As Allister MacFarlane points out in his article Complementarity & Reality (issue 80) metaphysics is made up of complementaries. But for a complementarity to be realistic it has to make sense. For instance, MacFarlane, at the beginning of his article, points out the complementary attributes of a stone, which make sense. However, had he said that one of its complementary aspects was to fly like a bird, then that would not make sense. Niels Bohr seeked out and found one of those complementaries that makes sense when he applied it to the metaphysical nature of light — waves and particles.
As Einstein said, God does not play dice with universe. All the complementaries He invented make sense and are compatible, creating an orderly world.
Niels Bohr must have been so taken by the idea of complementarity because he designed his coat of arms to include the yin yang, an exemplar of the complementarity principle.
Complementarity & Reality
Re: Complementarity & Reality
What are the criteria for deciding whether a complementary aspect makes sense or not ?
For example: according to what criterium the aspect of flying does not make sense for a stone ?
Do we just have an inward innate knowledge of what a sensible complementary aspect is ?
For example: according to what criterium the aspect of flying does not make sense for a stone ?
Do we just have an inward innate knowledge of what a sensible complementary aspect is ?
Re: Complementarity & Reality
Some people do have an innate knowledge of what is a complementary aspect. Other complementary aspects take time to evaluate.
It is like common sense or rationality. What constitutes them. Sometimes we know right away and sometimes it takes time to discover them.
A lot of it is like theory. If it holds up it is or becomes reality.
Some complementarity is of social construct, constructed to explain the unexplainable, like God /Devil or good/evil.
It is like common sense or rationality. What constitutes them. Sometimes we know right away and sometimes it takes time to discover them.
A lot of it is like theory. If it holds up it is or becomes reality.
Some complementarity is of social construct, constructed to explain the unexplainable, like God /Devil or good/evil.
Re: Complementarity & Reality
Since you mentioned yin and yang how about man and woman as candidates for a complementary pair ?
What distinguishes them is the Y chromosome in men and a second X chromosome in women.
If you look at the Y chromosome under a microscope it is hardly complementary to the X chromosome.
It looks more like a part of it.
What distinguishes them is the Y chromosome in men and a second X chromosome in women.
If you look at the Y chromosome under a microscope it is hardly complementary to the X chromosome.
It looks more like a part of it.
Re: Complementarity & Reality
That's how the yin yang people also see things. Yet in many ways the two can be mutually exclusive. But, on the other hand, each needs the other in order to survive and continue. It's like the two poles of electricity. They both seem inseparable but they are separable.It looks more like a part of it.
Re: Complementarity & Reality
Yes.
And I couldn´t have expressed it more elegantly.
And how about opposites ? Are they always complementary ?
Light and darkness for example.
Lack of light is darkness and lack of darkness is light.
But there are shadows in between the two and half-shadows. Semi-darknesses of all shades.
And absolute light and absolute darkness are hard to imagine, aren´t they ?
You can always make the light a little bit brighter and the darkness a little bit deeper.
And I couldn´t have expressed it more elegantly.
And how about opposites ? Are they always complementary ?
Light and darkness for example.
Lack of light is darkness and lack of darkness is light.
But there are shadows in between the two and half-shadows. Semi-darknesses of all shades.
And absolute light and absolute darkness are hard to imagine, aren´t they ?
You can always make the light a little bit brighter and the darkness a little bit deeper.
Re: Complementarity & Reality
Opposites I would say are complementary in that they help define the other.
I guess there are degrees and variables to complementaries. Nothing is always black and white.
In art and music one can sense the shades and subtle contrasts of complementarity best.
I guess there are degrees and variables to complementaries. Nothing is always black and white.
In art and music one can sense the shades and subtle contrasts of complementarity best.
Re: Complementarity & Reality
Yes, reality is full of fuzziness.
If me make the black a little less black and the white a little less white are the two new ones still opposite to each other and complementary ?
Complementarity could be an abstract principle. Which can be spotted in reality as a weak shadow.
A Platonic idea.
And this leads us to metaphysics, which is not physics and therefore not reality.
If me make the black a little less black and the white a little less white are the two new ones still opposite to each other and complementary ?
Complementarity could be an abstract principle. Which can be spotted in reality as a weak shadow.
A Platonic idea.
And this leads us to metaphysics, which is not physics and therefore not reality.
Re: Complementarity & Reality
I understand metaphysics to be big physics: "the branch of philosophy that deals with the first principles of things, including abstract concepts such as being, knowing, substance, cause, identity, time, and space."
The shadows you talk about are the product of opposites. They are literally blends of opposites and if you break them down enough you will find their origin, in one or the other.
In his article Complementarity and Reality Allister MacFarlane talks about the complementary abstraction/reality involved with money. That abstraction/reality comes across to me as total reality because society has adopted it and we comply with it.
In the abstraction/reality of money we have another complementarity that makes sense.
The shadows you talk about are the product of opposites. They are literally blends of opposites and if you break them down enough you will find their origin, in one or the other.
In his article Complementarity and Reality Allister MacFarlane talks about the complementary abstraction/reality involved with money. That abstraction/reality comes across to me as total reality because society has adopted it and we comply with it.
In the abstraction/reality of money we have another complementarity that makes sense.
Re: Complementarity & Reality
1. Is complementarity not one of the abstract concepts of big physics then ?
2. So money as real coins and money as a figure Richard B. deals with in a balance sheet are complementary ?
That´s interesting. Could you develop ?
