Ontology: A New Direction for Cognitive Modeling




© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015
Hans Liljenström (ed.)Advances in Cognitive Neurodynamics (IV)Advances in Cognitive Neurodynamics10.1007/978-94-017-9548-7_59


Quantum Ontology: A New Direction for Cognitive Modeling



Sisir Roy 


(1)
Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, India

 



 

Sisir Roy



Abstract

Human cognition is still a puzzling issue in research and its appropriate modeling. It depends on how the brain behaves at that particular instance and identifies and responds to a signal among myriads of noises that are present in the surroundings (called external noise) as well as in the neurons themselves (called internal noise). Thus it is not surprising to assume that the functionality consists of various uncertainties, possibly a mixture of aleatory and epistemic uncertainties. It is also possible that a complicated pathway consisting of both types of uncertainties in continuum play a major role in human cognition. The ability to predict the outcome of future events is, arguably, the most universal and significant of all global brain functions. The ability to anticipate the outcome of a given action depends on sensory stimuli from the outside world and previously learned experience or inherited instincts. So, one needs to formulate a theory of inference using prior knowledge for decision-making and judgment. Typically, Bayesian models of inference are used to solve such problems involving probabilistic frameworks. However, recent empirical findings in human judgment suggest that a reformulation of Hierarchical Bayesian theory of inference under this set-up or a more general probabilistic framework based approach like quantum probability would be more plausible than a Bayesian model or the standard probability theory. However, as the framework of quantum probability is an abstract one needs to study the context dependence so as understand the new empirical evidences in cognitive domain.


Keywords
Bayesian modelQuantum probabilityContext dependenceInternal noiseBrain functionDecision making



1 Introduction


For more than 200 years mathematicians and philosophers have been using probability theory to describe human cognition. Recently through several experiments with human subjects [1, 2], violation of traditional probability theory is clearly revealed in plenty of cases. Literature survey clearly suggests that classical probability theory fails to model human cognition beyond a certain limit. While Bayesian approach may seem to be a promising candidate to this problem, the complete success story of Bayesian methodology is yet to be written. The major problem seems to be the presence of epistemic uncertainty and its effect on cognition at any time point. Moreover the stochasticity in the model arises due to the unknown path or trajectory (definite state on mind at each time point) a person is following. To this end a generalized version of probability theory borrowing idea from quantum mechanics may be a plausible approach. Quantum theory allows a person to be in an indefinite state (superposition state) at each moment of time. A person may be in an indefinite state that allows all of these states to have potential (probability amplitude) for being expressed at each moment [3]. Thus a superposition state seems to provide a better representation of the conflict, ambiguity or uncertainty that a person experiences at each moment [2]. Conte et al. [4] demonstrated that mental states follow quantum mechanics during perception and cognition of ambiguous figures.

These empirical evidences indicate the applicability of quantum probability framework to the decision making in cognitive domain. However, the framework of quantum probability is an abstract framework devoid of material content like concept of elementary particle, the various fundamental constants like Planck constant, speed of light and Gravitational constant in modern physics. So this framework can be applied to any branch of science dealing with decision making such as in Biology, Social science etc. The central issue is how to make this framework context dependence so as to apply to a specific field. In this paper we make an attempt to analyze the whole situation in a critical manner.

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Sep 24, 2016 | Posted by in NEUROLOGY | Comments Off on Ontology: A New Direction for Cognitive Modeling

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