Interpreting Quantum Particles as Conceptual Entities Diederik Aerts Center Leo Apostel for Interdisciplinary Studies and Departments of Mathematics and Psychology Vrije Universiteit Brussel, 1160 Brussels, Belgium Email: diraerts@vub.ac.be Abstract We elaborate an interpretation of quantum physics founded on the hypothesis that quantum particles are conceptual entities playing the role of communication vehicles between material entities composed of ordinary matter which function as memory structures for these quantum particles. We show in which way this new interpretation gives rise to a natural explanation for the quantum effects of interference and entanglement by analyzing how interference and entanglement emerge for the case of human concepts. We put forward a scheme to derive a metric based on similarity as a predecessor for the structure of ‘space, time, momentum, energy’ and ‘quantum particles interacting with ordinary matter’ underlying standard quantum physics, within the new interpretation, and making use of aspects of traditional quantum axiomatics. More specifically, we analyze how the effect of non-locality arises as a consequence of the confrontation of such an emerging metric type of structure and the remaining presence of the basic conceptual structure on the fundamental level, with the potential of being revealed in specific situations. 1 Introduction Inspired by our earlier use of the quantum mechanical formalism to model conceptual situations as they appear in cognition, decision theory and economics [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15], and drawing on former insights on quantum physics [16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25], we put forward a new view that we intend to elaborate into a full interpretation of quantum theory. Our view proposes an answer to the question of ‘What is a quantum entity?’ in a way that is different from what is suggested by existing interpretations, giving rise to an alternative approach to specific and well-known issues in quantum theory. This article focuses on fundamental aspects of quantum theory, such as interference, entanglement, quantum identity and the measurement problem, and we refer to [1] for a more detailed exposition of this view in a more global perspective. The new view that we put forward also generates a radically different way of considering the ‘reality’ described by quantum physics, i.e. the reality of the micro-world, as well as its relation to the macro-world. And it has fundamental consequences for our understanding of aspects of the ordinary everyday world. 2 The nature of a quantum entity From the birth of quantum theory, one of the fundamental questions has been: ‘What does the quantum wave function represent?’ There are several reasons why, even today, an answer to this question cannot readily be given. One of these, commonly regarded to be the most important, is often referred to as ‘the measurement problem’. The effect of a measurement on a quantum entity is described by a change of the 1 arXiv:1004.2531v1 [quant-ph] 15 Apr 2010