  Inspired by foundational studies in classical and quantum physics, and by
information retrieval studies in quantum information theory, we prove that the
notions of 'energy' and 'entropy' can be consistently introduced in human
language and, more generally, in human culture. More explicitly, if energy is
attributed to words according to their frequency of appearance in a text, then
the ensuing energy levels are distributed non-classically, namely, they obey
Bose-Einstein, rather than Maxwell-Boltzmann, statistics, as a consequence of
the genuinely 'quantum indistinguishability' of the words that appear in the
text. Secondly, the 'quantum entanglement' due to the way meaning is carried by
a text reduces the (von Neumann) entropy of the words that appear in the text,
a behaviour which cannot be explained within classical (thermodynamic or
information) entropy. We claim here that this 'quantum-type behaviour is valid
in general in human language', namely, any text is conceptually more concrete
than the words composing it, which entails that the entropy of the overall text
decreases. In addition, we provide examples taken from cognition, where
quantization of energy appears in categorical perception, and from culture,
where entities collaborate, thus 'entangle', to decrease overall entropy. We
use these findings to propose the development of a new 'non-classical
thermodynamic theory' for human cognition, which also covers broad parts of
human culture and its artefacts and bridges concepts with quantum physics
entities.
