Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

ISSN: 0096-3402 (Print) 1938-3282 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rbul20

The Philosophy of Niels Bohr

Aage Petersen

To cite this article: Aage Petersen (1963) The Philosophy of Niels Bohr, Bulletin of the Atomic
Scientists, 19:7, 8-14, DOI: 10.1080/00963402.1963.11454520

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the State Department in 1962. The essence of the plan
is ( 1) the creation of an international disarmament or-
ganization dominated by the major military powers and AAGE PETERSEN
charged with the duty of supervising the disarmament
process; ( 2) the creation of an international peace
force to enforce the treaty; ( 3) the strengthening of
the World Court through repeal of the Connolly Res- The Philosophy of
olution, together with the creation of additional inter-
national agencies of mediation, conciliation, and equity. Niels Bohr
These proposals are, in essence, part of our suggestions
for a treaty of general and complete disarmament and
the elimination of national military forces as a means
of settling international disputes. In the opinion of
Sohn and Clark, two other steps must be taken: first,
the establishment of a world revenue system dependent
not on contributions by individual countries, but on a
tax system that would operate without recourse to the
treasuries of the individual countries and, second, a
world development organization, similarly financed,
that would deal with the economic and social problems
of the underdeveloped nations.
The climate of Congress toward these proposals, if
they were fully understood, would be one of amazed
consternation. It will take years (or, alternatively, the
immediate threat of the destruction of civilization) to
eliminate the political lag in the thinking of members
of the national legislature. And yet, unless some way
is found to eliminate this lag, there is, in my opinion,
little hope for the future of mankind. How it is possible
to so change opinion, both within and without the
Congress, as to make feasible that which is requisite to
the survival of mankind?
My fifth and final conclusion is that the elimination
of this perilous political lag should be the first order of
1885-1962
business of those atomic scientists who are perhaps
most aware of the deadly peril which confronts us.
The pace of the scientific revolution is so fast that Attempting to describe Niels Bohr's philosophy puts
government and the social sciences have been left far me in a situation very much like that of the young man
behind. There is no prospect that the pace of that revo- in one of Bohr's favorite stories. In an isolated village
lution can be abated, yet, with each additional dis- there was a small Jewish community. A famous rabbi
covery, the danger to the world seems to increase. There once came to the neighboring city to speak and, as the
are many who believe that the scientific community people of the village were eager to learn what the great
can no longer communicate with the disciplines en- teacher would say, they sent a young man to listen.
compassed by the humanities and the social sciences. When he returned he said, "The rabbi spoke three
If this is true, an enormous effort must be made to times. The first talk was brilliant; clear and simple. I
bridge this gap. understood every word. The second was even better;
The Congress of the United States is not composed deep and subtle. I didn't understand much, but the
of ignorant men. By and large, they are considerably rabbi understood all of it. The third was by far the
better informed and more intelligent than the general finest; a great and unforgettable experience. I under-
level of their constituents. It is not too late to educate stood nothing, and the rabbi himself didn't understand
us to the crying needs of today. Where to start, how much either."
to organize, the particular plan to be advocated, are For me, Niels Bohr's philosophy also fell into three
all outside the scope of this article. What seems clear parts: one which I thought I grasped; one which I did
is that unless we discover realistic and effective methods not understand, but which I felt was clear to Bohr; and,
of eliminating the political lag presently existing in finally, a part which Bohr himself saw only dimly. Thus
Congress toward the whole problem of disarmament my description can be only a weak reflection of his won-
the survival of American civilization is in jeopardy. ' derfully rich thought, and I am sure he would have ex-
8
pressed many points differently. Yet I hope I can give a
feeling of the breadth and depth of his philosophy, and
perhaps also a glimpse of that intellectual harmony in
which he lived.
