Towards an Account of Complementarities and Context-Dependence

TL;DR

This paper proposes a new framework called context-dependent mapping that reorganizes physical laws based on observational context, addressing tensions in modern physics interpretations like wave-particle duality and black hole complementarity.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach to scientific explanation that accounts for context-dependent observations, improving understanding of complex physical phenomena.

Findings

Provides a formal framework for context-dependent explanations

Reconciles contradictory physical descriptions through structured subsets

Enhances philosophical understanding of complementarity

Abstract

Modern physics proposals present deep tensions between seemingly contradictory descriptions of reality. Views of wave-particle duality, black hole complementarity, and the Unruh effect demand explanations that shift depending on how a system is observed. However, traditional models of scientific explanation impose a fixed structure that fails to account for varying observational contexts. This paper introduces context-dependent mapping, a framework that reorganizes physical laws into self-consistent subsets structured around what can actually be observed in a given context. By doing so, it provides a principled way to integrate complementarity into the philosophy of explanation.