In this paper, I examine complementarity, a concept introduced by Niels Bohr for interpreting quantum mechanics (QM). I will explain that QM has three basic features: the event, the correlations, and the dynamics. These features stem from the nature of quantum information, which is a general paradigm (far more general than classical information) covering the emergence of any dynamic system. It can explain the arising of classically physical systems, but also the emergence of life. If these features of QM are so general, we may ask how philosophers may perceive them. Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Sanders Peirce took this path. Dynamics can be understood as a trade-off between local events and “non-local” quantum correlations, results that were partly anticipated by Peirce and Whitehead. Moreover, according to Peirce, the reason why the three features of QM are so general is that they are imago Dei; that is, they show a Trinitarian structure. I will also briefly consider some consequences for natural theology.
In this paper, I examine complementarity, a concept introduced by Niels Bohr for interpreting quantum mechanics (QM). I will explain that QM has three basic features: the event, the correlations, and the dynamics. These features stem from the nature of quantum information, which is a general paradigm (far more general than classical information) covering the emergence of any dynamic system. It can explain the arising of classically physical systems, but also the emergence of life. If these features of QM are so general, we may ask how philosophers may perceive them. Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Sanders Peirce took this path. Dynamics can be understood as a trade-off between local events and “non-local” quantum correlations, results that were partly anticipated by Peirce and Whitehead. Moreover, according to Peirce, the reason why the three features of QM are so general is that they are imago Dei; that is, they show a Trinitarian structure. I will also briefly consider some consequences for natural theology.
This paper examines complementarity, a concept introduced by Niels Bohr for interpreting quantum mechanics (QM). I will explain that QM has three basic features: the event, the correlations, and the dynamics. These features stem from the nature of quantum information, which is a general paradigm (far more general than classical information) covering the emergence of any dynamic system. It can explain the arising of classically physical systems, but also the emergence of life. If these features of QM are so general, we may ask how philosophers may perceive them. Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Sanders Peirce took this path. Dynamics can be understood as a trade-off between local events and “non-local” quantum correlations, results that were partly anticipated by Peirce and Whitehead. Moreover, according to Peirce, the reason why the three features of QM are so general is that they are imago Dei; that is, they show a Trinitarian structure. I will also briefly consider some consequences for natural theology.
Abstract Contemporary theology has realized the importance of integrating what we know from the “new physics”-quantum mechanics and relativity theory-into the metaphysical and ontological categories used by theology to consider God, the world, and the God-world relationship. The categories of subjectivity and relationality have risen to prominence in these discussions. Both academic and popular presentations can obscure the vital distinction between what physicists agree on concerning quantum mechanics and the contested interpretation of quantum mechanics, or what quantum mechanics reveals about reality. After (1) summarizing the significant distinction between quantum mechanics per se and the interpretations of quantum mechanics and (2) the agreed upon quantum mechanical experimental procedure and its attendant mathematical formalism, as well as a few of the foremost interpretations, this paper (3) attempts a minimalist culling of some rudimentary but clear ontological principles and categories from what is agreed upon in quantum mechanics, without appeals-tacit or explicit-to one of the many controversial interpretations or to contestable philosophical assumptions and deductions, and these are: experience, subjectivity, relationship, and event. The paper closes by (4) commending one speculative scheme that is especially conducive to developing an interpretation of quantum mechanics consonant with the ontological principles and categories so derived, that of Alfred North Whitehead
This article explores Bohr's argument, advanced under the heading of 'complementarity,' concerning quantum phenomena and quantum mechanics, and its physical and philosophical implications.In Bohr, the term complementarity designates both a particular concept and an overall interpretation of quantum phenomena and quantum mechanics, in part grounded in this concept.While the argument of this article is primarily philosophical, it will also address, historically, the development and transformations of Bohr's thinking, under the impact of the development of quantum theory and Bohr's confrontation with Einstein, especially their exchange concerning the EPR experiment, proposed by Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen in 1935.Bohr's interpretation was progressively characterized by a more radical epistemology, in its ultimate form, which was developed in the 1930s and with which I shall be especially concerned here, defined by his new concepts of phenomenon and atomicity.According to this epistemology, quantum objects are seen as indescribable and possibly even as inconceivable, and as manifesting their existence only in the effects of their interactions with measuring instruments upon those instruments, effects that define phenomena in Bohr's sense.The absence of causality is an automatic consequence of this epistemology.I shall also consider how probability and statistics work under these epistemological conditions.
The argument of this article is grounded in the irreducible interference of observational instruments in our interactions with nature in quantum physics and, thus, in the constitution of quantum phenomena versus classical physics, where this interference can, in principle, be disregarded. The irreducible character of this interference was seen by N. Bohr as the principal distinction between classical and quantum physics and grounded his interpretation of quantum phenomena and quantum theory. Bohr saw complementarity as a generalization of the classical ideal of causality, which defined classical physics and relativity. While intimated by Bohr, the relationships among observational technology, complementarity, causality and the arrow of events (a new concept that replaces the arrow of time commonly used in this context) were not addressed by him either. The article introduces another new concept, that of quantum causality, as a form of probabilistic causality. The argument of the article is based on a particular interpretation of quantum phenomena and quantum theory, defined by the concept of 'reality without realism (RWR)'. This interpretation follows Bohr's interpretation but contains certain additional features, in particular the Dirac postulate. The article also considers quantum-like (Q-L) theories (based in the mathematics of QM) from the perspective it develops. This article is part of the theme issue 'Thermodynamics 2.0: Bridging the natural and social sciences (Part 2)'.
Although David Bohm's interpretation of quantum mechanics is sometimes thought to be a kind of regression towards classical thinking, it is in fact an extremely radical metaphysics of nature. The view goes far beyond the familiar but perennially peculiar non-locality and entanglement of quantum systems. In this paper, a philosophical exploration, I examine three core features of Bohm's metaphysical views, which have been both supported by features of quantum mechanics and integrated into a comprehensive system. These are the holistic nature of the world, the role of a unique kind of information as the ontological basis of the world, and the integration of mentality into this basis as an essential and irreducible aspect of it.
Under the assumption of the materialistic-mechanistic ontology implicit in classical physics, quantum theory as interpreted through Niels Bohr's epistemology of complementarity is not formally objective; i. e., it is not informative of the state of physical systems independent of particular phenomenal manifestations of them. However, an analysis of the notion of the “physical system”, in theory, as experienced, and as existing “in-itself”, reveals that if the older ontology is replaced, quantum mechanics through complementarity becomes formally objective, points the way toward a new ontology based on the notion of the power to structure interaction between systems, and provides new insights into the relations between theory, observation, and the natural world.