The term 'wave' occupies a surprisingly rich and varied position across the depth-psychology corpus, operating simultaneously as a physical concept imported from quantum mechanics, a metaphysical analogy for mind-body relations, a mythological image of chthonic power, and a technical marker in longitudinal research design. The most philosophically consequential deployments appear in McGilchrist and Simondon, where wave-particle duality serves as a model for understanding how continuity and discreteness, union and division, can coexist within a single phenomenon — a move with direct implications for theories of consciousness, individuation, and the hemispheric architecture of the brain. For McGilchrist, the wave-particle dyad represents the fundamental ontological situation of a universe that is, at its base, fields rather than particles, with discrete things arising from continuous underlying process. Simondon's engagement is more technically demanding, working through de Broglie's double-solution theory to argue that wave and corpuscle are 'two realities equally and simultaneously given in the object' rather than mere complementary appearances. Pauli adds the epistemological register, linking wave phenomena to the principle of complementarity and the irreducible interference of the observer. In Hillman, the wave appears mythologically as the sea-surge that delivers Poseidon's bull — sublime, irruptive, bearing the force of the underworld into human affairs. Across these registers, wave figures the interpenetration of the continuous and the discrete, the formless and the formed.
In the library
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Wave and particle are two modes of being of the same field phenomenon: this makes possible the coming together of union and division, of continuity (the wave) with discreteness (the particle) within a single uniting phenomenon (the field).
McGilchrist argues that wave and particle are not opposing realities but dual expressions of a single continuous field, using this to model the ontological coexistence of union and division.
McGilchrist, Iain, The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World, 2021thesis
Wave and particle are two modes of being of the same field phenomenon: this makes possible the coming together of union and division, of continuity (the wave) with discreteness (the particle) within a single uniting phenomenon (the field).
McGilchrist identifies the wave-particle duality as a model for how continuity and discreteness are reconciled within a unifying field, with broad implications for depth-psychological ontology.
McGilchrist, Iain, The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions and the Unmaking of the World, 2021thesis
a helpful analogy for the relationship I believe I see between mind and brain might be the relationship of a wave to water. The wave exists in the water: that's what we mean by a wave. Does the water cause the wave? No.
McGilchrist proposes the wave-to-water relation as an analogy for mind-brain identity, where the wave neither causes nor is caused by water but simply is the water's movement — thereby circumventing naive causal accounts of consciousness.
McGilchrist, Iain, The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World, 2009thesis
the wave-corpuscle duality would not at all be the apprehension of two 'complementary facets of reality' in the sense that Bohr gives this expression, but instead the apprehension of two realities equally and simultaneously given in the object.
Simondon argues, against Bohr's complementarity, that wave and corpuscle are simultaneously real aspects of the same individual rather than mutually exclusive observational perspectives.
Simondon, Gilbert, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020thesis
the wave would therefore serve as a means of energy exchange between the corpuscle and the screen's edge. In this interpretation, the u wave with its mobile singularity
Simondon elaborates de Broglie's quantum potential, showing how the wave mediates energy exchange between corpuscle and environment, functioning as an ontological intermediary rather than a mere probability distribution.
Simondon, Gilbert, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020supporting
To clarify this relation of the wave and the corpuscle, Louis de Broglie has resorted to a critique of the concept of corpuscles such as it is used by physicists, and he opposes two conceptions of the corpuscle.
Simondon traces de Broglie's foundational critique of the classical corpuscle concept as the starting point for rethinking the wave-corpuscle relation in terms of individuation.
Simondon, Gilbert, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020supporting
the electrons in atoms are probability fields. When this aspect of electrons first became known was unclear. What are probabilities? Probabilities are dimensionless numbers, ratios of numbers. Probability waves are empty and carry no mass or energy, just information on numerical relations.
Ponte and Schafer introduce probability waves as information-bearing but massless fields, linking quantum wave-nature to Jung's concept of a psychoid layer of reality structured by numerical/informational patterns.
Ponte, Diogo Valadas; Schafer, Lothar, Carl Gustav Jung, Quantum Physics and the Spiritual Mind: A Mystical Vision of the Twenty-First Century, 2013supporting
the indetermination of the corpuscle's positions, which can be revealed to be present in any point whatsoever of the region occupied by the wave with a probability proportionate to the square of the wave's amplitude in this point.
Simondon presents Born's probability interpretation of wave amplitude as the mathematical expression of ontological indeterminacy, central to understanding physical individuation.
Simondon, Gilbert, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020supporting
light possesses properties describable only by means of the wave picture, as well as others describable only by the particle picture. Among the former are the phenomena of interference and diffraction
Pauli establishes the irreducible complementarity of wave and particle descriptions for light, grounding the philosophical significance of the wave concept in the logic of quantum observation.
Pauli, Wolfgang, Writings on Physics and Philosophy, 1994supporting
Fresnel supposed that vibrations in light waves are transversal, i.e. occur perpendicularly to the direction of propagation. Polarization and double refraction are both explained with this insight.
Simondon reviews Fresnel's transversal wave hypothesis as an early instance of the theoretical power of the wave model to unify disparate optical phenomena under a single principle.
Simondon, Gilbert, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020supporting
We saw a wave appear a miracle wave … To the shore it came, swelling, boiling, crashing … But at the very moment when it broke, the wave threw up a monstrous savage bull.
Hillman invokes the mythological wave from Euripides's Hippolytus as the sublime vehicle of Poseidon's bull — the wave here figures as the threshold between underworld power and human fate.
it is possible to pass from the most penetrating gamma rays to the longest waves of wireless telegraphy. The knowledge of the unity and diversity of this phenomenon, which is thoroughly spread out on a numerical scale, is one of the most noteworthy successes of this transductive method
Simondon cites the electromagnetic spectrum as evidence of wave-theory's transductive power, demonstrating continuous unity beneath radical empirical diversity.
Simondon, Gilbert, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020supporting
those who returned for the Wave 2 assessment exhibited a higher level of optimism, lower levels of anxiety and negative affect, and fewer causal words in their narratives
Dunlop uses 'Wave' in its standard longitudinal-research sense to denote a second assessment point, with no metaphorical or philosophical valence.
Dunlop, William L., Sobering Stories: Narratives of Self-Redemption Predict Behavioral Change and Improved Health Among Recovering Alcoholics, 2013aside
redemptive and nonredemptive participants were essentially indistinguishable at Wave 1, in terms of demographics, personality, health, alcohol dependence, and recovery program involvement
Dunlop uses 'Wave 1' as a longitudinal measurement marker; contextually irrelevant to the term's depth-psychological significance but noted as a distinct register of use.
Dunlop, William L., Sobering Stories: Narratives of Self-Redemption Predict Behavioral Change and Improved Health Among Recovering Alcoholics, 2013aside