List of Dualities

• Ancient/Spiritual
  

1.Ouroubourous - The snake swallowing it's own tail has been depicted in various forms since antiquity. It most commonly is used to represent infinity or circular nature.


2.Yin Yang - Pretty much the universal symbol of duality. Yin yang is one of those pictures truly worth a thousand words: Light-dark; attraction-repulsion; flow-spin; male-female; etc... Yin yang is a cornerstone of philosophy

3.Caduceus - Symbol of medicine, the caduceus consists of two serpents coiled around a staff into a double helix. The caduceus Reoccurring in many ancient mythologies and religions.

• Mathematics & Geometry

4.Binary - The language of computers composes just two elements. Arbitrarily, we designate them as 1 or 0, but they can be any two points of reference, such as 'A' and 'B'


5.Parity - All numbers are said to be either even or odd, this is called parity. Irrational numbers like Pi are said to be odd, while others which are perfectly proportional and knowable are said to be even. Most of the problems in mathematics have to do with odd integers. Likewise directions also come in pairs. We may have up or down, left or right, in or out, etc...

6.Circle - a folded line (two points). To go up in terms of a circle is the same as going down and vice versa.The circle is Pi, perhaps the most important and fundamental constant or ratio in all of science and engineering. Pi is also a mystery. It's decimal notation (3.14159...) repeats to infinity with no apparent pattern. It is considered wholly irrational and all attempts to solve or decipher it have been met in failure.

7.Fibonacci sequence - Similar to the golden mean, the Fibonacci sequence is also related to the circle or Pi. At best, the sequence seems to be a kind of mathematical constant that explains how the radius or size of a circle increases as you go out, however, to most people it makes no sense and, additionally, has yet to be fully solved, it being another irrational number like Pi. The Fibonacci sequence represents itself as the following numbers: 0, , 1 , 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144.... In this way, every number in the sequence is the sum of the two numbers before it.

8.Golden Ratio - The golden ratio is the proportion between the numbers in the Fibonacci Sequence. As best we can estimate, the proportion or ratio between any two numbers in a Fibonacci sequence is about equal 1.6180339887. Since both are reflected on or have to do with the circle (Pi) then that makes them very useful and important numbers or ratio's. To give an example, consider the sunflower at right. The sunflower can be mathematically described using Pi, the Golden ratio, and the Fibonacci Sequence. None of this is very difficult for anyone to compute or figure out, so there is a kind of inerrant beauty and simplicity in the proportions in addition to their unknown or chaotic proportion.

• Physiology

9.Left Brain, Right Brain - There are two cerebral hemispheres which are distinctly different from each other with different capabilities. Each hemisphere rules or controls either the left or right side of the body, such as a person being left or right handed and is capable of doing different things. Generally, one side is said to be more logical while the other is more abstract, such as a person being either good at mathematics or language, but generally not both. This further equates to division in the body, being that you have 2 eyes, 2 armbs, 2 thumbs, etc... The path of the nervous system and all it's functions is divided and runs paralell down opposite sides of the body, effectively linking each hemisphere with control over either the left or right side of the body in turn.


10.DNA - Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is composed of two spirals forming what's called a double helix. The coded information that composes it's structure and parts is the instructions for life. Without those instructions in every cell in your body, you would not be able to function. DNA is like a road map for living that makes life possible in the first place, it being responsible for the growth and maintenance of the cells that make up life on Earth. It is extremely complex and was only discovered about 50 years ago and only began to be decoded within the last decade. Due to the large amount of information contained within this very tiny structure within your body, it ended up taking a long time to decode, even with using computers.

• Physics:

11.Electromagnetism - In electromagnetism, we still have the two basic principles. Physics may seem complex to many, but a lot of the reason for people think that, I think, is that most of the time physics is poorly explained in clear, rational terms, like what I have attempted in this list of phenomena. Everything on this list is complex and mysterious. It is also very practical knowledge in that it is fundamental and can be presented in simple terms.


Like Binary or Yin Yang, the oposites or polars of electromagnetism are only arbitrarily designated. In physics we may call them positive (+) and negative (-) but the terms are not mutually exclusive and we could easily substitute any two duality variables, such as ab or 01, and the equations would still work. That's basically because the equations are not describing something foreign from everything so far but rather they lead to a deeper understanding of life or the universe in general.

Physics is so esteemed then not necessarily because it's any more right or correct than any other theory, idea, religion, etc... of duality, but instead because it has produced such a great quantity of information about duality.

