Beyond the Einstein-Bohr Debate: Cognitive Complementarity and the Emergence of Quantum Intuition

Lalit Kumar Shukla

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arXiv · 2601.15314

Beyond the Einstein-Bohr Debate: Cognitive Complementarity and the Emergence of Quantum Intuition

Lalit Kumar Shukla

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Abstract

Recent high-precision experimental confirmations of quantum complementarity have revitalized foundational debates about measurement, description, and realism. This article argues that complementarity is most productively interpreted as an epistemic principle--constraining what can be simultaneously accessed and represented--rather than as an ontological claim about quantum reality. Reexamining the Einstein-Bohr debate through this lens reveals a persistent tension between descriptive completeness and contextual meaning, a tension experiments clarify but do not dissolve. Building on this analysis, we introduce cognitive complementarity as a structural principle governing reasoning under non-classical uncertainty, where mutually constraining representations cannot be jointly optimized. Within this framework, we propose quantum intuition as a testable cognitive capacity: the ability to sustain representational plurality, regulate commitment timing, and resolve perspective-incompatibilities in a context-sensitive manner. Formulated as a naturalistic construct grounded in shared informational constraints, quantum intuition offers a principled bridge between quantum measurement theory and cognition. This work reframes the historical debate, extends epistemic lessons from quantum foundations into cognitive science, and outlines empirical pathways for studying decision-making in contexts of irreducible uncertainty.

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Lalit Kumar Shukla. 2026-01-15. Beyond the Einstein-Bohr Debate: Cognitive Complementarity and the Emergence of Quantum Intuition. https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.15314

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