  We study the relation between the acquisition and analysis of data and
quantum theory using a probabilistic and deterministic model for photon
polarizers. We introduce criteria for efficient processing of data and then use
these criteria to demonstrate that efficient processing of the data contained
in single events is equivalent to the observation that Malus' law holds. A
strictly deterministic process that also yields Malus' law is analyzed in
detail. We present a performance analysis of the probabilistic and
deterministic model of the photon polarizer. The latter is an adaptive
dynamical system that has primitive learning capabilities. This additional
feature has recently been shown to be sufficient to perform event-by-event
simulations of interference phenomena, without using concepts of wave
mechanics. We illustrate this by presenting results for a system of two chained
Mach-Zehnder interferometers, suggesting that systems that perform efficient
data processing and have learning capability are able to exhibit behavior that
is usually attributed to quantum systems only.
