ABSTRACT
Complementarity is a heady notion. It seems to signal some elevated perspective where contradictions can be tolerated, or even merged into a harmony that transcends common sense. Such overcoming of apparent contradictions has long been attempted, or at least signaled in various ways: Jung’s Ouroboros symbolized by a snake swallowing its own tail; Zen contemplation of one hand clapping; Escher’s paintings of hands drawing each other or of simultaneously ascending and descending stairs; the Penrose triangle, which looks right until one tries to trace the sides and finds one too many; Breton’s surrealistic ideal of blending the real and the dream world into one seamless image; Magritte’s picture of a pipe with the inscription, “Ceci n’est pas une pipe”; and even Dickens’s observation, “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times”: all use some sort of contradiction as a stepping stone to a higher truth.
