The Quantum Rashomon Effect as a Failure of Gluing

TL;DR

The paper explains the quantum Rashomon effect as a failure of gluing, linking it to contextuality and illustrating its relevance in quantum theory and social sciences.

Contribution

It provides a sheaf-theoretic interpretation of the Rashomon effect as a failure of global consistency in local descriptions, connecting quantum contextuality with social science models.

Findings

Rashomon effect arises from failure of gluing in sheaf theory

Contextuality prevents a single global narrative in quantum and social models

Sheaf-theoretic approach clarifies the mathematical structure of contextuality

Abstract

Recently Szangolies has argued (in the setting of extended Wigner's-friend scenarios) that quantum theory permits ``Rashomon'' situations: multiple internally coherent accounts of events that cannot be combined into a single, consistent global narrative. This note explains why the Rashomon phenomenon can be understood as a \emph{failure of gluing}: local descriptions over different contexts exist, but they do not admit a single global ``all-perspectives-at-once'' description. This is the same mathematical obstruction that underlies modern sheaf-theoretic treatments of contextuality. I then indicate why the same perspective is useful in parts of the social sciences (quantum-like modelling of cognition, judgment, and decision-making), where ``context effects'' can likewise be interpreted as the absence of a single joint probability space.