A Rational Cosmology: Waves as Ontological Relationships

Current empiricist-positivist "science" often sports the grave ontological error of claiming that "all entities are in some degree particles and in some degree waves." Of course, in order for this statement to hold any ethos, both the speaker's and the listener's idea of what a wave is must be quite vague indeed, and certainly not examined with any extent of philosophical rigor.

It shall be apparent from the present treatise that, while a particle is indeed an entity, a wave is a relationship, and an entity cannot be a relationship in itself, and, though waves are many times observed to emanate from particles, they cannot ever be particles in themselves, nor achieve an existence independent from the entities that happen to emit them.

The broadest definition of a wave, which applies to the tides of the ocean and electromagnetic vibrations alike, is that of a periodic disturbance. This immediately begs the question: a disturbance -- of what?

A disturbance is by definition an action of some sort. Since only entities can be acted upon, a wave must be a disturbance of entities, be those entities water molecules, air molecules, or coils of a spring when the spring is rotated to bring about the occurrence of sine-like curves along its length.

Moreover, since only entities can act, waves can only be produced by entities. Waves are thus the action of certain entities to invoke a periodic disturbance within other entities. A loudspeaker may, for example, act to invoke a periodic disturbance in the air molecules of its vicinity, or a stream of air particles (known as "wind") may act to invoke a periodic disturbance in a large body of water molecules.

It may be recalled from "What the Universe is and is Not" that a relationship is defined as "an interaction between or among several entities that affects, in some manner, the qualities of these entities." A wave is precisely such an interaction, requiring an entity to originate, and affecting the positional qualities of other entities so that said qualities vary with time in a periodic and cyclical pattern.

Thus, a wave is indeed a relationship. More specifically, it is a relationship of certain entities inducing motion in others. A vibration of any object implies some manner of positional displacement in that object, and a periodic vibration implies a continuous and recurring pattern of displacement, i.e., a mode of motion easily subject to description by the model of Newtonian calculus discussed in prior essays.

Read other parts of "A Rational Cosmology" by clicking here.