Saturday, November 12, 2016

The principle of the excluded middle

A objection to the law of non-contradiction comes from science. Niels Bohr's principle of complementarity is used to show the subatomic reality is contradictory. For according to this principle there are contradictory ways to describe the same reality , such as, light is both particles and waves. However, this is a misunderstanding of the principle of complementarity. As Werner Heisenberg noted, these are "two complementary description of the same reality .................... these descriptions can only be partially true: there must be limitations which can be expressed by uncertainly relations, the contradictions disappear."
The objection that Heisenberg's principle of uncertainty or unpredictability is contrary to the principle of causality is unfounded. At best, it does not show that events have no cause, but only that they are unpredictable as presently perceived with available technology.    

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