Related papers: Taking models seriously and being a linguistic rea…
The epistemological interpretation of quantum mechanics is still in an unacceptable status. This becomes obvious if looking on the variety of interpretations currently under discussion. However, the physical community together with…
Large Language Models (LLMs) encode semantic relationships in high-dimensional vector embeddings. This paper explores the analogy between LLM embedding spaces and quantum mechanics, positing that LLMs operate within a quantized semantic…
Metaphysics is traditionally conceived as aiming at the truth -- indeed, the most fundamental truths about the most general features of reality. Philosophical naturalists, urging that philosophical claims be grounded on science, have often…
An out of the box intellectual path exploring the foundations of quantum mechanics is discussed in some detail, in order to clarify why a possibly different way to look at the relevant fundamental questions can be identified and can support…
We argue about a conceptual approach to quantum formalism. Starting from philosophical conjectures (Platonism, Idealism and Realism) as basic ontic elements (namely: math world, data world, and state of matter), we will analyze the quantum…
Quantum physics has intrigued scientists and philosophers alike, because it challenges our notions of reality and locality--concepts that we have grown to rely on in our macroscopic world. It is an intriguing open question whether the…
We discuss some conceptual issues that any approach to quantum gravity has to confront. In particular, it is argued that one has to find a theory that can be interpreted in a realist manner, because theories with an instrumentalist…
Elucidating the language-brain relationship requires bridging the methodological gap between the abstract theoretical frameworks of linguistics and the empirical neural data of neuroscience. Serving as an interdisciplinary cornerstone,…
In the field of Artificial (General) Intelligence (AI), the several recent advancements in Natural language processing (NLP) activities relying on Large Language Models (LLMs) have come to encourage the adoption of LLMs as scientific models…
The concept of "reality" is often raised in the context of philosophical foundations of physics or interpretations of quantum mechanics. When this term is so raised, it is a warning to me that I am about to be led down a rabbit hole. Such…
Natural Language Processing prides itself to be an empirically-minded, if not outright empiricist field, and yet lately it seems to get itself into essentialist debates on issues of meaning and measurement ("Do Large Language Models…
QBism is one of the main candidates for an epistemic interpretation of quantum mechanics. According to QBism, the quantum state or the wavefunction represents the subjective degrees of belief of the agent assigning the state. But, although…
The ontological status of the quantum wavefunction remains one of the most debated questions in quantum theory. While epistemic interpretations regard the wavefunction as a reflection of our knowledge or beliefs, ontic interpretations treat…
The Weltanschauung emerging from quantum theory clashes profoundly with our classical concepts. Quantum characteristics like superposition, entanglement, wave-particle duality, nonlocality, contextuality are difficult to reconcile with our…
The most puzzling issue in the foundations of quantum mechanics is perhaps that of the status of the wave function of a system in a quantum universe. Is the wave function objective or subjective? Does it represent the physical state of the…
What is the nature of reality? How should be an answer to this question? At this level, we are so deep that all our concepts are obscure. Quantum theory (QT) is at this level. The quest for interpreting it fails because the clarity of our…
Paul Busch has emphasized on various occasions the importance for physics of going beyond a merely instrumentalist view of quantum mechanics. Even if we cannot be sure that any particular realist interpretation describes the world as it…
Formal Semantics and Distributional Semantics are two important semantic frameworks in Natural Language Processing (NLP). Cognitive Semantics belongs to the movement of Cognitive Linguistics, which is based on contemporary cognitive…
We introduce a formulation of combined systems in orthodox non-relativistic quantum mechanics, mathematically equivalent to the usual one. For context and larger issues, see http://euclid.unh.edu/~jjohnson/axiomatics.html and…
This chapter critically examines the potential contributions of modern language models to theoretical linguistics. Despite their focus on engineering goals, these models' ability to acquire sophisticated linguistic knowledge from mere…