Complementarity & Reality

So what's really going on?

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philofra
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Re: Complementarity & Reality

Post by philofra »

duszek wrote:When colours are complementary they produce something new together, for example yellow and blue produce green.

Freedom and safety produce ... happiness ?
On the other hand, if yellow and blue remain independent of each other they can aesthetically produce a very pleasing, complementary scene. And one can be made happy looking at nice things.

I wouldn't say that freedom and safety produce happiness. But they do create a desirable environment, which can lead to happiness. Perhaps it is something like money doesn't buy happiness, but it sure helps!
duszek
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Re: Complementarity & Reality

Post by duszek »

But why is the scene of yellow and blue pleasing ?
Blue and yellow are in act, and the green is in potentia, potentially but not actually there, and green makes happy like anyone who walks in nature can tell.

Money combined with wisdom could produce happiness.
But money as such is nothing, it is only a means of facilitating the exchange of goods and services. :?
philofra
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Re: Complementarity & Reality

Post by philofra »

Having money in the bank makes me feel secure, and happy to a great extent. Not having that security would make me more miserable than I am. :wink:
duszek
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Re: Complementarity & Reality

Post by duszek »

Do you trust banks ?
After the bankrupcy of Lehmann Brothers one can be suspicious and prefer to keep the money under the materass.

Financial security can make one lazy and unenterprising, too relaxed.
Quite a number of people who had won a big sum in Toto-Lotto became alcoholics and ended up in a gutter.

But you are right in general, of course. Financial worries have made lots of people unhappy and ended lots of marriages.
And it is so annoying to HAVE to worry about money. So unfair and humiliating.
duszek
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Re: Complementarity & Reality

Post by duszek »

It is important to know what the bank does with the money.
The state is also an option, especially if one wants to be on the safe side, because the money is secured by the taxes.

A bank can finance weapon industry or environmental projects.
I prefer the second one.

Keeping the money under the materass is no real option because money has to be in constant flow and under the materass it is "dead" and unproductive.
philofra
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Re: Complementarity & Reality

Post by philofra »

Lehman Brothers was not a bank, per se. It was an investment bank. Nevertheless, it was overly leveraged with its investments and that's what did it in. In Canada our banks are conservative and well regulated.

Banks and money make an excellent complementary relationship. They facilitate each other. They give functionality to the other. There would be little meaningful about either without the other. However, at times that relationship can be strained as we saw in the financial crises of 2008.

MacFarlane, in this essay "Complementarity and Reality" starts off by explaining the two properties of a stone, its facticity and function. He makes it sound as if the stone has complementarity in itself. But the real thing about complementarity is function, its facilitation of function. The rock cannot facilitate its own function. It takes a human to do that. So the complementarity aspect that exists in a stone is with the relationship it has with a human who facilitates its function. Here is determinism given to an inanimate object by humans, not nature.
duszek
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Re: Complementarity & Reality

Post by duszek »

What function of a stone do you mean ?
If a stone falls down it is the gravitation which does it.
Not the mass in kilogrammes or pounds but the force with which the earth pulls the stone towards itself.

If a stone has neven been discovered by a human being it can only play with earth and the gravitation between the two of them makes them complementary, it seems.

Whereas if a human being finds a stone and uses it as a weapon or a tool, then he gives it a new function.
But where does complementarity enter here ?
philofra
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Re: Complementarity & Reality

Post by philofra »

Through the facilitation of humans an inert stone can function as a tool, as you say. In that manner the human acts as the complementary element.
philofra
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Re: Complementarity & Reality

Post by philofra »

Complementarity doesn’t necessary have to be composed of the same kind or related opposites. For instance, the sky and a tree can be complementary in that together they produce a visually pleasing view. Or a piece of furniture can be complementary to the size of a room and other fixtures in it. So complementarity is not just about polar opposites that unite to generate vitality but also about unrelated objects that come together for aesthetic reasons.
philofra
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Re: Complementarity & Reality

Post by philofra »

Complementarity is also about robustness. It brings elements together to create a fuller picture, a fuller world and a fuller experience. For instance, a particular wine can complement and complete an individual's gastronomic experience. Having two complementary eyes creates for us a more complete and robust picture of reality and the world.

I was whimsically thinking about a connection between complementarity and existentialism. But then I remember reading Gerald Holton's essay "The Roots of Complementarity" in which he writes about Soren Kierkegaard who is regarded as the founder of existentialism. Niels Bohr had studied under Harald Hoffding who was a Kierkegaard scholar. The existentialist ideas of Kierkegaard probably surfaced in Hoffding's classes and had something to do with Bohr's reaching the concept of complementarity. Bohr's perceptive skills were probably sharpened in those classes, and so too his existential outlook.

Kierkegaard talked in a manner of reconciling the divide between the subjective and the objective, realism and idealism, opposites that exist and the individual resides in simultaneously. In Kierkegaard thinking it is the individual, the originator of thought, who brings complementarity to the situation, complementarity being the unifying factor of two opposites. Complementarity is not only reality but an existential necessity for the individual in order to make sense and function in the confusion and absurdity of the real world.

An existentialist probably has a more complementary demeanor than one who is not.
duszek
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Re: Complementarity & Reality

Post by duszek »

But if everything influences everything else, more of less, then what is special about the complementary influence ?
philofra
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Re: Complementarity & Reality

Post by philofra »

duszek wrote:But if everything influences everything else, more of less, then what is special about the complementary influence ?
Nothing special, really. It is just a facilitator.
spike
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Re: Complementarity & Reality

Post by spike »

What's also interesting about complementary is the role it plays in evolution. The author of the article in issue 80 of Philosophy Now mentioned that Nature couldn't possibly have prepared for every necessity or contingency of life so it created instead possible combination of things. This cut down on advanced complexity, which nature was not prepared for or insightful enough to see. This, the author said, also cut down on the determination of life. In other words, complementarity allows for a measure of self-determination.
spike
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Re: Complementarity & Reality

Post by spike »

One major reason why the western world (open societies) has been more successful than the eastern world (closed societies) is because of the complementarity. The West hasn't been afraid of experimenting and combining things together in order to enhance life and living conditions. This has made the West more fluid and productive. We would not have social networking, or networking of any kind, if it wasn't for our engaging in the complementarity.

In contrast, the Middle East is going through a social upheaval because it hasn't done or learnt the complementarity. Put that way it sounds like a dance, which in a sense it is. Now the people of the Middle East are starting to demand that they be included in this dance, in social networking, which has given voice and freedom to the peoples of western democracies. Middle Easterners want the same. They dearly want to be partnered and have a say in the governments and politics of their nations.
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