Beyond Wave-Particle Duality: An Ontological Distinction Between Energy and Interaction

Wave-particle duality has remained, for more than a century, an unresolved logical problem. Einstein transferred the contradiction into the concept of the photon; the orthodox interpretation deferred it as "complementarity." This article proposes an ontological reinterpretation: what moves as a particle is energy (concentrated at a point); what spreads and interferes is interaction (distributed in space). They are two distinct entities, not two aspects of the same entity. This distinction dissolves the ontological enigmas of duality — retrocausality, destructive interference, and superposition — without abandoning the confirmed equations of the quantum method. The collapse of measurement, following (Flor, 2026a), is dissolved as a characteristic of the probabilistic method. Under the demarcation framework of (Flor, 2026h), the classical formulation of duality violates the non-negotiable pillar of logical consistency; the proposed distinction restores it and occupies the legitimate antechamber of scientific speculation, awaiting the experimental test proposed in Section 10. The proposal connects to the field-medium model (Flor, 2026l), where c is a local property of the field resulting from interactions. The onset of interaction is not limited by c; only its peak is. This produces a falsifiable prediction and the honest acknowledgment that the proposal implies, in principle, the possibility of superluminal transmission of information. The article is programmatic: it dissolves the logical paradox, proposes an experimental test, and defers the quantitative reconstruction of the quantum formalism and the definition of the nature of light to future articles. A note on the originality of the distinction is included in the introduction.