https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570868311000656

Brains are not vector processing devices because they are not devices.

However, I believe it is imperative to understand the unique intelligences and features of our humanity that underlies schizophrenia, autism, aspergers, manic depression, borderline personality disorder, bipolar disorder, and many other ‘deviations’ from what is popularly considered to be ‘normal’ because the neurodiverse people we may encounter or come to know have a lot to teach us about what is hidden within our own minds (and bodies). I have long suspected something resembling the suggestion that ‘we all have a constellation of sub-clinical (i.e. not easily detectable) mental disorders’, and we can learn about our own bodies and minds by understanding, relating with and studying those who suffer from something that can be understood as ‘an increased degree’ of features many of us (if not nearly most of us) share, at least in part.

“Many researchers in different disciplines have independently concluded that brains are, possibly among other things, vector processing devices. In this paper we offer support for this hypothesis coming from a new perspective. Namely, we test it against some known anomalies in the processing by schizophrenic patients of certain logical tasks: they perform better at them than normal controls, despite the observation that they do not generally employ “normal” or “commonsense” logic.

On the assumption that they are compelled to use the intrinsic logic of the brain instead of commonsense logic, and that this logic is linear or quantum-like, we are able to resolve these and other anomalies.

Our conclusions support the idea that human brains (at least) perform intrinsic logical operations according to the dictates of a linear (or Grassmannian, or quantum-like) logic rather than “classical” or Aristotelian logic (which seems not to be intrinsic to brains, these having evolved under the pressure of different constraints). If this is the case, then commonsense logic must be acquired through experience and the construction of contexts, an ability schizophrenic patients seem to lack, and who are consequently compelled to rely on the intrinsic logic, which is quantum-like and more efficient at certain tasks.

Moreover, the proclivity toward errors of von Domarus type (namely the inference that shared attributes imply identity), which seems to be endemic to human thinking and has been discussed in connection with schizophrenia, is also explained on this basis.”