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What is Quantum? Unifying Its Micro-physical and Structural Appearance

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Quantum Interaction (QI 2014)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 8951))

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Abstract

We can recognize two modes in which ‘quantum appears’ in macro domains: (i) a micro-physical appearance, where quantum laws are assumed to be universal and they are transferred from the micro to the macro level if suitable quantum coherence conditions (e.g., very low temperatures) are realized, (ii) a structural appearance, where no hypothesis is made on the validity of quantum laws at a micro level, while genuine quantum aspects are detected at a structural-modeling level. In this paper, we inquire into the connections between the two appearances. We put forward the explanatory hypothesis that, ‘the appearance of quantum in both cases’ is due to ‘the existence of a specific form of organisation, which has the capacity to cope with random perturbations that would destroy this organisation when not coped with’. We analyse how ‘organisation of matter’, ‘organisation of life’, and ‘organisation of culture’, play this role each in their specific domain of application, point out the importance of evolution in this respect, and put forward how our analysis sheds new light on ‘what quantum is’.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Some authors [45] have recently observed that our example The Animal Acts does not satisfy the marginal law, which would entail that Bell’s inequalities are not informative in this case. In this respect, we have also elaborated an explicit quantum model for The Animal Acts situation, showing that entanglement is present in both states and measurements [46]. This result supports our claim that the violation of Bell’s inequalities is due to the entanglement between the considered concepts.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center Leo Apostel (Clea), Brussels Free University (VUB), Pleinlaan 2, 1050, Brussel, Belgium

    Diederik Aerts & Sandro Sozzo

  2. School of Management and IQSCS, University of Leicester, University Road, Leicester, LE1 7RH, UK

    Sandro Sozzo

Authors
  1. Diederik Aerts
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  2. Sandro Sozzo
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Correspondence to Sandro Sozzo .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland

    Harald Atmanspacher

  2. Universitätsspital Bern, Bern, Switzerland

    Claudia Bergomi

  3. University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany

    Thomas Filk

  4. Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

    Kirsty Kitto

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Aerts, D., Sozzo, S. (2015). What is Quantum? Unifying Its Micro-physical and Structural Appearance. In: Atmanspacher, H., Bergomi, C., Filk, T., Kitto, K. (eds) Quantum Interaction. QI 2014. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 8951. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15931-7_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15931-7_2

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-15931-7

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