About The Complementary Nature

~1~

Scientifically speaking, nature is grounded in the laws of quantum mechanics. In quantum mechanics, a strange situation arises: atoms and photons can behave as either waves or particles, and which behavior is observed depends upon the instrument used to measure it. Although waves and particles seem to be totally different and apparently mutually exclusive descriptions of the quantum behavior, they are not contradictory, but rather complementary. Such is the strange nature of the quantum world.

~2~

It is strange because one of the most common assumptions of ordinary, everyday human experience is that if two descriptions of some phenomenon or event are mutually exclusive, then one of them must be incorrect. Most people take this to be self-evident, guiding and interpreting their thoughts, experiences and emotions against pairs of opposites or contraries, like physical and mental, body and mind, life and death, on and off. Most often, such pairs are used as mutually exclusive descriptions to choose between, like "it's either day or night." or "it's either wrong or right." As history has proceeded, many have recognized that reality seems to be less cut and dry then that, less black or white. In fact, shades of grey might be more like it; somewhere lying in-between opposite poles.

~3~

Considering the historical significance and absolutely crucial roles contraries and their interpretations have played in the history of ideas, surprisingly little science exists that adequately captures both the polar tendencies of contraries and the relationship between them. In other words, even though we seem to be inundated at every level with these pairs of opposites, there is still very little known about their nature scientifically speaking. Ironically, some of the most important scientific breakthroughs of the 19th and 20th centuries like Electromagnetism, Quantum Mechanics and Relativity manifestfundamental scientific reconciliations of contraries at their very cores. In other words, when the big discoveries happen (like time~space for instance), the contraries are involved. But how and why do they always seem to show up?

~4~

Some key questions, ones that by and large remains perplexingly unanswered, have to do with what these pairs really are, how they come about, interact with one another. And finally, what do they tell us about nature in general and human nature in specific?

~5~

In spite of these powerful examples of the potential to be found in the harvesting of successful philosophical and scientific reconciliation of nature's contraries, to our knowledge, a tenable, empirically based general theory of how contraries and the world lying in-between them may be reconciled has yet to be delivered. But why?

~6~

The Complementary Nature explores this question in some depth. The book begins with a brief exploration history of philosophy and science that focuses not only upon the role contraries have played, but how again and again, the interpretation of these contraries strongly influences the directions pursued and conclusions drawn by philosophers and scientists. Like a millenial broken record, champions of polar extremes grapple for dominance, whether idealists versus materialists, rationalists versus empiricists, dualists versus monists or any of the many other such polar antagonisms. Such either/or debates are far from over. They are raging all around us in our own life and times, here and now, and doing us all a lot of damage.

~7~

The Complementary Nature suggests that even though stunning developments in science and technology are being made daily, problems that have to do with the interpretation and understanding of contraries are still with us, and are sitting at the heart of some of the most severe problems facing human beings in today's world, in science, in business, in politics. The book highlights the point that throughout history, some of the greatist philosophers, historians, scientists, pundits and politicians have done their level best to communicate the importance and mystery of the antimonies.

~7~

In the lifework of two of the greatest philosophical contributors to the subject of contraries, Kant and Hegel, we find diametrically opposed basic interpretations of what contraries actually are. How ironic. While Kant believed them to be constructions of the mind, Hegel thought contraries and their dynamics were actual natural phenomena. But Kant and Hegel both lived a long time ago. We have come along way since then, right? Amazingly enough, when it comes to the interpretation of contraries, surprisingly little progress! The Complementary Nature TCN shows why it is very likely that the problem rests in the habit of trying to understand nature by setting up diametric poles like material vs. mental and then attempting to choose one and exclude the other. We call this the mutually exclusive either/or mind-set.

~8~

But what if experiments showed that the human brain itself is capable of displaying two apparently contradictory, mutually exclusive phenomena at the same time, which were both necessary for its function? And what if the same phenomena were seen to be ubiquitous also in human behavior? What if there was a scientific theory that attested directly to the complementary nature inherent in human brains and human behavior? Might this indicate why our perception of the world appears to partition things into pairs that the brain itself is actually built up from and runs on principles of such contraries? Might it also indicate there is a more enlightened way to proceed,a deeper reality that goes beyond metaphors and isms; to know nature and ourselves?

~9~

In The Complementary Nature, the answer to all of these questions is a resounding, Yes! From its background discussion on the history of ideas, The Complementary Nature proceeds to describe concepts and developments that have led in the last 30 years to a tenable and testable scientific theory of complementary pairs and the dynamics relating them. Up to now, notions of complementary pairs have been either predominantly metaphorical, ie. the dynamic interplay of opposites or rest on an interpretation of how the subatomic world behaves ie. wave~particle duality.

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The Complementary Nature reconciles the language of physical science, the language of states, with the language of tendencies where there are no states, and shows how opposing tendencies may coexist at the same time. It offers, perhaps for the first time, a generally applicable science of complementary contraries.