[Alamo-Girl]

No, they are actually mutually exclusive (either-or). One wins, the other one loses. They eliminate each other.

The two sides of the coin remain complementary no matter which side you are facing.

That you, as the observer, can only face one side of the coin at a time (i.e. from tossing a coin) - is that which is mutually exclusive, you can only see either heads or tails.

This conversation itself is an excellent example of the perils of the observer problem. The coin observer probably realizes that the coin has two sides, one of which he cannot see while facing the other. But that insight is not always carried over to other issues - such as predestination v free will, Triune God, other doctrines/traditions, etc.

If-then is conditionally complementary. They re-informce each other.

No, "if then else" would be a conditional complementary. "If then" without the "else" does not preclude that anything which fails the "if" cause would not also have the same effect, "then".

For instance, I might say "if my husband is home then the air conditioner will be on." But that doesn't mean the air conditioner will be off if my husband is not home.

[kosta50]

What you are describing are events, or possibilities, in which the occurrence of one precludes the occurrence of the other. That is, by definition, mutually exclusive. At no time can you consider or see both sides, simultaneously, but either one or the other.

My contention is that the duality of the "coin" or the wave/particle models of radiant energy are human creations that do not reflect or complete the phenomena in nature as they truly are. So to speak of them as if they really provide complementary knowledge of how things truly are is a delusion no different than Aristotelian logic, or Ptolemy's navigational system.