The principle of complementarity, its manifestations and essence

The principle of complementarity is a methodological postulate that was originally formulated by the great Danish physicist and philosopher Niels Bohr as applied to the field of quantum mechanics. The principle of Bohr's complementarity, most likely, was born only because even earlier, the German physicist Kurt Gödel proposed his conclusion and the formulation of the famous theorem on the properties of deductive systems, which belongs to the field of formal logic. Niels Bohr extended Gödel's logical conclusions to the subject domain of quantum mechanics and formulated the principle in approximately the following way: in order to reliably and adequately cognize the subject of the microworld, it must be investigated in systems that mutually exclude each other, that is, in some additional systems. This definition has become history as a principle of complementarity in quantum mechanics.

An example of such a solution to the problems of the microworld was the consideration of light in the context of two theories - wave and corpuscular, which led to a strikingly effective scientific result that revealed the physical nature of light to man.

Niels Bohr went even further in his comprehension of this conclusion. He makes an attempt to interpret the principle of complementarity through the prism of philosophical knowledge and it is here that this principle acquires universal scientific significance. Now the formulation of the principle sounded like: in order to reproduce a phenomenon for the purpose of its knowledge in a symbolic system, it is necessary to resort to additional concepts and categories. In a more simple language, the principle of complementarity presupposes in the cognition, not only possible, but in some cases necessary, the use of several methodological systems that will allow obtaining objective data on the subject of research. The principle of complementarity in this sense, manifested itself as a fact of agreement with metaphorical logical systems of methodology - they can manifest themselves in both ways. Thus, with the emergence and comprehension of this principle, in fact, it was recognized that there is not enough logic for cognition, and therefore it was considered admissible to illogical conduct in the research process. Ultimately, the application of the Bohr principle contributed to a significant change in the scientific picture of the world.

Later, Yu. Lotman expanded the methodological significance of the Bohr principle and transferred its regularities to the sphere of culture, in particular, applied to the description of the semiotics of culture. Lotman formulated the so-called "paradox of the amount of information", the essence of which is that human existence predominantly proceeds in conditions of information insufficiency. And as it develops, this insufficiency will continue to increase all the time. Using the principle of additionality, it is possible to compensate for the lack of information by transferring it to another semiotic (sign) system. This method led, in fact, to the emergence of computer science and cybernetics, and then the Internet. Later, the functioning of the principle was confirmed by the physiological fitness of the human brain for this type of thinking, due to the asymmetry of the activity of its hemispheres.

Another provision that is mediated by the action of the Bohr principle is the fact that the German physicist Werner Heisenberg discovered the law of the uncertainty relation. Its action can be defined as a recognition of the impossibility of the same description of two objects with the same accuracy, if these objects belong to different systems. The philosophical analogy of this conclusion was given by Ludwig Wittgenstein, who in his work "On Reliability" stated that in order to confirm the certainty of something, one must doubt something.

Thus, the principle of Bohr has acquired enormous methodological significance in various fields of scientific knowledge.