Image: Oliver Munday
In Brief
- Quantum physicists have discovered that quantum mechanics enlarges our capacity to reason in unexpected ways. The notorious Prisoner's Dilemma, in which the rational choice is the wrong choice, can be eliminated by quantum entanglement. A more recent (and still unproved) claim is that a quantum system of voting could avoid the inconsistencies of ordinary voting.
- Quantum mechanics may be a better model for human behavior than classical logic, which fails to predict the human impulse to cooperate and act altruistically. Instead of trying to force our thinking into a rational framework, we are better off expanding the framework.
More In This Article
An American election season seems like a bad time to sing the praises of human rationality. Candidates make promises that will never be kept yet voters somehow accept; thoughtful arguments hold no sway, while sound bites carry the day. What a comedown from the Enlightenment ideals, the faith in rationality, that inspired the founding of the republic. And it is even worse than you might think. Some things you think should be possible to figure out rationally if only you exerted yourself aren't. If you actually succeeded in living a life of reason—never voting without weighing each candidate's record carefully, never buying an appliance without consulting Consumer Reports, never begging the question, never erecting straw men, never falling into any of the other traps that flesh is heir to—you still would find yourself doing things that made no sense, not because you had failed but because reason itself is a saw blade missing a few teeth.
Throughout the 20th century scientists and mathematicians have had to accept that some things will always remain beyond the grasp of reason. In the 1930s Kurt Gödel famously showed that even in the rational universe of mathematics, for every paradox that deep thinking slaps down, new ones pop up. Economists and political theorists found similar limitations to rational rules for organizing society, and historians of science punctured the belief that scientific disputes are resolved purely by facts. The ultimate limits on reason come from quantum physics, which says that some things just happen and you can never know why.
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19 Comments
Add CommentI'm a subscriber to SA Magazine. Can I view the magazine in its digital format, or does that require a separate subscription? And, if so, why?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat does seem kind of weird.... apparently they're trying to fix that. Contact me here if you'd like to discuss the physics of my article: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/critical-opalescence/about.php?author=55
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI find difficulty in the attempt to describe the behavior of groups of people in terms of quantum mechanical concepts. I find this to be a vast extrapolation from studies on simple and well-defined systems to complex processes like elections. This involved many intermediate processes that are not understood in. The effort is a bit like attempts to describe phenomena like ESP using ideas from quantum mechanical entanglement.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI fear there may be a difference between processes from complexity and those from deficiencies in fundamental theory. Newtonian mechanics is quite satisfactory for describing the behavior of bodies of large mass moving with velocities appreciably less than that of light. However, there are difficulties in obtaining an analytical solution for many body problems, although approximations may be made that can predict, with adequate computational means, results adequate for many purposes such as predicting the motion of planets in the solar system. This problem is mainly due to complexity rather than inadequacy of Newton’s laws and would not be helped by applying quantum principles.
The task of dealing with a many-people problem with not well understood interactions among them is largely one of complexity and one for which Newton’s laws would not be of much help with current levels of understanding and computational ability. I doubt whether the application of quantum mechanics would be of much help. I do not think that the problem here arises because of the limitation of Newton’s laws.
Certainly statistical descriptions of people based phenomena are possible and these enable one to predict probabilities of various events, although they often do not reveal their cause. Similarly, quantum mechanics offers a statistical description of the behavior of atomic level phenomena. However, I do not see that this infers that since both are described statistically, one explains the other. There may be a connection but what it is is far from our present understanding
The prisoner dilemma doesn't need quantum math to be explained, just the fact that individuals can value group interest more the one's own interest.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt we give to each outcome a value:
0 - remain in jail
4 - get free
5 - get free with a premium
we see that from an individualistic perspective that Bob and Alice should snitch.
But, from a group perspective, adding the outcomes for all members of the group we get
0 (= 0 + 0) - Alice and Bob both snitch
5 (= 5 + 0) - Only one snitches, either Bob or Alice
8 (= 4 + 4) - They both stay mum
This shows that the maximum outcome for the group is that both should stay mum and that they will probably do so because humans are social beings. They are willing to give up a little of self-interest if all can benefit from it.
Many humans know they have a higher chance to get on well if the whole group goes on well.