Bohr never referred to his philosophy as his own. He
used to speak of it as a general lesson to be drawn from
quantum mechanics. Yet when, shortly after the devel-
opment of quantum mechanics, he told his old friend
Edgar Rubin, the psychologist, of this general lesson,
Rubin replied, "Yes, it's very interesting, but you must Niels Bohr is known to us, and should be
admit that you said just the same thing twenty years known to history, as a physicist, a philosopher,
ago." Can this really have been the case? a public man. Since the war years, he thought
The route along which Bohr's philosophical ideas de- unremittingly of the human and political problems of a
veloped was as remarkable as the ideas themselves. Even world of atomic weapons, of growing scientific
as a child, Bohr was considered the thinker of the fam- knowledge and technological prowess. In June of
ily, and his father listened closely to his views on funda- 1950 he wrote an Open Letter to the United
mental problems. Bohr has said that as far back as he Nations, telling a little of his own past actions, to make
could remember he liked to dream of great interrela- a direct public plea for that open world which he
tionships. His philosophical attitude seems to have rightly saw as a prerequisite for peace and civilization.
been shaped early with very little influence from out- Bohr writes of his conversation in the summer of 1944
side, and he spent much time developing it. Shortly be- with Roosevelt, of discussions in the Department
fore his death Bohr spoke of his youthful philosophical of State in 1946, and again in 1948.
work. When asked what place this work then had in his In 1946 Bohr saw the Acting Secretary of State;
existence, he replied, "It was, in a way, my life!" I believe that the interview, in which Bohr brought
Before the end of his university studies, he had come his insight to bear on the pressing
so far in his thought on philosophical problems that he political problems of the time, was a difficult one, not
planned to write a book. He felt that he had a point of too successful. When the time came, the
view that was sufficiently clear and complete to be pub- Secretary's aide undertook to take Bohr horne, and
lished. But he did not write it. Instead he took up other they drove about Washington for many hours,
work, and his philosophical writing was put off for with Bohr talking in that familiar talk in which the
twenty years. He began to do experiments on surface silences seemed as essential and as active as
tension for a competition paper by the Royal Danish the words. Finaily, when both were exhausted, they
Academy. He built the apparatus himself, and was es- went horne, and Bohr apologized for so much talk
pecially fascinated by glass blowing. Commenting on and time. "You see," he said, "my great problem is
this transition from philosopher to experimental physi- never to speak more clearly than I think."
cist, he said, "I was not a daydreamer, I was willing to This is Bohr the physicist, Bohr of the great
do hard work." He continued on in physics and wrote a paper in 1913 which opened wide a hitherto inaccessible
doctor's thesis on the electron theory of metals. After vision of atomic order, Bohr of the quantum
the thesis he became interested in the problems of mechanics and of complementarity, Bohr
atomic constitution, and from 1913 to 1927 led the de- who hoped to save this world from its unwonted
velopment of quantum physics. This development, in power. In ail he was indefatigable.
which all sides of Bohr's intellect carne to fruition, This account by Aage Petersen is an iiiuminating
brought him back to philosophy. introduction to Bohr's epistemological views
and to his philosophy.
e QUANTUM PHILOSOPHY
For Bohr, the new theory was not only a wonderful -Robert Oppenheimer
piece of physics. It was also a philosophical treasure
chamber which contained, in a new form, just those
thoughts he had dreamed about in his early youth. He
no longer regretted that he had not written the episte-
mological book he had planned earlier, because he felt
that he could now express himself far more clearly.
Moreover, in 1927, Bohr was no longer a young stu-
dent, but one of the world's leading physicists. Because
of his enormous authority as a scientist, he was in a
unique position for philosophical innovation. But even
though he could now use the quantal description as a
September 1963 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 9
medium for expressing his ideas, his philosophical mes- frame, i.e., the way we characterize and combine experi-
sage was still hard to understand. From his essays one ence, determines what we can talk about and what re-
gets a strong impression that it was also difficult to lationships we can express. We must always be prepared
present. to find that a conceptual framework is too narrow to
In his enthusiasm for the new prospects now open, contain the content we want to press into it. In such a
Bohr planned to start a journal for the philosophical in- situation we are confronted with a logical disharmony,
vestigations that quantum physics suggested. This plan because we try to speak about something for which our
too was never realized. Again other problems demanded conceptual system has no room. And in the efforts to
his working power. But during the following thirty-five restore harmony, even the frames that are apparently
years he published a series of articles in which his philo- the most solid, those defining our elementary concepts,
sophical viewpoint is developed. Almost all of these ar- may prove to be blinders that conceal more fundamen-
ticles originated from lectures and speeches that he gave tal relationships. Yet logical possibilities for extending
on various occasions. (Most of Bohr's philosophical es- or generalizing any frame lie like seeds in the presup-
says are included in Atomic Theory and the Descrip- positions for using our concepts. The extension enables
tion of Nature, Cambridge University Press, 1934, sec- us to talk about new things and to express new kinds of
ond edition, 1961, and Atomic Physics and Human regularities. "More and more deeply explored presup-
Knowledge, Wiley, 1958. A third collection, containing positions may reveal relationships of greater and greater
Bohr's last papers, will be published soon.) In all of scope."
