QUANTUM METAPHYSICS - E-thesis

complementary way of approaching the problems of life and existence. 638 Bohr rejected the
traditional ontological approach to natural philosophy. Even the division between subject and
object appeared to him to be more a question of situation-specific expediency than a fundamental
ontological starting point. Strongly generalising, it is possible to say that in eastern philosophy,
the world is not usually examined as it is revealed in isolated things and events, but as an
unbroken whole, part of which is the human observer. 639 In Taoism, reality is thought of as
transcending the limits of normal language and logic. Since the structure of nature is not the
same as the structure of language, every attempt to detach from the world and portray it in an
objective manner leads inevitably to an imperfect description of reality.
Bohr’s philosophy has echoes of eastern philosophy and there is reason to believe that he read
”Tao te Ching” in his youth. 640 When the Danish state honoured Bohr, he chose as his coat of
arms the yin-yang symbol which depicts the balance and unity of the opposites. Bohr also often
brought out the fact that the lesson of atomic theory, i.e. the inadequacy of the idealisations of
classical physics, also led to epistemological problems similar to that which thinkers such as
Buddha and Laotse encountered when attempting to balance our position as both observers and
actors in the great drama of existence. 641 He also repeated the paradoxical-sounding statement
according to which the antithesis of each profound truth is also a profound truth, even though the
antithesis of an ordinary truth cannot be defended. 642 This thought is in agreement with dialectic
Janeian Syadvada logic.
Bohr did however warn against incorporating mystic material into scientific methods of
approach. His starting points were empirical, logical and fully in accordance with the western
scientific tradition. Bohr resigned from the view that complementarity would include any
mysticism foreign for natural science. Complementarity was a consistent generalisation of the
classical concept of causality and the framework was needed as soon as the behaviour of the
object was not independent from the act of observation. 643
Understanding the central features of complementarity does not require eastern philosophy.
637
For example Hooker and Honner have noticed parallels in Bohr’s views concerning the difficulty of drawing a
line between subject and object, and in his manner of encapsulating the human being into language, to eastern
philosophy. Hooker 1972, 207, Honner 1994, 141-142.
638
Kothari 1985, 325.
639
Capra 1983.
640
Favreholdt, 1992, 37.
641
Bohr 1958, 19-20.
642
Bohr 1958, 66.
236