Replacing nothing with something special: contextuality-by-default and dummy measurements

DOI10.1007/978-3-319-74971-6_5zbMATH Open1404.81023arXiv1703.06752OpenAlexW2605237689MaRDI QIDQ4646376FDOQ4646376

Authors: Ehtibar N. Dzhafarov 

Publication date: 11 January 2019

Published in: Quantum Foundations, Probability and Information (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: The object of contextuality analysis is a set of random variables each of which is uniquely labeled by a content and a context. In the measurement terminology, the content is that which the random variable measures, whereas the context describes the conditions under which this content is measured (in particular, the set of other contents being measured "together" with this one). Such a set of random variables is deemed noncontextual or contextual depending on whether the distributions of the context-sharing random variables are or are not compatible with certain distributions imposed on the content-sharing random variables. In the traditional approaches, contextuality is either restricted to only consistently-connected systems (those in which any two content-sharing random variables have the same distribution) or else all inconsistently-connected systems (those not having this property) are considered contextual. In the Contextuality-by-Default theory, an inconsistently connected system may or may not be contextual. There are several arguments for this understanding of contextuality, and this note adds one more. It is related to the fact that generally not each content is measured in each context, so there are "empty" content-context pairs. It is convenient to treat each of these empty pairs as containing a dummy random variable, one that does not change the degree of contextuality in a system. These dummy random variables are deterministic ones, attaining a single value with probability 1. The replacement of absent random variables with deterministic ones, however, can only be made if one allows for inconsistently-connected systems. KEYWORDS: contextuality, dummy measurements, inconsistent connectedness, random variables.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1703.06752

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Mathematics Subject Classification ID

General and philosophical questions in quantum theory (81P05) Contextuality in quantum theory (81P13)

Cites Work

• Contextuality in three types of quantum-mechanical systems
• Unconditional quantum correlations do not violate Bell's inequality
• The sheaf-theoretic structure of non-locality and contextuality
• Contextuality, Cohomology and Paradox
• Context-content systems of random variables: the contextuality-by-default theory
• Probabilistic foundations of contextuality
• Title not available (Why is that?)
• Contextuality-by-default 2.0: systems with binary random variables
• Contextuality in canonical systems of random variables

Cited In (6)

• Relating causal and probabilistic approaches to contextuality
• On universality of classical probability with contextually labeled random variables
• True contextuality in a psychophysical experiment
• Measures of contextuality and non-contextuality
• On joint distributions, counterfactual values and hidden variables in understanding contextuality
• Contextuality and dichotomizations of random variables

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