The human brain has adapted to its environment in such a way as to be able to manipulate data in a highly refined manner. This adaption is tied to our sensory systems which have developed abilities to differentiate substance from form, text from context, particular from general.
These abilities have been developed and extended into our nervous system to the point where late-developing association areas of the brain make the abstract distinctions of objects (WHAT) and relationships (WHERE) applied within the distinctions of particular and general; we see the emergence of a general information management system free of sensory-specifics.
Furthermore, in the process of making the WHAT/WHERE distinctions the brain entangles these basic distinctions to give more complex distinctions, for example WHAT is particularised into WHO and WHICH, WHERE is particularised into WHEN and HOW. We can create meaningful complex states made-up of the superposition of WHAT (an object) and WHERE (a relationship) e.g. the word "PART" captures the essence of such a superposition.
From a Physics perspective this entanglement is akin to the concept of eigenstates, eigenstates being fundamental base states that are summed and so giving a description of a system. Thus the basic 'WHAT' and 'WHERE' are interpreted as eigenstates and any identification is a summing of these eigenstates; this summing also being labelled a superposition.
From a quantitative angle, the proportion of a basic state that forms part of the sum, or superposition, that describes the behaviour of a state is identified with the concept of an eigenvalue and the sum of all of these values within a particular system is identified with the term 'spectrum'; thus a spectrum encapsulates all of the eigenvalues for all of the eigenstates within a particular system; thus the refinement process applied to the base concept of 'WHAT' can be interpreted as the association of eigenvalues such that a 'WHAT' becomes a WHO combined with a 'WHERE' that is interpreted as the association of eigenvalues such that a 'WHERE' is expressed as a WHEN and this particular description is thus biased to WHO&WHEN.
This refinement process reflects energy levels where the 'ground state' is an eigenstate and eigenvalue symbolised by a general 'WHERE', and the refinement process, which requires energy to 'lift' a more intense identification 'out' of the concept of 'WHERE', gives us the more particular concept of WHEN. (We note here that to maintain a particular requires a degree of energy since we are trying to exagerate an aspect of a general, identifying a ONE in a pool of MANYs, an ACTUAL from a pool of POTENTIALS).
The emphasis on WHAT/WHERE shows a strong emphasis in the brain for EITHER/OR processing combined with the ability to create/identify BOTH/AND states. This emphasis leads us to the identification of a set of perspectives where EITHER/OR processing is particulars oriented and is more concerned with what WAS, what IS, what WILL BE, whereas BOTH/AND processing is generals oriented (when compared to the precision of particulars) and is concerned more with what COULD HAVE BEEN, what IS NOT, what COULD BE.
From a Physics perspective, EITHER/OR processing is linked more to explicit particle identification, as demonstrated in the double slit experiments in quantum mechanics where placing detectors flush to the slits will give us a pattern of particle detection favouring a very EITHER/OR perspective in that a particular EITHER went through slit A OR it went through slit B.
On the otherhand, BOTH/AND processing moves us to implicit particle identification and in doing so moves us into a realm of possibles, of potentials over actuals.
In this BOTH/AND 'world' we take a step back from the 'in your face' approach of detectors flush to the slits and in doing so shift away from that level of precision. We now place a 'film' a distance behind the slits such that whatever comes through the slits impacts with the film leaving a mark.
The relationship is now film to electron/photon gun with the slits bisecting that relationship and so forming a natural boundary, a dichotomy, between gun and NOT gun, aka film.
As we fire electrons/photons etc from the gun to the film via the slits, over time this exposure of film leads to the emergence of a pattern on the film where the marks 'favour' parts of the film over others; the pattern is in the form of a frequency distribution that looks like that created by wave interference.
As mentioned above, the world of BOTH/ANDness is a world of what COULD BE; a world of potentials and so probabilities. The film we use in the double slit experiments shows a history, we are seeing the accumulation of the past, something we do not get when we detect particles directly. This accumulation of the past, smeared out onto two dimensions (i.e. the film), is expressed in the form of (a) particular marks identifying a unique particle impacting the film at a specific moment (and so what WAS, an EITHER/OR perspective) and (b) a seemingly wave interference related pattern emerging out of the accumulation of particle hits. I suggest this reflects the bounds of what COULD BE (a BOTH/AND perspective) where the the longer the exposure the more pronounced the boundaries of the pattern.
