concepts and their dynamics: a quantum-theoretic modeling of human thought. Topics in Cognitive Science 5(4).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Al-Khalili, J and McFadden, J (2014) Life on the Edge: the Coming of Age of Quantum Biology. London: Bantam Press.Google Scholar
Arbib, M, Érdi, P and Szentágothai, J (1998) Neural Organization, Structure, Function, and Dynamics. Cambridge, MA/ London: MIT Press (a Bradford Book).Google Scholar
Barsalou, LW (1999) Perceptual symbol systems. Behavioural and Brain Sciences 22, 577–660.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bohm, D (1980) Wholeness and the Implicate Order. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Bohr, N (1958) Atomic Physics and Human Knowledge. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Brainerd, C, Wang, Z and Reyna, V (2013) Superposition of episodic memories: overdistribution and quantum models. Topics in Cognitive Science 5(4).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bruza, PD, Kitto, K, Nelson, D and McEvoy, C (2009) Is there something quantum like in the human mental lexicon? Journal of Mathematical Psychology 53, 362–377.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Buzsaki, G (2011) Rhythms of the Brain. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Damasio, A (2000) The Feeling of What Happens. London: Vintage.Google Scholar
Einstein, A, Podolsky, B and Rosen, N (1935) Can quantum mechanical descriptions of physical reality be considered complete? Physical Review 47(10), 777–780.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fauconnier, G and Turner, M (2002) The Way We Think. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Fortescue, M (2007) How to catch a mental model by the tale. Acta Linguistica Hafniensia 39, 125–152.Google Scholar
Fortescue, M (2009) A Neural Network Model of Lexical Organization. London & New York: Continuum.Google Scholar
Fortescue, M (2017). The Abstraction Engine. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Globus, G (2011) Inner speech and the linguistic sign: toward a quantum semiology. Neuroquantology 9(2), 243–254.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldberg, AE (1995) Constructions: a Construction Grammar Approach to Argument Structure. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Harth, E (1993) The Creative Loop: How the Brain Makes the Mind. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.Google Scholar
Itkonen, E (2005) Analogy as Structure and Process. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Johnson-Laird, PN (1983) Mental Models. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Penrose, R (1989) The Emperor’s New Mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pulvermüller, F (2002) The Neuroscience of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rovelli, C (2021). Helgoland. London: Allen Lane.Google Scholar
Schrödinger, E (1944) What is Life? The Physical Aspect of the Living Cell. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Scott, A (1995) Stairway to the Mind. New York: Springer Verlag (Copernicus).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Singer, W (2013) Cortical dynamics revisited. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 17(12), 616–626.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Skousen, R (2003) Analogical modeling: exemplars, rules and quantum computing. Paper presented at 29th Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, Berkeley.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tegmark, M (2000) Importance of quantum decoherence in brain processes. Physical Review E 61(4), 4194.Google ScholarPubMed
Tomasello, M (2003) Constructing a Language: A Usage-based Theory of Language Acquisition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Vitiello, G (2001) My Double Unveiled: The Dissipative Quantum Model of the Brain. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wang, Z, Busemeyer, JR, Atmanspacher, H and Pothos, EM (2013) The potential of using quantum theory to build models of cognition. Topics in Cognitive Sciences 5, 672–688.Google ScholarPubMed
Zhang, H, Watrous, AJ, Patel, A and Jacobs, J (2018) Theta and alpha oscillations are traveling waves in the human neocortex. Neuron 98, 1269–1281.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed