Contradictory And Complimentary Reality

Discussion Returns To The Tao Of Physics
June, ’80


“You talk like Bohr and Heisenberg are gods,” said Don. “To me they’re
just two more scientists, two among many, doing their job! I’m sure
there are different opinions out there. Einstein certainly didn’t
agree. One day another Einstein will come along and see through it
all, and on that day the Copenhagen Interpretation, or whatever you
call it, will be no more. What are you suggesting anyway, that all
progress stops because you want it to? I don’t think so, and I’m glad.”

“You could be right,” Jade responded, “but overcoming all the history
that’s still building in quantum mechanics is a daunting task for
anyone. Einstein wasn’t the only physicist who disliked the theory.
Many have tried to dislodge the Copenhagen interpretation. In every
instance, however, the physical world has intervened and said, ‘Your
questions are meaningless.’ No physicist likes being told that. When a
wave behaves like a particle and a particle behaves like a wave, the
concepts that used to define the physical world no longer apply.
Nature now requires a marriage of ideas that in the past were designed
to live apart. Neil’s Bohr just got tired of fighting the inevitable.
That’s when he started seeing things in a complimentary light.”

"Complimentary what?" said Don.

"That was one of Bohr's main contributions to quantum mechanics,"
replied Jade. "He basically said that there are no waves out there.
There are no particles running around, either. That strange animal
that interacts with the experiments, the quantum of action, is all
there is. Because Bohr believed that, he introduced the idea of
complementarity. He considered the particle picture and the wave
picture as two complementary descriptions of the same reality, each
description being only partly correct and having a limited range of
application. For Bohr, the entity `electron,'--just like the other
elementary entities of physics—had two irreconcilable aspects, which
must be invoked in order to explain, in turn, the properties of the
entity. To give a full description of atomic reality, each picture is
needed, and both descriptions are to be applied within the limitations
given by the uncertainty principle. In fact, when the queen of England
knighted Bohr for his work in physics, he was forced to pick a family
coat of arms, and so he picked the Chinese symbol of Tai-chi. Because,
for Bohr, reality had to be visualized in its contradictory and
complimentary aspects, but not at the same time, he felt that, at
least on the level of the quantum of action, the basic idea of Eastern
mysticism's yin/yang reality had been confirmed."

"Yeah, that sounds about right," I said, "I remember reading
somewhere, maybe in Capra, that in the Buddhist relationship between
form and emptiness, cooperation exists. That relationship cannot be
conceived as a state of mutually exclusive opposites because it
represents two aspects of the same reality. From one perspective it
appears to be contradictory, but from another perspective it becomes
the unifying aspect of that very same reality. Just like at the
quantum level, where an event, in order to be wholly an event,
exhibits both contradictory and complimentary aspects, so too in
Buddhism, the void and the forms that are created from it, exist in a
dynamic unity. But, there's something that still bothers me. What
about that observer-generated reality stuff that Capra talked about in
his book? How does that fit in with the quantum of action? What's that
all about, anyway?"