Note that (a) is time specific and (b) is not. What I mean is that every point in (a) is linked to a specific moment in time, a PARTICULAR, whereas the emerging implied interference pattern in (b) is 'timeless'; it is a potential, a GENERAL, that is exposed by the particulars.
What this emerging pattern points to is the built-in nature of BOTH/ANDness and what has introduced the wave pattern is indeterminacy in that the changing of focus from explicit detection via detectors flush to the slits to implicit detection by viewing the film means we can no longer explicitly identify WHICH slit a particle went through and the patterns that emerge in the film suggest that the particles go through BOTH slits. This takes us immediately to BOTH/AND thinking where we have the A and ~A (slit A/ slit B passage) manifesting at the same moment.
However, this actual manifestation of A/~A at the same time is not necessarily the case since we can show that the METHOD of analysis, the combining of a dichotomy of LEFT_SLIT/RIGHT_SLIT with a state of UNKNOWN actually CREATES a pattern suggesting wave interference! The pattern comes out of the structure of the experiment which is itself determined by the rules of the METHOD of analysis in that we have moved from PRECISION to APPROXIMATIONS where PRECISION will give you a normal distribution curve (NDC) and APPROXIMATIONS will give you a cut down version of the NDC due to the interference of the UNKNOWN distinction.
Let us hold these ideas in mind for a moment and consider some other aspects of the world of BOTH/AND, namely paradox, such as the expression of A and ~A at the same time, as mentioned above. For our particulars-oriented thinking, where that mode of thinking favours EITHER/OR distinctions, we deal with paradoxical BOTH/AND states, by converting them to DYNAMIC EITHER/OR states expressed in the the form of mental oscillations. (e.g. "This sentence is false" is expressed as a sequence of TRUE-FALSE-TRUE-FALSE ad infinitum...)
From analysis of our sensory systems we can see this oscillation process at work. From the visual system we can identify this process when we introduce the experience of a Necker Cube where our BOTH/AND 'mind' sees a complex line drawing and our EITHER/OR 'mind' sees two cubes, first one and then the other, where these cubes oscillate. The dominance of the EITHER/OR mode of thinking is expressed in the difficulty one finds in trying to stay at the general level of only seeing a complex line drawing. this difficulty emphasises the movement FROM a general TO a particular.
These oscillations are not restricted to our visual system; there are elements of oscillations in our auditory system where our BOTH/AND 'mind' hears a complex sound but our EITHER/OR 'mind' hears a set of consonants:
"Most of the information in speech is carried in an acoustic entity called "formant transitions" which are formed principally during the pronunciation of vowels. If this information is presented to the left hemisphere, a consonant is heard. If it is presented to the right, a chirping tone is heard (which is what would be predicted strictly on the basis of the frequency contents). Moreover, if the frequency spectrum is continuously varied, the right hemisphere hears a changing complex tone[all aspects of the one -- dependencies bias], whereas the left hears a constant consonant up to a point at which it abruptly shifts to another consonant [analogous to integer 'jumps' - independent objects as in the Necker Cube experience]. Without going to far into the complex area of verbal acoustic spectra, it seems clear that the left hemisphere may be treating the auditory stimulus in a manner designed to provide special processing for the information-carrying aspects of speech" (Kent 1981, p218)
What we have identified here is a particular method of information processing that is sourced in our sensory systems and abstracted to being a method used in our thoughts. Furthermore we have noted that unlike Kent's comment re these sorts of processes being "in a manner designed [for speech] " they are more of a manner designed for particularisation and that INCLUDES speech.
Thus the EPR-related experiments in quantum mechanics take-on the same structure and so behaviours as our sensory systems simply because these experiments are extentions of our methods of analysis. The only difference is that the oscillation is over extended time when compared to our dealing with the Necker Cube oscillations.
All of our attempts find meaning fail to recognise (or refuse to recognise) that all meaning is determined by the METHOD of analysis; all the possible meaning states are pre-coded in the method. (see text on the template of meaning).