THE PARTY LINE By Dennis D. Gagnon Is Light a Particle? Some say light is a wave. Some say it is composed of individual particles. Some say it is both. In this post we will look at the logical structure of the historical argument for light being a particle as put forward by Albert Einstein as based upon the photoelectric effect. (My last blog, published yesterday, looked at the historical argument from Thomas Young that light is a wave, as…..
THE PARTY LINE By Dennis D. Gagnon Is Light a Wave? Some say light is a wave. Some say it is composed of individual particles. Some say it is both. In this post we will look at the logical structure of the historical argument for light being a wave as put forward by Thomas Young based upon his Split-Beam experiment. A passage from my book, The Party Line, discussing Young’s experiment is: “Young took a beam of light passing through…..
THE PARTY LINE By Dennis D. Gagnon Cover Design The Yin-Yang motif for the cover design of The Party Line was designed by me and created by a young artist by the name of Mina Schwind. I think she did a great job. The bird in the Yin half of the circle is a phoenix and the Yang animal is a dragon. The phoenix symbolizes the reemergence of the human spirt, arising from the ashes of global suffering. The dragon represents…..
THE PARTY LINE By Dennis D. Gagnon In a later chapter of the book, a character referred to as “Sage” makes the comment when discussing human suffering that “most consciousnesses are practically filled to the brim with nothingnesses.” What does this mean, and how does it bear upon human suffering? Though I won’t go into the full details here, in the book Sage is making the point that most if not all of our objects of desire don’t really exist…..
THE PARTY LINE By Dennis D. Gagnon From the book: “Maybe God is not the sort of thing you find at the end of an argument.” This is a thought by the narrator occasioned by a deep discussion about arguments for and against God’s existence with a young female acquaintance while walking on the beach. The two just finished discussing God’s existence and free will, when the narrator has this thought. In particular, the acquaintance and the narrator have just…..
THE PARTY LINE By Dennis D. Gagnon How Do We Demonstrate That We Have Free Will? There will probably never be an adequate argument demonstrating that we exercise free will. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have free will. The best we can hope for in terms of argumentation is the demonstration that every argument against free will is also inadequate. Actually the only way to demonstrate our free will is to exercise it! Read more by purchasing The…..
About the Book An elderly man reflects back to 1971 when, as an adventurous youth of seventeen years, he discovered a realm of unconscious, extrasensory communication—revealing a world filled with gods! The youth explores an aethereal realm inhabited by a monster, a ghost, dragons locked in eternal conflict, a phoenix, spiritual teachers, and perhaps a goddess or two. In a series of ill-planned probes into the nether world, the youth manages to ensnare his dear friend in an ongoing conflict…..
Graphical illustrations were created by and presented with the permission of Mina Schwind.
