The Quantum Nature of Identity in Human Thought: Bose-Einstein Statistics for Conceptual Indistinguishability

TL;DR

This paper provides experimental evidence that human concept combination involving indistinguishable entities follows Bose-Einstein statistics, suggesting a quantum-like nature of conceptual identity and combination.

Contribution

It introduces a novel quantum-inspired model for conceptual combination, demonstrating that human cognition exhibits Bose-Einstein statistical behavior in specific contexts.

Findings

Humans violate classical probability in concept combinations.

Evidence of Bose-Einstein statistics in human conceptual processing.

Preliminary web-based study supports quantum-like effects in cognition.

Abstract

Increasing experimental evidence shows that humans combine concepts in a way that violates the rules of classical logic and probability theory. On the other hand, mathematical models inspired by the formalism of quantum theory are in accordance with data on concepts and their combinations. In this paper, we investigate a novel type of concept combination were a number is combined with a noun, e.g., `Eleven Animals. Our aim is to study 'conceptual identity' and the effects of 'indistinguishability' - in the combination 'Eleven Animals', the 'animals' are identical and indistinguishable - on the mechanisms of conceptual combination. We perform experiments on human subjects and find significant evidence of deviation from the predictions of classical statistical theories, more specifically deviations with respect to Maxwell-Boltzmann statistics. This deviation is of the 'same type' of the deviation of quantum mechanical from classical mechanical statistics, due to indistinguishability of microscopic quantum particles, i.e we find convincing evidence of the presence of Bose-Einstein statistics. We also present preliminary promising evidence of this phenomenon in a web-based study.