Is there a quantum geography?

Abstract

In this paper, I argue that a quantum theory may be the appropriate tool for describing phenomena with indeterminate boundaries in the context of the classification and delineation of geographic regions. A motivation for this claim stems from the observation that fundamental aspects of information about the physical world that follow from the success of quantum mechanics also apply to information about certain classes of geographic phenomena. Those aspects include (i) information about the physical [geographic] world is fundamentally relational, (ii) information of the physical [geographic] world is fundamentally granular, and (iii) information about the physical [geographic] reflects the fundamentally indeterminate nature of certain aspects of the world at the respective scales. (The words in the brackets were added by this author). (Rovelli, Int J Theor Phys 35:1637–1678, 1996; Rovelli and Vidotto, Covariant loop quantum gravity, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2015). More rigorous support for the above claim comes from recent work in theoretical physics. This work has identified three information-theoretic conditions that, when satisfied for a class of phenomena, call for a quantum theory as the appropriate theoretical framework for that class. In this paper, I show that there are geographic phenomena which satisfy two of the three conditions that call for a quantum theory. I then argue that the third criterium can be validated or refuted in the geographic context by developing a quantum theory for geographic phenomena with indeterminate boundaries with classification and delineation operations as means to obtain information about those phenomena. Such a theory then can produce predictions that will either be verified by observations on the ground and thereby confirm the need for a quantum theory, or rule it out as a viable option.