Why Quantum Techniques Are a Good First Approximation to Social and Economic Phenomena, and What Next

Abstract

Somewhat surprisingly, several formulas of quantum physics—the physics of micro-world—provide a good first approximation to many social phenomena, in particular, to many economic phenomena, phenomena which are very far from micro-physics. In this paper, we provide three possible explanations for this surprising fact. First, we show that several formulas from quantum physics actually provide a good first-approximation description for many phenomena in general, not only to the phenomena of micro-physics. Second, we show that some quantum formulas represent the fastest way to compute nonlinear dependencies and thus, naturally appear when we look for easily computable models; in this aspect, there is a very strong similarity between quantum techniques and neural networks. Third, due to numerous practical applications of micro-phenomena, many problems related to quantum equations have been solved; so, when we use quantum techniques to describe social phenomena, we can utilize the numerous existing solutions—which would not have been the case if we use other nonlinear techniques for which not many solutions are known. All this provides an explanation of why quantum techniques work reasonably well in economics. However, of course, economics is different from quantum world, quantum equations only provide a first approximation to economic situations. In this paper, we use the ideas behind our explanations to speculate on what should be the next—not-exactly-quantum—approximation to social and economic phenomena.