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Have you ever followed a path that you could see faintly from a distance,
but up close, could not see?
Niels Bohr's father earned a degree in medicine and became a teacher
of physiology,
a discipline where one learns the structure & function of the remarkable
and the horrific
things that hide under our smooth skins. These "things" are often named
after the function
they perform in keeping an organism alive. In physics, one does not
study the function or
purpose of things. In physics, things are neither alive nor dead; they
simply exist or
perish for no apparent reason. A lively debate concerns whether the
human body is
fundamentally a mechanical machine and whether its brain can be simulated
using an
ideal computer. The material and mechanical viewpoint M is contrasted
with a holistic
functional viewpoint H. In a nutshell, Bohr would say: dM*dH
> h (although he was
never so brief). In situations where you pin down the mechanical interpretation,
the
functional one is utterly absent. An entirely different but complementary
perspective
can make our global or holistic attributes obvious while leaving the
local mechanical
view utterly in the dark. Bohr would illustrate this with examples
that were good in
his time, but are not sufficient for today. Just a few generations
ago, it was not easy
to probe into a living organism and study its mechanical structure
without killing it!
Today, we can watch a brain think, although our instruments just show
us maps of
electro-mechanical activity. Only with a patient's confirmation can
we be sure that the
electro-chemistry constitutes a genuine thought, and the origin of
thought is still elusive.
Can a computer simulation of a brain create a thought? Can a computer
write a book worth
reading? We know the answer is no, but at the deepest level, why is
this so? A book or a
painting is created from a lot of little strokes, but its overall conception
and direction is
controlled by intuitions that are not mechanically formed. "We have
an indivisible,
unanalysable, mode of consciousness, distinct from all modes of passive
sensation." *
Instead of saying that the whole is greater than
the sum of the parts, we realize that the
whole and the sum of the parts are incomparable. They
are equally valid entities in their
own right. Do you want to see the forest or its trees? Do you want
to see the web of life
or local hit-or-miss chance encounters? Holism and reductionism are
complementary
disciplines and warring factions. On one side is a spectrum of Materialists
M; on the
opposing side are the Idealists I who believe in holism or spiritualism
or the occult.
The Idealists are gathered in one wing of our psyche and presume that
materialists are
programmers, engineers and capitalists. The Materialists congregate
to their own wing
and presume that the Idealists are poets, dreamers and drifters (aka
the English Department).
The common everyday man is none of these, but an inconsistent mixture
that always
satisfies dM*dI > h. The hard-core extremists are those
who have tried to make their
views entirely consistent by throwing out or ignoring half of the facts.
The ultimate truth
is a sublime but illogical-seeming synthesis of both wings: a marriage
of heaven and hell!
For Niels Bohr (and me), the mechanical and holistic viewpoints are
both true and
both limited. They are great truths whose opposites are also true.
Consider another great
debate: Are we free or are we predestined? There are strong converts
to either opinion
and Americans have the curious infliction of fervently believing that
they are both free and
also destined to be a world power and teacher. Americans are free to
carry out their
destiny! Minute by minute they are free, but day by day, week by week,
all kinds of
obligations pile up and constrain what they do. One minute we might
feel utterly free F,
and then suddenly with a shift of perspective we feel duty bound D.
dF*dD >h.
Beyond these narrow interpretations, what are we really?
In part, man is simply what he does, and for a glimpse of what he is
doing you can
turn on the news. There you see the outer life of famous people and
utter strangers.
Of course, the media colors what you see and famous people are easily
effected by the
coverage they are given. You can call it the Princess Diana syndrome
or the paparazzi
effect. Each of us has an inner personal life (Per) and an outer
public life (Pub):
d(Per)* d(Pub) > h. Celebrities and their media form
a whole which is nigh impossible
to disentangle. An overblown outer life will destroy one's personal
life. In contrast,
a hermit has no public life. To balance the public view of life given
by the news media,
we read novels. A good novel is necessarily convoluted, because only
by viewing scenes
from different perspectives can one arrive at the truth behind the
scenes. In one series of
pages you get an emotional right-brained R description of the
action, in other pages
you are given an objective left-brained L description of the
action: dR*dL > h.
Where one is weak, the other is strong.
You do justice to a "whole being" by honoring each of its complementary
aspects.