them the same theme is played again and again with These fundamental aspects of the description prob-
slight variations in a continual attempt to make the lems have been illuminated especially by mathematics.
attitude, argument, and terminology clearer. If one said Deductive reasoning has taught us the significance of
to Bohr that his articles were all very similar, he would the conceptual framework. We have also learned to
smile and tell a little story about a Greek philosopher prove that certain problems, e.g. the trisection of an
of the sophist school. This philosopher had been away angle, cannot be solved within a given framework. In
from Athens for a long time, and when he returned, he addition, mathematics has shown us the wealth of un-
was surprised to see Socrates engaged in discussion at the suspected possibilities for conceptual extension or gen-
usual place. "Are you," he asked, "still standing here, eralization that are latent in the way we use our sim-
Socrates, saying the same things about the same things?" plest words.
Socrates replied, "Don't you ever say the same things Already in school Bohr was intensely interested in the
about the same things?" foundations of the mathematical approach and its rela-
tion to the general conditions for the use of language.
e SUSPENDED IN LANGUAGE Especially, he pondered the remarkable limitation of
In trying to survey what he called "our situation," ordinary numbers which was discovered by ancient
Bohr did not proceed in the same way as the philoso- Greek mathematicians when they tried to express the
phers who have formed the Western philosophical tra- length of the diagonal in the unit square and which is
dition. He did not give new answers to old questions. believed to have been a major stimulus to the develop-
His philosophy cannot be described in terms of the ment of the axiomatic method. The ordinary numbers
usual philosophical "isms" or schools. To Bohr, philo- and the ordinary arithmetical operations form a system
sophical problems were neither about existence or real- within which many numerical problems can be asked
ity, nor about the structure and limitations of human and answered. We depend on the number system when
reason. They were communication problems. They dealt we express numerical relationships. Yet there are nu-
with the general conditions for conceptual communica- merical problems which, so to say, fall outside the scope
tion. of this system. In the system of integers and fractions
When asked what he meant by that, Bohr would say, one cannot express the length of the diagonal of the
"\Vhat is it that we human beings ultimately depend unit square. But the system can be extended or general-
on? We depend on our words. We are suspended in ized, and in the extended system there is a number,y2 1
language. Our task is to communicate experience and which, when multiplied by itself, gives 2.
ideas to others. We must strive continually to extend As far as I can see, the doctrine that we are, philo-
the scope of our description, but in such a way that our sophically speaking, suspended in language, that we de-
messages do not thereby lose their objective or unam- pend on our conceptual framework for unambiguous
biguous character." communication, and that the scope of the frame may
The general conditions for the use of language in- be extended by generalization in the way illustrated in
clude a law requiring a proper balance between content mathematics, forms the general basis of Bohr's philoso-
and form in conceptual communication. When we de- phy. In his writings he never gave a detailed exposition
scribe and order experience, we must use a system of of this view. Nor did he discuss its relation to other
concepts. No experience can be understood or com- conceptions of the philosophical status of language. He
municated without being fixed in a logical frame. The considered it completely obvious and was surprised that
10
 others felt it so difficult to understand. tion. When he heard lectures on the theory of complex
Traditional philosophy has accustomed us to regard functions, it struck him that there was a remarkable
language as something secondary and reality as some- logical similarity between the problems of introspection
thing primary. Bohr considered this attitude toward the and those of multivalued functions. He became con-
relation between language and reality inappropriate. vinced that the ingenious geometrical device for elimi-
When one said to him that it cannot be language which nating the ambiguity of such functions, mapping the
is fundamental, but that it must be reality which, so to various functional values on different sheets of a so-
speak, lies beneath language, and of which language is a called Riemannian surface, could be exploited for clar-
picture, he would reply, "We are suspended in language ifying paradoxes connected with the subject-object par-
in such a way that we cannot say what is up and what tition. This discovery presumably was one of his chief
is down. The word 'reality' is also a word, a word which motives for writing a book on epistemology. He set to
we must learn to use correctly." Bohr was not puzzled work to apply Riemann's idea to the problem of free
by ontological problems or by questions as to how con- will. As it appears in his published papers, Bohr's phi-
cepts are related to reality. Such questions seemed ster- losophy is no longer modeled on the theory of multi-
ile to him. He saw the problem of knowledge in a dif- valued functions. In the meantime, the quanta} descrip-
ferent light. tion had been developed, and it took over the role of
The chief characteristic of the sort of description we the Riemannian surface. Bohr's philosophical ideas
seek in science as well as in practical life is objectivity. were not originally inspired by physics, but the charac-
In Bohr's usage, an objective message was an unambig- teristics of the new theory fitted his philosophy won-
uous message, one that could not be misunderstood. If derfully well.