That to explain such behaviour the author has so resort to quantum math, just confirms the autistic tendencies of the technological mind, as suggested in another article in this same SCIAM issue.
No person can predict with certainty the profile ( type and intensity)of thoughts emerging out from his own mind even after a few hours or days. Quantum mechanical model are applicable upon non - living ( non-conscious) entities. Human mind which is highly loaded with consciousness, no predictive model is applicable. Understanding of current Science about Mind and Consciousness is far from rudimentary, therefore, no predictive model can be applicable upon Human mind.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Understanding of current Science about Mind and Consciousness is far from rudimentary"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI made a mistake in framing above sentence. Instead of using the words "far from rudimentary", it should have been " even less than rudimentary"
Above mistake per se establishes that even in small matters, it is not feasible to predict the mind's behavor.
Physicists’ desperation to present themselves as relevant in other disciplines --- never stops to amaze me. The absurdity like “Humans Think Like Quantum Particles” simply imply that “Quantum Particles Think Like Humans”...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI do appreciate creativity powered by imagination --- but I do not appreciate wild phantasies. Unfortunately, physicists are lately stretching their phantasies beyond reaches of a sane mind. Also unfortunately, they are often given outlets by supposedly scientific publications --- like Scientific American...
So we have phantasy like universe of information --- demonstrating complete ignorance about what is information at the first place. We also have phantasies about our universe being simulated in a machine designed by advanced aliens --- a la Matrix...
I do think that publications like Scientific American urgently need to tighten their criteria. Increasing sales by cheap “science” can quickly backfire.
Have a nice day,
Damir Ibrisimovic
http://home.pacific.net.au/~damir-dsl/
As a retired information systems analyst, I wholeheartedly agree, especially in reference to the quantum cosmic information theory BS.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"The ultimate limits on reason come from quantum physics, which says that some things just happen and you can never know why."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI feel very strongly that the stage physics has reached at the present day is not the final stage. It is just one stage in the evolution of our picture of nature, and we should expect this process of evolution to continue in the future, as biological evolution continues into the future. The present stage of physical theory is merely a steppingstone toward the better stages we shall have in the future. One can be quite sure that there will be better stages simply because of the difficulties that occur in the physics of today.
Paul Dirac, "The Evolution of the Physicist’s Picture of Nature," SciAm: June 25, 2010
http://bit.ly/sPJ5GC
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"The ultimate limits on reason come from quantum physics, which says that some things just happen and you can never know why."
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Is this not the same pap that faith-based religion uses to "explain" why bad things sometimes happen to good people? The "Hairy Thunderer" works in mysterious ways and we do not expect to understand.
Personaly, I think it is long past time to get back to the definitive predictions and empirical testing of traditional science, and throw untestable pseudo-science into the dustbin of history, where it belongs.
Robert L. Oldershaw
Discrete Scale Relativity
http://www3.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw
"Instead of trying to force our thinking into a rational framework, we are better off expanding the framework."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is 100% truth right here.
HOWEVER our educational framework (In America) promotes and sustains linear thinking. Religion (In America) requires linear thinking. Don't you think we are trying? Its a huge mess over here.
Actually, this is a genius article. The writer is about as informed as the title, and represents it intrinsically. You guys got yourselves an artist over there!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMaybe we should look at free will.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHumans don’t think like quantum particles because particles don’t think. The difference is between humans, who freely choose, and particles whose causes are indeterminate. A free choice is the very first cause in a series of events. For example, I freely choose to turn left instead of right; a series of events follows until I make my next choice. Conversely, particles have causes, although we cannot always know their causes, unless you’re Danish, in which cause they have no causes because we cannot know them. Even if the latter is true, particles still do not make free choices.
Choices have no prior causes, which is why choices, “just happen and you can never know why.” The answer to “why did you choose that?” ultimately must be silent. For example, “I chose to turn right because that path looks more interesting,” works only until we ask, “Why do you choose more interesting paths?” Eventually we stop at, “I chose it” because the choice is a first cause.
