(All “elementary particles” are packaged ignorance.) Aristotle’s “pairs” where one process is always the privation of another, were also familiar to the Chinese sage Wang Gu (A.D. 90-165): “Poverty arises from wealth, weakness derives from power / Order engenders disorder, and security insecurity.” That is, affluence breeds poverty… just as matter creates space (not void). Such complementarity of figure-ground appears as a causal relation in all “prepackaged” processes. Complementarity is the process whereby effects become causes.
“Symposium” (1973), p 111
Year: 1973
Chapters:
Complementarities | Science
↪ Also at #1224
Compiled by William Kuhns
© 2026, The Estate of Marshall McLuhan
© 2026, The Estate of Marshall McLuhan