Complementarity and Deconstruction: Plotnitsky's Analysis and Beyond

• Published in: Configurations (Baltimore, Md.) Md.), 2004-09, Vol.12 (3), p.435-476
• Main Author: Katsumori, Makoto
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Bohr, Niels
• ISSN: 1063-1801; 1080-6520; 1080-6520
• DOI: 10.1353/con.2007.0002

In what follows, I will first outline his complementarity argument in its "early" period, stretching from 1927 to the mid-thirties, -or, more precisely, until just before his 1935 debate with EPR.2 Bohr starts by noting that "our usual description of physical phenomena is based entirely on the idea that the phenomena concerned may be observed without disturbing them appreciably. [...]Bohr continues, a new situation has arisen with the development of quantum theory, specifically with "the so-called quantum postulate, which attributes to any atomic process an essential discontinuity, or rather individuality, completely foreign to the classical theories"; this "individuality" implies that "any observation of atomic phenomena will involve an interaction with the agency of observation not to be neglected" (PWNB, 1: 53-54.) [...]if in order to make observation possible we permit certain interactions with suitable agencies of measurement, not belonging to the system, an unambiguous definition of the state of the system is naturally no longer possible, and there can be no question of causality in the ordinary sense of the word. (PWNB, 1: 54) This conflict between space-time coordination and the claim of causality-or, equivalently, between the use of space-time concepts and that of "the laws of conservation of energy and momentum"- indicates that, in quantum theory, we are obliged to renounce "the causal space-time mode of description that characterizes the classical physical theories" (PWNB, 1: 11, 92).