This "whole being" could be an elementary particle, a person or an
entire sovereign
nation. Consider Iraq. The USA claims that it will respect Iraq's sovereignty
so long
as a raft of post Gulf War demands are met. The USA insists that outsiders
have the
right to pry into every closet in Iraq to search for unauthorized weapons.
This seems
honorable, but it presumes that Iraq can have its privacy d(Per)
shrunk to zero and still
be a sovereign nation. The Iraqis are vehemently against the no-holds-barred
searches
because these intrusions violate their country's dignity. No sovereign
country (or person)
can endure such scrutiny. If the USA clings to its tunnel vision, another
conflagration will
result. If Iraq is to exist as a sovereign nation, the USA must stand
back and give her some
breathing room. Then the internal revolution and healing that the Iraqis
desire might actually
happen. I'm not saying that the USA should do nothing. I am just saying
that Iraq cannot
experience any of the magic of being a sovereign nation if outsiders
are incessantly prying
into all of her corners and violating her air space.
(Update: On 2/3/98 a USA warplane severed a cable carrying a gondola
for skiers
in the Dolomite Mountains of Italy. 20 people plunged to their death.
Inhabitants
of the region reported numerous instances of warplanes shattering
their tranquility.
Here is another instance of the USA foreign policy having no clue
as to what it
means to honor a country's sovereignty. How would you like it if
while videotaping
your child's birthday party, you were buzzed by a foreign country's
warplanes?)
(Update: 3/27/98 from The Wall Street Journal: "Four Marine airmen
were charged
with negligent homicide, involuntary manslaughter and dereliction
of duty after their
jet clipped a ski-lift cable in Italy Feb. 3, killing 20.")
April, 1998 update: the Paula Jones suit against President Clinton has
been thrown out.
What is going on here? In 30 seconds let's connect these disconnected-seeming
events
with d(Per)* d(Pub) > h. Many people feel uncomfortable
when a camera is pointed
at them. A photographer shoots; an artist draws. If an artist
comes to you with an easel
and palette, you feel relaxed. You know that only a representation
of you might be made;
hopefully, it will be an artful one. With oils stroked upon a canvas,
there is creative
freedom for your personal and public images to be balanced. Check the
historic record
and you'll see that in January of 1998, President Clinton was under
extreme personal
scrutiny precisely when he was trying to put Iraq under extreme personal
scrutiny.
We live in a world of compensations. If d(Per) or d(Pub)
is pinched, much needs
to be done to correct the imbalance. Now that Paula Jones is fading
away, life in the
USA and in Iraq will be more balanced and maybe, just maybe, Iraq will
pull ahead
on its own.
Here is an example of complementarity in action closer to home: each
business
(or artist) is an indivisible whole precariously dividing its time
between Productive
work (unbridled Passions) P and rules, regulations, red tape
and restraints R: dP*dR > h.
These applications of complementarity could each be expanded into a
book which you
could remember by using the compact mnemonic equations given above.
The lesson here
is that thanks to the quantum revolution, we now have rigorous means
of resolving dualities
that have plagued natural philosophy since René Descartes (1596-1650)
(and Descartes
himself would applaud these new methods). Each quantum-like whole is
a "story" of fixed
volume which appears according to how we stretch it before our "eyes".
Television gives
us a wide perspective that lacks depth. With radio, there is potentially
more depth because
we have to re-create each story in our mind's eye. A story with no
depth is like a balloon
being stretched so wide and broad that it stretches across our periphery
vision and is at
risk of rupturing. In literature, one must balance depth D and
breadth B: dD*dB > h.
A story with too much depth (at the expense of breadth) is like a balloon
that has been
stretched into a thin line far from our eyes. As its apparent surface
shrinks to zero,
the balloon ruptures and the story is lost.
It is unwise and unhealthy to present one aspect of reality at the exclusion
of its other essentials.
Beware of false hierarchies. No science done well is more basic than
any other science.
The forceful expression of a viewpoint demands brevity and a momentary
blindness towards
complementary aspects which other disciplines would clarify. Abuse
occurs when the clarity
of one side is exaggerated to the point of denying the potential existence
of other side(s). The
constructive interplay of complementary viewpoints can help one discover
a totality that lies
beyond the ephemeral scenes. Grasping this totality is like trying
to catch a muse who flees as
fast as she is pursued. Just when you think you have caught her, you
discover that you only have
her clothing for the moment. Be patient, watch and listen. Wisdom will
come. Why?
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