For example, In Electromagnetic research we have discovered:

-The electric field is the dual of the magnetic field.
-The electric displacement field is the dual of the magnetizing field.
-Faraday's law is the dual of Ampere's law.
-Gauss's law for electric field is the dual of Gauss's law for magnetism.
-The electric potential is the dual of the magnetic potential.
-Permittivity is the dual of permeability.
-Piezoelectricity is the dual of magnetostriction.
-Ferroelectricity is the dual of ferromagnetism.
-An electrostatic motor is the dual of a magnetic motor;
-Electrets are the dual of permanent magnets;
-The Faraday effect is the dual of the Kerr effect.

This is just a brief list of some of the information available through and by physics. In this way science is really just an effective means of gathering and recording information. For this reason, many believe that science should never be used as an ideology. They say it is strictly a tool to use for the mind, and shouldn't be associated with the heart as is instead more the job of a philosophy or religion.

12.Wave Particle - Is it a wave or a particle?

"Orthodox interpretations of quantum mechanics explain this ostensible paradox as a fundamental property of the Universe, while alternative interpretations explain the duality as an emergent, second-order consequence of various limitations of the observer.[1]" 


Wave particle duality is the notion or fact that all matter and energy within the knowable universe appears to behave both as a wave an a particle. According to the Heisenberg principle for though, an object such as an atom cannot be viewed simultaneously as both a wave and a particle; When we look through a telescope, we only see one or the other. It's as if the atom can take on two forms or natures, but only one at a time. Heisenberg was the first person to experimentally confirm this, hence why we name it after him, "The Heisnberg Principle."

If a tree falls in a forest, and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?



As a result of the Heisenberg principle, much speculation has come about. Perhaps the most famous reply to the Heisenberg principle, is the philosophical thought experiment called Schrodinger's cat. The main, but not the only, idea or concept Shrodinger's cat implies that since the wave and the particle cannot be viewed simultaneosly, as according to the physics of Heisenberg, then the very act of observation or consciousness (Being aware) is what commands the Electromagnetic wave to either become a wave or a particle. The conclusion was arrived at through logic, and most people, scientists included, accept it as a fact that we don't yet fully understand. However this hasn't stopped people making it known, hence it being somewhat famous. Presently, the idea that consciousness or conscious observation affect reality as according to Heisnberg is a foundation of philosophy and was/is a core idea of many works, fads, and projects including the "Secret", Buddhism or New age and religion in general, and the movie, book, and series, "What the bleep do we know?!" just to name a few.


13.Chaos Theory - Chaos theory is like the study of the whole in relation to it's parts; the study of systems. Chaos theory attempts to look at the relationships between objects to determine what effects they might have or cause within the system. For example, perhaps you've heard of it's other name, The Butterfly Effect:


"If a butterfly flaps it's wings in China, can it cause a tornado in the U.S?"

The Lorenz attractor is the relationship(s) between two particles. When we attempt to study this in science, computer models like the one at right, present us with something that resembles the wings of a butterfly.

The idea is that any disturbance within a system, no matter how small, has the potential to affect the system on a whole, due to wave nature, via it potentially being the cause or originator in a chain reaction. If you remember back to the circle and Fibonacci sequence, the value of any number in the sequence is the value of the two numbers before it. This is a kind of multiplication that looks a lot like, and is thought to be given  the immense evidence, a description of wave's or wave nature. 


If it wasn't already complex enough, our defining of chaos theory has now led us to a potential data barrier. Essentially, this just means that Chaos is another word for unknown variable. Because it's unknown, it's also unpredictable, hence a butterfly could potentially cause a tornado if the conditions were just right. In the study of systems on the whole, chaos or the unknown variables represent themselves into a kind of "weird-ed" out or messed up pattern, just like Pi or the Golden ratio. We can almost make out familiar circles, but when we attempt to measure and collect the data we fail miserably.

14.mind-body dualism 

Mind body dualism is a branch of philosophy concerned with linking and explaining the relationship(s) between mind and body. Sub categories also include: consciousness

Substance dualism - asserts that mind and matter are fundamentally distinct kinds of substances.
Property dualism suggests that the ontological distinction lies in the differences between properties of mind and matter
Predicate dualism -claims the irreducibility of mental predicates to physical predicates

Notable Mention:
Space-Time
Matter-Anti Matter
Electric magnetic
Light & Dark
The "force" in Star wars

Does it look familiar?

To me it looks like one half part of the yin yang symbol.