our communications are to be understood, their content Quantum physics is the temporary climax of a long
must be clearly delineated. There must be, so to speak, development which started at about the same time that
a partition between the subject which communicates and the Greek mathematicians discovered that y2 cannot
the object which is the content of the communication. be expressed as a ratio between integers. The aim of
This partition is indispensable in every objective de- this development has been to understand why things in
scription, and Bohr saw in it the core of the problem of nature possess the properties they do. One school of
knowledge. Greek thinkers found the logical core of this problem in
the concept of atomicity. In other words, nature's sta-
e DIALECTICS OF INTROSPECTION bility and specific forms originate from the fact that
We may get an idea of the significance of the subject- there is something in nature that is indivisible. The
object partition by considering the problem of describ- Greek atomists assumed that there is a limitation in the
ing our own thinking activity. When we think, we con- divisibility of matter, that all matter is built up of im-
front an objective content with a thinking subject. But mutable particles called atoms.
the subject, our own ego, can also be made a part of About sixty years ago, it was discovered that the ato-
the content of consciousness. In introspection we make micity in nature is not restricted to matter, but that
that which is usually the subject, and therefore outside there is in nature another feature of indivisibility, an
the description, a part of the object about which we indivisibility of physical processes. Considered from the
communicate. Yet the very delineation of this extended standpoint of ordinary physics, this discovery, like the
content of consciousness is performed by a new subject. Greeks' discovery of a length that cannot be measured
We can thus move the partition between actor and by ordinary numbers, was a shock. It was soon realized
spectator or between stage and audience, and we can that the problem of encompassing the indivisible proc-
therefore, in a certain sense, talk about ourselves. But esses was related logically to the problem of the inex-
even a message about ourselves requires, if it is to be pressible numbers. One saw that, just as it had been
unambiguous, a subject and a partition, and the mean- necessary to extend the number concept, it was neces-
ing of the message depends on where the partition is sary to extend or generalize ordinary physics. This pro-
placed. gram, embodied in Bohr's correspondence argument,
Thus our situation is characterized by the fact that, was finally carried through in 1925 by the creation of
on the one hand, we separate subject and object, while, quantum mechanics.
on the other hand, we ourselves belong to that about The quanta} description, which encompasses the indi-
which we are talking. In Bohr's opinion, the problems vidual physical processes, the regularities mainly respon-
in epistemology originate primarily because we do not sible for nature's stability and specific forms, is thus an
master the dialectics of the movable subject-object par- extended or generalized mode of description. It con-
tition. The difficulty of delineating clearly the content tains relationships that cannot be formulated within
of our messages is the chief source of ambiguity and the narrow framework of ordinary physics. Quantum
paradox in conceptual communication. physics showed that even the causal mode of descrip-
In early youth Bohr thought he had found a way to tion is only one very special way of tying together natu-
handle the dialectics of the movable subject-object parti- ral phenomena, and thus lawfulness in nature is not
September 1963 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 11
equivalent to mechanical causality. We have had to izes physics. The conditions of observation defined by
learn that the causal mode of description is a limiting the experimental arrangement specify the physical sit-
case that encompasses only the simplest features of uation in which the observed system finds itself. They
nature. are therefore essential in making communications about
By providing a clear physical example of a general- the system unambiguous. We can move the partition be-
ized conceptual framework, the quantal description tween measured system and measuring tool. For in-
supported and sharpened Bohr's view of language. The stance, when we observe an object in a microscope, we
tenets of this view are particularly visible in his investi- consider the light used to localize the object as a part of
gation of problems concerning the measurability of the measuring tool. But there is nothing to prevent us
physical quantities. Basic to this investigation is the idea from making this light an object of investigation by
that although physics is an evolutionary enterprise in re- introducing new measuring tools to define and obtain
gard to its data and the algorisims correlating them, the the information we want about the new system.
