A New Fundamental Evidence of Non-Classical Structure in the Combination of Natural Concepts

TL;DR

This paper presents evidence of a fundamental non-classical pattern in how concepts combine, modeled using quantum theory, suggesting a deep mechanism in human cognition involving superposition of logical and emergent reasoning.

Contribution

It identifies a new, stable non-classical pattern in concept combination, modeled with a two-sector Fock space, indicating a fundamental cognitive process beyond classical logic.

Findings

Discovered a systematic violation of classical logic in concept combinations.

Modeled concept combination using a quantum-theoretic Fock space framework.

Proposed that human thought involves a superposition of logical and emergent processes.

Abstract

We recently performed cognitive experiments on conjunctions and negations of two concepts with the aim of investigating the combination problem of concepts. Our experiments confirmed the deviations (conceptual vagueness, underextension, overextension, etc.) from the rules of classical (fuzzy) logic and probability theory observed by several scholars in concept theory, while our data were successfully modeled in a quantum-theoretic framework developed by ourselves. In this paper, we isolate a new, very stable and systematic pattern of violation of classicality that occurs in concept combinations. In addition, the strength and regularity of this non-classical effect leads us to believe that it occurs at a more fundamental level than the deviations observed up to now. It is our opinion that we have identified a deep non-classical mechanism determining not only how concepts are combined but, rather, how they are formed. We show that this effect can be faithfully modeled in a two-sector Fock space structure, and that it can be exactly explained by assuming that human thought is the supersposition of two processes, a 'logical reasoning', guided by 'logic', and a 'conceptual reasoning' guided by 'emergence', and that the latter generally prevails over the former. All these findings provide a new fundamental support to our quantum-theoretic approach to human cognition.