Aspects of the methodology and language of chemistry and physics are discussed. Chemistry defines the chemical properties of any substance from the results of its interaction with other substances using the logic of relations. Therefore, describing the properties of substances means using sets of different ideas, including ones that are opposite in meaning. Consequently, depending on the nature of reagents with respect to which properties are established, substances show chemical dualism. This dualism was established in chemistry long before the discovery of wave–particle dualism, to understand which N. Bohr proposed the complementarity principle in 1927. The methodology of natural sciences corresponds to the principle of complementarity and the need to use it to understand the world and record the results in the linguistic reality of several languages.
Aspects of the methodology and language of chemistry and physics are discussed. Chemistry defines the chemical properties of any substance from the results of its interaction with other substances using the logic of relations. Therefore, describing the properties of substances means using sets of different ideas, including ones that are opposite in meaning. Consequently, depending on the nature of reagents with respect to which properties are established, substances show chemical dualism. This dualism was established in chemistry long before the discovery of wave–particle dualism, to understand which N. Bohr proposed the complementarity principle in 1927. The methodology of natural sciences corresponds to the principle of complementarity and the need to use it to understand the world and record the results in the linguistic reality of several languages.
The molecular view haunted chemists for a long time. Since this vision promised an outline of chemical reality in terms of basic building blocks, complementary approaches were neglected. Nowadays, the molecular program of chemistry has arrived at its successful termination so that the theoreticians find themselves challenged by new ways of looking at familiar facts of chemistry.Our modern theoretical first principles allow a precise mathematical definition of Bohr’s notion of complementarity and enforce a pluralism in looking at the nature of things. In particular, complementarity is revealed with conspicious clarity everywhere in chemistry. The complementary aspects of classical and quantal descriptions of molecules and the complementarity between molecules and chemical substances are discussed. The discourse is concluded with a hint of how chemistry could help in learning complementary ways of thinking and to place complementarity into a wider perspective.
Niels Bohr, as is well known, introduced the notion of complementarity into physics, as a fundamental principle of quantum mechanics. It holds that objects have complementary properties that cannot be measured accurately at the same time. For example, the particle and wave aspects of physical objects are such complementary phenomena. Both concepts are borrowed from classical mechanics, where it is impossible to be both, a particle and a wave at the same time. Particle and Wave represent the complementarity of the Discrete and the Continuous. Humans reason by means of concepts (meanings) and language, as well as, by means of logical or arithmetic symbolism. Meanings are continua, whereas logic and arithmetic are based on relations of identity and difference.
Among philosophers in particular the principle of complementarity has been considered an unreasonable limitation of natural science, and Niels Bohr’s exposition of the inevitability of a statistical description when accounting for atomic phenomena has been regarded as a renouncement directly opposed to the very spirit of scientific investigation. Indeed, fundamental limitations in the range of applicability of the causal spacetime description of physical phenomena do exist, but quantum physics is precisely the generalization of the conceptual frame of classical physics which has converted these limitations into a springboard for investigations which are among the most fruitful in the history of science. Far from raising a barrier for scientific investigation, quantum physics has extended the scope of natural science to a degree that was unimaginable before its advent. Natural science now encompasses such different objects as the constituents of atoms, processes in remote galaxies, and psycho-chemical phenomena in man. Biochemistry and psychopharmacology, for instance, both rely on one of the most important results of quantum physics: the periodical system of the elements, which is fundamental to all modern chemistry. Furthermore atomic physics and chemistry are basic sciences for technology and thus contribute to the continuous development of instruments of observation for all branches of natural science.
The logic–linguistic structure of quantum physics is analysed. The role of formal systems and interpretations in the representation of nature is investigated. The problems of decidability, completeness, and consistency can affect quantum physics in different ways. Bohr’s complementarity is of great interest, because it is a contradictory proposition. We shall see that the flowing of time prevents the birth of contradictions in nature, because it makes a cut between two different, but complementary aspects of the reality. PACS 03.65.Bz: Foundations, theory of measurement, miscellaneous theories. PACS 02.10.By: Logic and foundations. 1 1
Today, many concepts from the dictionaries of academic psychology have entered the language of everyday communication. Perhaps the most common are the concepts of «subjective» and «objective». In many textbooks of psychology, «objective» is understood as something that belongs to the object itself, something that does not depend on the subject. The objective is opposed to the subjective-personal. Experimental research in the field of quantum physics questioned the division of the world into an impartial «objective reality» and its «subjective» (not impartial, biased) reflection, which provoked a crisis in this field of knowledge and the methodology of science as a whole. The main methodological problems of psychology are the question of the place of the mental in nature; on the relationship of mental and material phenomena, on the possibilities of human cognition - questions that also arose in the depths of quantum physics and were predetermined by the internal logic of their development. An excursion into quantum physics was necessary, firstly, for a deep understanding that reality is given to us in our sensations, perceptions, ideas and mental constructs (this was evidenced by the so-called «double slit experiment» and its interpretations) and we cannot say anything about reality as it is «in itself»; secondly, the realization that the foundations on which our knowledge is built differ from those in quantum physics. Currently, there is a dichotomy between material (physical) and conceptual reality. Thus, the principle of locality, which professes ordinary consciousness and according to which specific objects occupy a specific place in time and space, contradicts the principle of non-locality, according to which isolated systems do not exist at all and every particle of the universe is in «instantaneous» communication with all other particles. The world is created from the same quantum substance and it is impossible to say that one is the cause of the other. (This statement implies, in particular, a rethinking of the «principle of determinism» which requires the establishment of unambiguous causal relationships). The reality in which we live is not quantum, our language and stereotypes of thinking do not correspond to the nature of the phenomena described by quantum physics. It is about the deep properties of matter. Personally, I got the impression that the deeper you plunge into the world of atomic and subatomic, the more the outlines of the specific, material world familiar to us become blurred and the thinner the line between the physical and conceptual world, between the material and the spiritual becomes. The purpose of this article is to define the concepts of "objective" and "subjective" based on the analysis of achievements in quantum physics in the context of psychology.
A physical theory is a construction of thought which is founded on experience so as to constitute knowledge of the natural world. Propositions in physics are constituted of concepts which express the properties and processes of the physical world. For purposes of record and communication concepts are designated by the terms of a language, such as mathematical symbols, and philosophical discussion may be based on linguistic forms. In this essay, however, the element of discussion will be the concept as a mode of thought through which are grasped the attributes of physical things and the relations exemplified in physical processes. The present philosophical analysis of a physical theory, quantum mechanics, is to be carried out by critical analysis of its basic concepts. In particular, the program is to show that in quantum mechanics the concept of physical object exhibits the characters of discontinuity, complementarity, and relativity.