[MD] Some historical perspective

Wed Oct 21 11:38:13 PDT 2009

I simply quote, providing meaning to a term in your quote

"Complementarity" 

you are correct, there is no way I can lie about it.

how did you take the term to mean in the quote
from the SODV paper ? 

how was it supposed to support your view?

Complementarity
Here is a favorite statement of Bohr's Principle of Complementarity, 
based on so-called wave-particle duality for light:

"But what is light really? Is it a wave or a shower of photons? 
There seems no likelihood for forming a consistent description 
of the phenomena of light by a choice of only one of the two 
languages. It seems as though we must use sometimes the one theory 
and sometimes the other, while at times we may use either. 
We are faced with a new kind of difficulty. We have two 
contradictory pictures of reality; separately neither of 
them fully explains the phenomena of light, but together they do."
 -- Albert Einstein and Leopold Infeld, The Evolution of Physics, pg. 262-263.

Incidentally, I have been told that Infeld wrote the entire book 
The Evolution of Physics in 1938, but was experiencing difficulty 
in getting anyone to publish it. Once Einstein put his name on it, 
all such difficulties disappeared.
John Wheeler, with his usual insight and striking prose, neatly 
summarises the status of the principle:
"Bohr's principle of complementarity is the most revolutionary 
scientific concept of this century and the heart of his fifty-year 
search for the full significance of the quantum idea." 
-- Physics Today 16, (Jan 1963), pg. 30.

A nice analogy is Figure-Ground studies such as the one shown to 
the right. Looked at one way, it is a drawing of a vase; looked 
at another way it is two faces.
We can switch back and forth between the two viewpoints. But we 
can not see both at once. But the figure is both at once."

Ron:
complementarity, in this context to support your view,
would be like saying the wave theory, transcends the 
particle theory, the wave theory is on a higher level than 
the particle theory, that cartesian coordinates are more correct
than polar coordinates.

g
[mailto:moq_discuss-bounces at lists.moqtalk.org] On Behalf Of X Acto
Sent: Wednesday, October 21, 2009 1:27 PM
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Subject: Re: [MD] Some historical perspective

"A third piece of evidence that reveals the similarity between the
Metaphysics of Quality and Complementarity occurs when Bohr says, "We are
suspended in language," the Metaphysics of Quality completely agrees."  
  (SODV) 

"In a general sense, the concept of complementarity is used with 
regard to contrasting or even contradictory concepts, models, 
theories and views that represent different perspectives on reality 
and that together are more comprehensive than any one of them alone."
-Wiki 

Ron:
Kinda goes against your own assertion
and supports my own.
That SOM is one of many types of intellectual patterns.

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