complementarity
Compiled with AI assistance and selectively reviewed. Please consult the cited passages; the books remain the authoritative source. About this companion
Editorial synthesis · provisional
Definition
Complementarity names distinct uses here: the quantum requirement for evidence from mutually exclusive experimental arrangements, and the broader mutual illumination of accounts that remain different. AB and RB1 criticize Copenhagen's explanatory restraint, while RB1 also explains Bohr's contextual objectivity. RB2's dynamic complementarities concern apparent opposites within lawful becoming, not a transfer of Bohr's experimental principle to every domain.
Explanation
AB criticizes Copenhagen complementarity in the context of the author's declared preference for RTI. RB1 repeats the criticism but also expounds Bohr's complementary experimental evidence: precise statistical laws and communicable conditions preserve objectivity. This exposition must remain distinct from the author's assessment of Copenhagen's explanatory restraint.
RB1 separately calls Simondon and Kastner complementary because both give real possibility a role in actualization. Their homology is not identity of substance, mechanism or domain. Differences in formalization and temporality remain; Simondon's metastability alone does not establish intrinsically probable outcomes. AB similarly presents its laws as mutually illuminating without deduction of one from another.
RB2's dynamic complementarities concern such relations as persistence through change and freedom under constraint. The shared grammar preserves differences among quantum, biological and social constraint regimes. This is philosophical treatment of apparent opposites, not application of Bohr's experimental principle.
Scope and attribution
AB, RB1 and RB2 own developed treatments. PB's complementary compossibility method and RB3's complementary point about the laws are ordinary connective uses, not additional technical treatments.
AB — The Actual Book
Copenhagen complementarity is criticized as explanatory restraint. The laws elsewhere complement one another without a deductive chain; this broader use is distinct from the quantum principle.
Occurrence locators: 29, 122, 129.
RB1 — The Real Book, Volume I: The Possible Is Real
The book criticizes Copenhagen but also expounds Bohr's complementary evidence and contextual objectivity. Its separate framework comparison preserves differences in domain, temporality and probabilistic formalization.
Occurrence locators: 51, 104, 116, 117, 118, 124, 125.
RB2 — The Real Book, Volume II: Becoming Is Being
Dynamic complementarities describe apparent opposites within lawful becoming, including a self's persistence through change. This shared grammar does not erase domain-specific constraints.
Occurrence locators: 276.
Background used in the editorial explanation
Domain-specific mechanisms and wider analogies remain distinguished. Original definitions retain their scope; local cross-references do not rewrite them. Named theories and mechanisms are distinguished from neighboring background, homonyms and the author’s own synthesis. Reproduced AI passages retain their separate voice.