Related papers: The 18-fold way
In the pure essay style (no mathematical formulas), I present a number of speculative reflections and suggestions on possible applications of mesoscopic methods and of quantum mechanical concepts to as such a complex system as the human…
We identify the presence of typically quantum effects, namely 'superposition' and 'interference', in what happens when human concepts are combined, and provide a quantum model in complex Hilbert space that represents faithfully experimental…
We prove that a tournament and its complement contain the same number of oriented Hamiltonian paths (resp. cycles) of any given type, as a generalization of Rosenfeld's result proved for antidirected paths.
In the context of theories of the connection between mind and brain, physicalism is the demand that all is basically purely physical. But the concept of "physical" embodied in this demand is characterized essentially by the properties of…
The most enigmatic aspect of consciousness is the fact that it is felt, as a subjective sensation. The theory proposed here aims to explain this particular aspect. The theory encompasses both the computation that is presumably involved and…
Recent proposal for counterfactual computation [Hosten et al., Nature, 439, 949 (2006)] is analyzed. It is argued that the method does not provide counterfactual computation for all possible outcomes. The explanation involves a novel…
The recent controversy of applicability of quantum formalism to brain dynamics has been critically analysed. The prerequisites for any type of quantum formalism or quantum field theory is to investigate whether the anatomical structure of…
The brain is very often viewed as a network, be it at small scale made of cells, mostly neurons, or at larger scale made of neuronal assemblies. Here we introduce a conjecture, in the spirit of a philosophical though experiment, which…
In this paper we discuss quantum-like decision-making experiments using negative probabilities. We do so by showing how the two-slit experiment, in the simplified version of the Mach-Zehnder interferometer, can be described by this…
We introduce a quantum mechanical model of time travel which includes two figurative beam splitters in order to induce feedback to earlier times. This leads to a unique solution to the paradox where one could kill one's grandfather in that…
Processes undergoing quantum mechanics, exhibit quantum interference effects. In this case quantum probabilities result to be different from classical probabilities because they contain an additional main point that in fact is called the…
Philosophical thinking has a side effect: by aiming to find the essence of a diverse set of phenomena, it often makes it difficult to see the differences between them. This can be the case with Mathematics, Programming, Writing and…
It has been suggested, on the one hand, that quantum states are just states of knowledge; and, on the other, that quantum theory is merely a theory of correlations. These suggestions are confronted with problems about the nature of…
Are minds subject to laws of physics? Are the laws of physics computable? Are conscious thought processes computable? Currently there is little agreement as to what are the right answers to these questions. Penrose goes one step further and…
Ever since its beginnings, standard quantum mechanics has been associated with a metaphysical view according to which the theory deals with non-individual objects, i.e., objects deprived of individuality in some sense of the term. We shall…
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…
The hypothesis of quantum self-interference is not directly observable, but has at least three necessary implications. First, a quantum entity must have no less than two open paths. Second, the size of the interval between any two…
The last decades saw dramatic progress in brain research. These advances were often buttressed by probing single variables to make circumscribed discoveries, typically through null hypothesis significance testing. New ways for generating…
What Quantum Brain Dynamics (QBD) considers is not just these other functions of the brain, this is because they can be well analyzed with the workings of classical mechanics (even though they still play host to a quantum description). It…
One would not think that thought experiments could matter to nature, for they are a humble human device. Yet quantum mechanics very naturally frames thought experiments (as distinct from precisely defining what exists). They exemplify the…