account of the handling and functioning of measuring In the language of physics there are various sets of
instruments must always be expressed in "ordinary plain concepts such as space and time, and the so-called dy-
language suitably supplemented by the terminology of namic concepts like momentum and energy. Corre-
classical physics." In that sense, the language of New- sponding to these different sets of concepts are different
ton and Maxwell will remain the language of physics. In types of measuring tools. For example, to determine the
support of this far-reaching idea, Bohr offered the "pure- position of an object, one must use rulers firmly at-
ly logical argument" that "by the very word 'experi- tached together to form a reference frame. On the other
ment,' we refer to a situation where we can tell others hand, to measure an object's momentum one may let it
what we have done and what we have learned." collide with a freely movable test body of known mass,
and then measure the resultant velocity of the test body.
e NO QUANTUM WORLD In classical physics, the measuring tools that corre-
When asked whether the algorism of quantum me- spond to the elementary physical concepts may, despite
chanics could be considered as somehow mirroring an their dissimilarity, be used in combination to investi-
underlying quantum world, Bohr would answer, "There gate a system. The findings provided by each arrange-
is no quantum world. There is only an abstract quan- ment simply supplement each other and it is just this
tum physical description. It is wrong to think that the combination of dissimilar information that is needed in
task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics con- order to give a causal description of the behavior of the
cerns what we can say about nature." Bohr felt that system.
every step in the development of physics has strength- In quantum physics we use the same concepts and
ened the view that the problem of establishing an un- thus the same measuring tools, but here the dissimilar-
ambiguous description of nature has only one solution. ity between the measuring tools becomes crucially im-
He regarded all attempts to replace our elementary con- portant. Here we cannot use different types of instru-
cepts or to introduce a new logic to account for the ments in combination. We cannot combine the infor-
peculiarities of quantum phenomena as not merely un- mation about the system that we get from one type of
necessary but also incompatible with our most funda- instrument with the information we get from another.
mental conditions, since we are suspended in a unique Therefore a quantum physical phenomenon is charac-
language. "Of course," he once said jokingly, "it may be terized by the type of measuring instrument we use.
that when, in a thousand years, the electronic comput- Two phenomena obtained by observing the same sys-
ers begin to talk, they will speak a language completely tem with two different types of instruments are mutu-
different from ours and lock us all up in asylums be- ally exclusive. Bohr called this logical relation of exclu-
cause they cannot communicate with us. But our prob- sion complementarity.
lem is not that we do not have adequate concepts. The logic of quantum physics is related to the logic
What we may lack is a sufficient understanding of the of introspection because in both physics and psychology
unambiguous applicability of the concepts we have." we use the concept of observation. Quantum physics
Quantum physics also throws light on Bohr's illuminates the dialectics of introspection because the
thoughts about the subject-object partition. How can physicist's partition between system and measuring tool
the dialectics of introspection come into physics? In corresponds closely to the epistemologist's partition be-
physics, if anywhere, we keep ourselves outside the de- tween object and subject. The description of indivisible
scription. Quantum physics, however, has made us see processes has taught the quantum physicist how to han-
the significance of a feature of the physical description dle his partition. The epistemologist may learn the art
that had so far been given little attention. In physics from him. Like the Riemannian surface with its sep-
one distinguishes between the system investigated and arate sheets, the quanta} description with its comple-
the measuring tools used for the investigation. This dis- mentarity is a prototype of a logical device for com-
tinction between system and measuring tool lies in the bining experiences whose definition must include the
general concept of experiment that so deeply character- circumstances under which they were obtained. In all
12
areas where such experiences arise we meet contrasts side of the story. Physics is concerned just as much with
similar to those in quantum phenomena. But because an experimenter who can carry his individual experi-
quantum phenomena are so simple they could point the ments to an arbitrary degree of precision. It is the
way to complementarity. freedom of the experimenter to choose and control the
Guided by the insight into description problems pro- experimental conditions that permits the physical de-
vided by quantum physics, Bohr again set out to inves- scription to be stringent and complete.
