[spunkets]

"The most "ultimate" secret being its life "principle" (for lack of a better word) -- which cannot under any experimental conditions be revealed to direct observation, for the reasons Bohr gives in the immediately above (i.e., if you go looking, sooner or later you kill the specimen; and the dead cannot speak of the living)."

Bohr's consideration says no more than if you disassemble a machine, it no longer works. The important point to note in this regard is that the components of the machine can be all noted, along with their configuration. A simple thought experiment, where the components are assembled mentally into the same configuration, results in an object that can only be found to be identical to the original. Thus it is the same life as the original. Bohr should have noted that his dissection was reversible.

[betty boop]

Bohr's consideration says no more than if you disassemble a machine, it no longer works. The important point to note in this regard is that the components of the machine can be all noted, along with their configuration.

Yeah, sure, spunketts: The components of a machine can be all noted, along with their configuration. But to know all that provides no basis of explanation for the machine when it is actually working. And that, I imagine, is Bohr's point.

You wrote:

A simple thought experiment, where the components are assembled mentally into the same configuration, results in an object that can only be found to be identical to the original. Thus it is the same life as the original. Bohr should have noted that his dissection was reversible.

All I can say by way of reply to this is, the second law of thermodynamics rules out "reversibility" in such a case. You can do it as a thought experiment; but you can't do it "in the real world."

Bohr is an enormously subtle (some would say frustrating) thinker. I find him enormously challenging, and consider his scientific epistemology -- summed up under the principle of complementarity -- revolutionary, not to mention just what the human mind needs right now to "break the gridlock" of doctrinal thinking, scientific, philosophical, and theological.

Thanks so much for writing, spunketts!