By: Harald Walach
Publication Name: Med Hypotheses
Year: 2005
We introduce the complementarity concept to understand mind-body relations and the question why the biopsychosocial model has in fact been praised, but not integrated into medicine. By complementarity, we mean that two incompatible descriptions have to be used to describe something in full. The complementarity model states that the physical and the mental side of the human organism are two complementary notions. This contradicts the prevailing materialist notion that mental and psychological processes are emergent properties of an organism. The complementarity model also has consequences for a further understanding of biological processes. Complementarity is a defining property of quantum systems proper. Such systems exhibit correlated properties that result in coordinated behavior without signal transfer or interaction. This is termed EPR-correlation or entanglement. Weak quantum theory, a generalized version of quantum mechanics proper, predicts entanglement also for macroscopic systems, provided a local and a global observable are complementary. Thus, complementarity could be the key to understanding holistically correlated behavior on different levels of systemic complexity.
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