tigate general epistemological problems and paradoxes. Bohr's idea was that biological phenomena occur un-
As before, these investigations took the form of tracing der conditions in which physical concepts can be ap-
and analyzing logical analogies. It was shown that the plied to a certain extent, but that, if the phenomenon
conditions of description in a variety of fields are struc- is to remain biological, the conditions cannot be con-
turally similar to those in quantum physics, and that trolled in the detail necessary to make the physical de-
the relation of complementarity is suited to eliminate scription complete. Just as an atom displays chemical
ambiguity in the comprehension of experience in these properties only under conditions that exclude investi-
fields. Since some of the areas in question .are closer to gation of the position of its electrons, the phenomena
the sphere of common knowledge than are quantum of life occur only under conditions that exclude an ex-
phenomena, the logical analogies also served to throw haustive analysis of the single atoms in the organism.
light back on the situation in quantum physics. In the To carry through such an analysis, we would have to
following we shall consider a few examples which illus- use experimental tools that would kill the organism,
trate in a particularly striking way Bohr's general philo- and we would no longer be dealing with a biological
sophical views. situation or a biological phenomenon. Thus, the experi-
menter in biology does not have the same possibilities
e EXPERIMENT AND EXPERIMENTER of definition and control as in physics. Organisms, Bohr
Biology was the first domain outside physics that said, are not the results of experiments we perform our-
Bohr considered. He had been interested in fundamen- selves. Rather, they have to be considered as results of
tal biological problems since childhood. Like his father, nature's own experiments-if we can talk about experi-
he was especially concerned with the relation between ments in a situation where no tools are used.
physics and biology. With his deep understanding of Life displays itself only in circumstances that prevent
what physics is, it was clear to Bohr that, if there is to us from making a thorough physical analysis. In princi-
be order in nature, the laws of physics cannot be broken. ple, we .cannot determine the physical state of a living
All talk about a. special "life force," or the notion that organism. Hence, the word "life" refers not to a special
the existence of organisms contradicts the principles of quality or force that may permeate some physical sys-
thermodynamics, he considered experimentally un- tems, but rather, like "quantum of action," to a rela-
founded and epistemologically incorrect. On the other tionship of exclusion between conditions of observation
hand, he stuck to the view that biology is a topic differ- or between the conceptual tools these conditions define.
ent from physics in principle as well as in practice. Thus, physical concepts are not sufficient to describe
Thus, he thought there was a core of truth in the vital- biological regularities. In order to obtain an adequate
ist attitude. description of biological regularities, we must also use
The vitalists have always been confronted with the words that do not belong to physics, words like "pur-
difficult task of defining precisely the limitation of phys- pose," "self-preservation," and "self-adaptation," that
ics in biological phenomena. Bohr's philosophical view- refer to the organism as a whole. The approach that
point had prepared him for dealing with this task. In uses these concepts, the vitalist or finalist approach, is
quantum physics he investigated the conditions under complementary to the mechanistic approach.
which one can employ the various elementary physical I must confess that this attitude to fundamental
concepts meaningfully. Here the problem is to inquire problems in biology has never become completely clear
into the conditions for doing physics. In order to see to me. The crucial point is, of course, what we may
how there can be room for natural phenomena that are understand by typically biological conditions of obser-
not fully describable in physical terms, we must specify vation and the corresponding typically biological con-
what it is we do when we do physics. cepts. Time after time Bohr returned to these questions,
In science one tries, wherever possible, to obtain and he followed the development of molecular biology
knowledge through experiments. Part of the art of ex- with very great interest. I had the impression that this
perimentation consists in being able precisely to define had somewhat modified his own view, and as late as the
and to control the experimental conditions. Physics is a month before his death he worked on a paper on the
science where experience can be gained under condi- foundations of biology.
tions that in principle can be specified precisely and The instinctive behavior of animals is another exam-
controlled completely. That is why the laws of physics ple of how possibilities in nature can be used to pre-
are precise, or exact. The statement that physics is con- serve and reproduce life. Bohr was very interested in the
cerned with a world governed by exact laws is only one wonders of instinct, and his view on the relationship
September 1963 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 13
between instinctive behavior and conscious thinking illu- have grown another sort of flower, and the same flower
minates his general attitude in a particularly striking could have grown in another field. The variability of
way. One of his favorite examples was the salmon's fan- cultures indicates the numerous possibilities for social
tastic pathfinding ability. A salmon is born in a lake in life. In the relations between cultures as well as in the
the mountains. When some months old, it swims down relations between the individual and society, he found
brooks and rivers to the ocean, where it lives until it is new complementary features.