I'm having the same issue; computer glitch, maybe?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBird/tree/dinosaur/etc. geek, gmusser, rjwolfe - me too. I suspect that the potential promise of increased revenue and operational expense would prevent SA allowing access to both products for the price of one subscription. Realize that, if the access to the online digital magazine were provided to hardcopy subscribers, subscribers to the online magazine would be demanding delivery of hardcopy print magazines.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI suspect that the most economical response by SA would be to eliminate the hardcopy print magazine and convert all subscribers to the online magazine, eliminating all print production and delivery expenses.
This was an interesting article, but it was pretty speculative and I think the overall theme that quantum physics may help us get around the limitations of classical reasoning and social decision processes (like voting) is not very strongly supported by a careful analysis of the research that's summarized. I've posted a lengthy if somewhat preliminary discussion at my blog Wine, Physics, and Song, in this post:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://winephysicssong.com/2012/11/05/no-new-enlightenment-a-critique-of-quantum-reason/
but I'll summarize it in this comment. Some of the research being summarized, like Eisert Lewenstein and Wilkens' article on quantum prisoner's dilemma, is solid but tricky to interpret and easy to misinterpret, and I fear that may have happened here with the suggestion that quantum methods may help solve prisoner's dilemma if the prisoners can take particles entangled with each other into the interrogation. Actually, the jailer would have to cooperate by doing an entangled measurement. Segre's theorem that if we generalize Arrow's unanimity and independence conditions on voting rules in a particular way from subset lattices to quantum logics, we avoid Arrow's conclusion that the rules must be dictatorial, is quite weak since it only states that some quantum logics have generalized-nondictatorial "acceptable generalized voting rules", where acceptable voting rule means, for Segre, an ultrafilter on the logic (and nondictatorial translates to nonprincipality of the ultrafilter). I point out in the post that the logics with the infinite-dimensional ones; the noncommutative finite-dimensional ones, which are the (mathematically!) natural quantum generalization of Arrow's finite-sets setting, do not have nonprincipal ultrafilters. Infinite-dimensional quantum logics (understood as projection lattices of von Neumann algebras) do have nonprincipal ultrafilters, but so do infinite-dimensional classical logics, as was already known to conoisseurs of voting-theory esoterica.
Finally, I think the empirical behavior of players in Prisoner's dilemma can be understood fairly well in terms of a concept Doug las Hofstadter has called "superrationality" others, "metarationality", based on the thinking that "my opponent is like me, he will do what I do", without invoking the metaphor of quantum superposition. That way of viewing things competes with the argument for Nash equilibrium, but becomes less vivid, and the latter more vivid, when one is told what the opponent will do.
Howard Barnum
http://winephysicssong.com
No editing facility here so
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"I point out in the post that the logics with the infinite-dimensional ones" should have read "I point out in the post that the logics with the nonprincipal ones [i.e. ultrafilters] are infinite-dimensional."
I see I don't specialize "quantum logic" to "projection lattice of a noncommutative von Neumann algebra" until later... that is probably neceessary to have "infinite dimensional quantum logic" be meaningful... it means the von Neumann algebra is infinite dimensional.
This interpretation presumes that we fully understand the behavior of quantum particles. Our difficulty in finding the microscopic origin of superconductivity even after 101 years of its experimental discovery clearly proves otherwise. A new approch which tries to have the correct understanding of quantum particles naturally questions the majority opinion and such an attempt is not given due consideration even if the approach explains the phenomenon. To this effect people may see the recent works,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.scribd.chom/doc/110441679/Intrinsic-Problems-Superfluid-Theories
http://www.scribd.com/doc/110681115/First-Quantization-Theory-of-Superconductivity.
Hence it is too early to say that humans think like quantum particles.
Y S Jain
Maybe abandoning the economist's definition of rational would be easier philosophy than taking the roundabout route to a choice through quantum mechanics. If I'm not misreading, you have pointed out a similarity between a brain state of too much and too little information at the same time giving way to an elected result and a superposition of quantum states giving way to the collapse of the wave function. Your use of the word 'model' mostly precludes any accusation of inappropriate application of science in your thinking. By the fact that I'm considering serious implications of your little essay and simultaneously finding myself laughing at it, I guess that I'm due for a collapse, too. By the way, since you mention entanglement, where is part two of your and John's excellent adventure? Did you find a way to outwit Bell's inequality experiment?
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