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The Violation of Bell Inequalities in the Macroworld

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Abstract

We show that Bell inequalities can be violated in the macroscopic world. The macroworld violation is illustrated using an example involving connected vessels of water. We show that whether the violation of inequalities occurs in the microworld or the macroworld, it is the identification of nonidentical events that plays a crucial role. Specifically, we prove that if nonidentical events are consistently differentiated, Bell-type Pitowsky inequalities are no longer violated, even for Bohm's example of two entangled spin 1/2 quantum particles. We show how Bell inequalities can be violated in cognition, specifically in the relationship between abstract concepts and specific instances of these concepts. This supports the hypothesis that genuine quantum structure exists in the mind. We introduce a model where the amount of nonlocality and the degree of quantum uncertainty are parameterized, and demonstrate that increasing nonlocality increases the degree of violation, while increasing quantum uncertainty decreases the degree of violation.

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Aerts, D., Aerts, S., Broekaert, J. et al. The Violation of Bell Inequalities in the Macroworld. Foundations of Physics 30, 1387–1414 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026449716544

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