2. So money as real coins and money as a figure Richard B. deals with in a balance sheet are complementary ?
That´s interesting. Could you develop ?
Re: Complementarity & Reality
Kant wrote, "Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View". I am substituting 'Cosmopolitan' with 'Complementarity', for Kant did also speak of it. And when you think about it, a cosmopolitan state is a state of complementarity.
In this text Kant writes about the complementarty aspect of man, though for all appearances it seem like non-complementarity and rather perverse. It's about man's unsocial sociability, how he develops through wanting and needing to be sociable but often retreating into being unsociable because he feels defeated and unloved by the social scene, having his ego bruised. Yet man knows he has to interact and be social because this is how he achieves his goals and Kant says becomes enlightened. Here Kant is pointing to the complementarity of the individual and society, neither of which can live without the other. Kant is saying that the antagonism and friction — creative tension, that arises from the two aspects is how the two learn to coexist and cooperate, perverse and irrational though it may be.
To reinforce his argument Kant uses the example of trees to show how man develops and becomes enlightened. Trees grow close together in a forest, like man lives in society, each needing the other, since each in seeking to take the air and sunlight from the other must strive upward, and thereby each realizing a beautiful, straight stature, while those that live in isolated freedom put out random branches and grow stunted, crooked and twisted.
In this text Kant writes about the complementarty aspect of man, though for all appearances it seem like non-complementarity and rather perverse. It's about man's unsocial sociability, how he develops through wanting and needing to be sociable but often retreating into being unsociable because he feels defeated and unloved by the social scene, having his ego bruised. Yet man knows he has to interact and be social because this is how he achieves his goals and Kant says becomes enlightened. Here Kant is pointing to the complementarity of the individual and society, neither of which can live without the other. Kant is saying that the antagonism and friction — creative tension, that arises from the two aspects is how the two learn to coexist and cooperate, perverse and irrational though it may be.
To reinforce his argument Kant uses the example of trees to show how man develops and becomes enlightened. Trees grow close together in a forest, like man lives in society, each needing the other, since each in seeking to take the air and sunlight from the other must strive upward, and thereby each realizing a beautiful, straight stature, while those that live in isolated freedom put out random branches and grow stunted, crooked and twisted.
Re: Complementarity & Reality
I see.
So the word complementarity is used in this context in the sense of "symbiosis" or "inter-dependence" ...
Nietzsche´s Zarathustra would be of a different opinion and prefer the solitude of a hermit than the debilitating company of blinking over-civilized humanity.
So the word complementarity is used in this context in the sense of "symbiosis" or "inter-dependence" ...
Nietzsche´s Zarathustra would be of a different opinion and prefer the solitude of a hermit than the debilitating company of blinking over-civilized humanity.
Re: Complementarity & Reality
Robert Oppenheimer, the nuclear physicist, referred to complementarity as psychophysical parallelism. As I understand it, he was taking about human consciousness, with its source being the complementary mind/body relationship.
I find the idea of parallelism helpful in understanding complementarity. Things that parallel each other tend to be complementary since, as they travel together, they converse and mirror the other, antagonizing but stimulating and encouraging the other to remain vital or relevant. There is a mutual, enhancing competition going on within parallelism, much like there is in complementarity.
That reminds me of the autonomic nervous system in the human body with its parallel divisions, the parasympathetic division and the sympathetic division. Each are autonomous but complement each other. But they also antagonize each other. However, the antagonism between the two divisions is really interactive and cooperative, dually working together to make the body function properly. The brain with its two hemispheres works the same way.
A complementarity is found in something Bertrand Russell said about philosophy: "There is a reciprocal causation: the circumstances of men's lives do much to determine their philosophy, but, conversely, their philosophy does much to determine their circumstances."
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I find the idea of parallelism helpful in understanding complementarity. Things that parallel each other tend to be complementary since, as they travel together, they converse and mirror the other, antagonizing but stimulating and encouraging the other to remain vital or relevant. There is a mutual, enhancing competition going on within parallelism, much like there is in complementarity.
That reminds me of the autonomic nervous system in the human body with its parallel divisions, the parasympathetic division and the sympathetic division. Each are autonomous but complement each other. But they also antagonize each other. However, the antagonism between the two divisions is really interactive and cooperative, dually working together to make the body function properly. The brain with its two hemispheres works the same way.
A complementarity is found in something Bertrand Russell said about philosophy: "There is a reciprocal causation: the circumstances of men's lives do much to determine their philosophy, but, conversely, their philosophy does much to determine their circumstances."
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Re: Complementarity & Reality
Marx said a similar thing:
Das Sein bestimmt das Bewusstsein. (Being determines the conciousness.)
As a response to Hegel who saw things the other way round:
Das Bewusstsein bestimmt das Sein. (Consciousness determines being.)
So there was some sort of complementarity between Marx and Hegel, but also between the two and Russell.
Is complementarity of three and more participants possible ?
In our example: Marx, Hegel and Russell.
Or has it to be just two of them ?
Das Sein bestimmt das Bewusstsein. (Being determines the conciousness.)
As a response to Hegel who saw things the other way round:
Das Bewusstsein bestimmt das Sein. (Consciousness determines being.)
So there was some sort of complementarity between Marx and Hegel, but also between the two and Russell.
Is complementarity of three and more participants possible ?
In our example: Marx, Hegel and Russell.
Or has it to be just two of them ?
Re: Complementarity & Reality
I think complementarity can come in threes and more, like in a polyphony fashion, like an orchestra or a choir.