The Quantum Mind: Alternative Ways of Reasoning with Uncertainty

Abstract

Human reasoning about and with uncertainty is often at odds with the principles of classical probability. Order effects, conjunction biases, and sure-thing inclinations suggest that an entirely different set of probability axioms could be developed and indeed may be needed to describe such habits. Recent work in diverse fields, including cognitive science, economics, and information theory, explores alternative approaches to decision theory. This work considers more expansive theories of reasoning with uncertainty while continuing to recognize the value of classical probability. In this paper, we discuss one such alternative approach, called quantum probability, and explore its applications within decision theory. Quantum probability is designed to formalize uncertainty as an ontological feature of the state of affairs, offering a mathematical model for entanglement, de/coherence, and interference, which are all concepts with unique onto-epistemological relevance for social theorists working in new and trans-materialisms. In this paper, we suggest that this work be considered part of the quantum turn in the social sciences and humanities. Our aim is to explore different models and formalizations of decision theory that attend to the situatedness of judgment. We suggest that the alternative models of reasoning explored in this article might be better suited to queries about entangled mathematical concepts and, thus, be helpful in rethinking both curriculum and learning theory.

Landing Sites, Cities, and Nonplaces: Collaborating Across the Conference Circuit

“…The fundamentally noncommutative nature of quantum measurement (i.e., that measuring one aspect of a phenomenon and then another will produce different results when the order of measuring is reversed) can be formalized so that “quantum probability” becomes significantly different from classical probability. We publish on this (de Freitas & Sinclair, 2018) and find Wendt’s insights, as well as his later Quantum Social Science Boot Camp event, very generative in our thinking about measurement in general and, in particular, in educational contexts involving decision-making and problem-solving. This work draws us into the history of measurement.…”

Social positioning theory and quantum mechanics

“…2 See, for example, Barad, 1996Barad, , 2007Barad, , 2012Busemeyer & Bruza, 2012;De Freitas & Sinclair, 2018;Donald, 2018;Fuller, 2018;Haven & Khrennikov, 2013;Höne, 2017;Lewis, 1983;Little, 2018;Murphy, 2012;Wendt, 2015;Zohar, 1990;or Zohar & Marshall, 1993. 3 More fully, not only is it the case that in social positioning theory, the traditional account of atomistic isolated individuals is replaced by a conception of human community participants that are relational in nature (rather than somehow existing in isolation) and processual (in contrast to being fixed in nature or atomistic), but the conception defended is such that, according to it, these community participants interact in ways that are not predetermined but necessarily adapted to the context and expected nature of the ensuing interactions (see especially ).…”

“…2 2 See, for example, Barad, 1996, 2007, 2012; Busemeyer & Bruza, 2012; De Freitas & Sinclair, 2018; Donald, 2018; Fuller, 2018; Haven & Khrennikov, 2013; Höne, 2017; Lewis, 1983; Little, 2018; Murphy, 2012; Wendt, 2015; Zohar, 1990; or Zohar & Marshall, 1993. …”

Mathematics in the middle: The relationship between measurement and metamorphic matter

“…Longo (2015) emphasizes the "utterly human" concept of symmetry (and the breaking of symmetry) in mathematics, art and language, pointing to the "fundamental bilateral symmetry" that characterizes our animal bodies (p.11). To this he adds the claim that mathematics partakes in an "active relation to the world" captured in the ongoing developments of different kinds of measurement: classical, relativistic, and quantum (see also de Freitas, 2016and de Freitas & Sinclair, 2018, 2020. He suggests that noncommutative geometries might help us better comprehend ontogenetic biological processes, as cascades of symmetry changes.…”