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As it turns out, tools from quantum mechanics just so happen to be very useful in modeling stuff from the human realm, like decision making in surveys, word/con

As it turns out, tools from quantum mechanics just so happen to be very useful in modeling stuff from the human realm, like decision making in surveys, word/concept associations, game theory, and more. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_cognition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_cognition This is mildly controversial to people hung up on classical rationality or uninformed "skeptics", in spite of the fact that the research is pretty mainstream and doesn't make many philosophical assumptions about the 'reality' of quantum theory. There has been a yearly conference called the Quantum Interaction conference where people have presented research using quantum theory outside of physics. I don't know what's up with the 2017 edition, but it's been held for quite a few years. http://www.quantuminteraction.org/ http://www.quantuminteraction.org/

stared 9y ago
Well, big controversy is that it uses word "quantum" (to sound it sexy and attractive; any imply, even if implicitly, that mind has anything to do with QM) rather than "linear algebra". And linear algebra is a very powerful framework for describing phenomena (including things related to cognition like word2vec, vide http://p.migdal.pl/2017/01/06/king-man-woman-queen-why.html http://p.migdal.pl/2017/01/06/king-man-woman-queen-why.html). Also: it is the language of Deep Learning.
- macawfish 9y ago
  The research is more centered around a specific use of Kolmogorov's classical probability theory, which takes context into consideration. This realization has allowed "classical probability theory" to be used in a characteristically "quantum" way, by paying attention to higher dimensional probability distributions, and how "observation" tends to draw these probability distributions through lower dimensional subspaces. Some people doing this research also employ fancier probability theories, but to me it is profound that classical probability theory can be used in the same basic way. So yeah, the research relies on linear algebra, sure, but specifically in the same way quantum theory relies on linear algebra: as a way of projecting probability distributions into different subspaces during measurement ("collapsing the wavefunction").
deleted 9y ago
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saalweachter 9y ago
Ehhh. The research doesn't sound crazy ab initio but calling it "mainstream" makes it sound like everyone is working on it. Skimming the Wikipedia article and its citations, it's a field that a half dozen researchers have been working in for less than 10 years. It's "mainstream" in that it's the sort of work that mainstream cognitive scientists do, but it's not a particularly dominant or well known methodology; it's just one of a hundred "what if we modeled decision making this way?" paradigms currently being pursued. Time will tell if it ends up being a useful explanation of broad swaths of cognition, or just an interesting footnote.
- macawfish 9y ago
  It's mainstream in the sense that they are using mainstream tools and are publishing dozens of books with mainstream publishers like Springer. It comes out of mainstream institutions. I'm just saying it's not merely some wacky fringe shit that orthodox scientists like to marginalize.
  - saalweachter 9y ago
    Fair enough; I'm just exceedingly full of caution when it comes to warning laymen off taking any contemporary work without a giant grain of salt. On-going research - individual papers or lines of research from a small number of working groups - can be interesting, and it can give you a new direction to attack other problems from. It's also just fun to see what the cutting edge of the future might look like. But until the work is digested by the larger body of researchers and you see what comes of it, there's also a bit of a cognitive risk to it. Half of us on HN have a favorite Grand Unified Theory of physics, an explanation of dark matter we assume is correct. Every other paper on the subject of nutrition spawns a fad diet. We regularly purge our lives of particular chemicals on any hint they're the next lead. We're all staring really hard at different quantum computers trying to figure out if they're really quantum or if they are if they're actually useful. It's really hard, once you've bought into a line of research, to let it go if it's later discredited. There's a lot of great research going on right now that's going to be the foundation our understanding of the universe for the next century. There's also a lot of research going on right now that will ultimately end up being wrong or just uninteresting. It's really exciting to learn about it right now but the closer to the cutting edge you get the more prepared you have to be for the really cool stuff to later end up being really wrong.

stared 9y ago

Well, big controversy is that it uses word "quantum" (to sound it sexy and attractive; any imply, even if implicitly, that mind has anything to do with QM) rather than "linear algebra". And linear algebra is a very powerful framework for describing phenomena (including things related to cognition like word2vec, vide http://p.migdal.pl/2017/01/06/king-man-woman-queen-why.html http://p.migdal.pl/2017/01/06/king-man-woman-queen-why.html). Also: it is the language of Deep Learning.

macawfish 9y ago
The research is more centered around a specific use of Kolmogorov's classical probability theory, which takes context into consideration. This realization has allowed "classical probability theory" to be used in a characteristically "quantum" way, by paying attention to higher dimensional probability distributions, and how "observation" tends to draw these probability distributions through lower dimensional subspaces. Some people doing this research also employ fancier probability theories, but to me it is profound that classical probability theory can be used in the same basic way. So yeah, the research relies on linear algebra, sure, but specifically in the same way quantum theory relies on linear algebra: as a way of projecting probability distributions into different subspaces during measurement ("collapsing the wavefunction").

deleted 9y ago

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saalweachter 9y ago

Ehhh. The research doesn't sound crazy ab initio but calling it "mainstream" makes it sound like everyone is working on it. Skimming the Wikipedia article and its citations, it's a field that a half dozen researchers have been working in for less than 10 years. It's "mainstream" in that it's the sort of work that mainstream cognitive scientists do, but it's not a particularly dominant or well known methodology; it's just one of a hundred "what if we modeled decision making this way?" paradigms currently being pursued. Time will tell if it ends up being a useful explanation of broad swaths of cognition, or just an interesting footnote.

macawfish 9y ago
It's mainstream in the sense that they are using mainstream tools and are publishing dozens of books with mainstream publishers like Springer. It comes out of mainstream institutions. I'm just saying it's not merely some wacky fringe shit that orthodox scientists like to marginalize.
- saalweachter 9y ago
  Fair enough; I'm just exceedingly full of caution when it comes to warning laymen off taking any contemporary work without a giant grain of salt. On-going research - individual papers or lines of research from a small number of working groups - can be interesting, and it can give you a new direction to attack other problems from. It's also just fun to see what the cutting edge of the future might look like. But until the work is digested by the larger body of researchers and you see what comes of it, there's also a bit of a cognitive risk to it. Half of us on HN have a favorite Grand Unified Theory of physics, an explanation of dark matter we assume is correct. Every other paper on the subject of nutrition spawns a fad diet. We regularly purge our lives of particular chemicals on any hint they're the next lead. We're all staring really hard at different quantum computers trying to figure out if they're really quantum or if they are if they're actually useful. It's really hard, once you've bought into a line of research, to let it go if it's later discredited. There's a lot of great research going on right now that's going to be the foundation our understanding of the universe for the next century. There's also a lot of research going on right now that will ultimately end up being wrong or just uninteresting. It's really exciting to learn about it right now but the closer to the cutting edge you get the more prepared you have to be for the really cool stuff to later end up being really wrong.