Real clues. Not nonsense.
In “Quantum minds: Why we think like quarks” (New Scientist, 05 September 2011), Mark Buchanan tells us “The fuzziness and weird logic of the way particles behave applies surprisingly well to how humans think”:
THE quantum world defies the rules of ordinary logic. Particles routinely occupy two or more places at the same time and don’t even have well-defined properties until they are measured. It’s all strange, yet true – quantum theory is the most accurate scientific theory ever tested and its mathematics is perfectly suited to the weirdness of the atomic world.
And, he links,
Human thinking, as many of us know, often fails to respect the principles of classical logic. We make systematic errors when reasoning with probabilities, for example. Physicist Diederik Aerts of the Free University of Brussels, Belgium, has shown that these errors actually make sense within a wider logic based on quantum mathematics. The same logic also seems to fit naturally with how people link concepts together, often on the basis of loose associations and blurred boundaries. That means search algorithms based on quantum logic could uncover meanings in masses of text more efficiently than classical algorithms.
Indeed. One way you can tell: A reliable source of humour is the “computer brain,” trapped by mere logic into unthinkable responses:
It. Is. Insufficiently. Proven. That. This. Package. Will. Explode. Therefore. I. Shall. … KA-BOOM!!
Machine parts all over the office …
For these and other reasons, humans can’t even afford to think like machines. And that very much figures in the development of search engines, as Buchanan explains.
Hat tip: Stephanie West Allen at Brains on Purpose