The Danish physicist whose complementarity gives dialogue 23 its physics of the "third position." Bob retrieves, via Barry Nevitt, Bohr's aphorism that the opposite of a profound truth may be another profound truth; Cameron then routes Bohr's "superposition" — the uncertainty principle's "middle position of both together" — into McLuhan's tactility — his interior landscape — and the workings of quantum computing. Bohr is the bridge by which the dialogue's back-and-forth "you / not-you" is licensed as a real structure rather than mere confusion.
Across the dialogues
Enters as the physics behind the "third position" — his profound-truths aphorism and his superposition supply the archive its licence for two opposed truths at once, read as McLuhan's tactility
Bohr's aphorism supplies the dialogue its logic of non-contradiction — where a fact excludes its opposite, a "profound truth" does not, so two opposed truths can both hold; Cameron reads this as the collapse of the "you" whose perspective once fixed which of them was true.
"The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth."Niels Bohr, quoted by Bob Dobbs, The Resonant Interval, Dialogue 23 (22 Apr 2021), 1:01:33
Cameron routes Bohr into McLuhan — the uncertainty principle's "superposition," "the middle position of both together," is "what McLuhan calls tactility," and quantum computing computes faster precisely because it rests on it, "not tied to either or."
"uncertainty principle at the end of the day posits what's called a superposition."Cameron McEwen, The Resonant Interval, Dialogue 23 (22 Apr 2021), 1:07:39
Promoted from a source of aphorisms to the key that unlocks another author's sentence — Bohr stops being physics quoted alongside McLuhan and becomes the reason a single word in Take Today has to be read technically, which reorganizes the whole session around a history of science
The intervention that reorganizes the session — one adjective on Take Today's last page is claimed for physics, which obliges the pair to reconstruct the atom's whole discovery history before they can finish reading a sentence.
"we need to note that complementary is another technical word."Cameron McEwen, The Resonant Interval, Dialogue 74 (17 Aug 2023), 26:41
Bohr is placed as the presiding figure of exactly the decades McLuhan was forming, which turns the parallel from analogy into contemporaneity — the two men are working the same problem in different materials.
"the great guru of quantum mechanics from the 1920s until around 1960 is Niels Bohr."Cameron McEwen, The Resonant Interval, Dialogue 74 (17 Aug 2023), 27:02
The uncertainty principle stated as the condition Bohr's complementarity answers — not a limit on instruments but a structure in which two accounts must be held together, which is the form Cameron needs before he can transfer it to media.
"with subatomic particles, you can't simultaneously both measure their place and their momentum."Cameron McEwen, The Resonant Interval, Dialogue 74 (17 Aug 2023), 39:15
Complementarity given a three-thousand-year range on purpose — the point is that the word carries all these senses at once when McLuhan uses it, which is what licenses reading a 1972 management book through 1927 physics.
"this is complementarity can be taken to be something out of the I Ching in China, or it can be taken to be the way up and the way down of Heraclitus, or it can be taken to be the most up-to-date science in the 20th century."Cameron McEwen, The Resonant Interval, Dialogue 74 (17 Aug 2023), 39:42
The translation that makes the borrowing work both ways — figure and ground is McLuhan's complementarity, so Bohr is not being applied to McLuhan from outside but recognized as having said the same thing about matter.
"McLuhan is constantly talking about the flip, and what he means by the flip is the constant inversion of figure and ground."Cameron McEwen, The Resonant Interval, Dialogue 74 (17 Aug 2023), 40:07
The methodological consequence Cameron draws for the pair themselves — a fixed position is not merely incomplete but wrong, which is why the McLuhan Tetrad and the gyroscope both have to keep moving to stay oriented.
"the very attempt at stability falsifies. what you're doing because of the uncertainty principle."Cameron McEwen, The Resonant Interval, Dialogue 74 (17 Aug 2023), 52:51
Connections
Bob credits Barry Nevitt as the source who quoted Bohr's "two profound truths."
Cameron ties Bohr's superposition — "the middle position of both together" — to McLuhan's tactility and to quantum computing.