time for it to reproduce, and then it begins the long By dividing up the world we suppress our inherited
journey back. It jumps with unbelievable force over instinctive behavior. But in return we call into play a
waterfalls and even though the streams and brooks di- new kind of behavior based on conceptual communi-
vide many times, it can still find its way back to the cation. Ordinary language is a perfectly adequate tool
pool in which it was itself born. to describe our conscious life. Bohr pointed out that,
while the causal mode of description was indispensable
e CHOICE AND INSTINCT as a starting point for the ordering of physical phenom-
How can it do that? To those who say, "It must have ena, the conceptual framework in which we communi-
a sixth sense!" Bohr would reply, "It is easy enough to cate our states of mind has been since the origin of
count from five to six, but it is not so easy to say what language a complementary mode of description. He
the physical basis for the functioning of such a sixth liked to compare the relation between situations where
sense would be." Bohr thought that the salmon can do we express thoughts and where we express feelings with
it because it does not know how it does it. It has only that obtaining between quantum phenomena described
one task to perform, and it does not solve it by seiect- by space-time coordination and conservation laws, respec-
ing among alternatives. The salmon is not in the same tively. The richness and contrasts of quantum phenom-
situation as someone who decides to buy something in a ena and psychological experiences are due to the fact
certain shop in a certain street. That person could have that they are sensitive to the placing of the partitions
decided to buy something else in another shop some- between system and instrument, and between conscious
where else. The salmon is not confronted with alter- content and "the background that we loosely refer to as
natives: it makes no choices. It has not, so to speak, 'ourselves.' " Only two sets of concepts are used to ac-
divided the world up. To Bohr, it was the fact that we count for quantum phenomena, while a personal pro-
have divided up the world, that we communicate with noun may be connected with a multitude of verbs refer-
each other by means of concepts, that separates us from ring to different contents of consciousness.
animals. It is primarily the ability to think in concepts, Bohr's general attitude was epistemolvgically oriented
or the possession of a language, that makes us human to an unusual degree. For him, the primary task was to
beings. Bohr even suggested that the adjective "human" obtain a survey of our situation based on objective de-
should be reserved for only those characteristics not di- scription. Yet he did not want to exclude any side of
rectly connected with bodily inheritance. As long as a existence, and he felt that from the viewpoint of com-
child has not yet learned to use concepts, it cannot, plementarity one could understand that there is room
strictly speaking, be regarded as a human being. Yet of for all features of our situation. Art shows us harmo-
course it is fundamentally different from animals be- nies beyond the scope of objective description. Bohr
cause it possesses the organic possibilities of receiving considered poetry, painting, and music to be means of
through education a culture that will enable it eventu- expression where a freer and freer display of fantasy is
ally to take its place in some human society. made possible by a greater and greater relaxation of
A child does not become a human being until it has definition. An object formed by nature and not by a
learned to talk. It can support a culture not only be- human hand cannot be called a work of art, since art is
cause its physiological background is sufficiently com- a human activity.
plex, but also because it possesses a means of commu- Bohr wanted to understand existence through insight
nication through which a culture can be implanted. I into the conditions of human life. It is by understand-
think it was Bohr's opinion that if any other animal had ing our conditions that we can overcome disharmony.
possessed the anatomical apparatus for talking and thus It was Buddha's insight into man's situation which gave
the ability to receive a culture, it would not be possible him the ability to console others. Bohr was an optimist.
beforehand to set limits for the extent to which culture "Nobody can deny," he said, "that we have a feeling of
could be supported by its physiological background. As being able to make the best of circumstances." His
he said, "The latent possibilities in any living organism view of life is beautifully illustrated by a little story he
are not easily fathomed." He did not think that there liked very much. Three Chinese philosophers came to-
is any connection between a man's genes and his so gether to taste vinegar, the Chinese symbol for the
called spiritual faculties such as intelligence and moral- spirit of life. The first philosopher, Confucius, drank of
ity or, in general, between his biological makeup and it. "It is sour," he said. The second, a philosopher of
his capacity to acquire a culture. Bohr thought that cul- Schopenhauer's bent, pronounced the vinegar bitter.
tures were like flowers in a field. The same field could Then Laotze tasted it an exclaimed, "It is fresh!"
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