ψ-Wave Memory: Wave-Based Retention as a Pre-Metric Substrate of Physical, Embodied, and Semantic Persistence

This work introduces the concept of ψ-Wave Memory as a foundational retentive principle underlying persistence across physical, cosmological, embodied, and semantic domains. Rather than treating memory as storage, encoding, or information preservation, the paper proposes memory as retention of differential structure within wave dynamics. ψ-Wave Memory is defined as the intrinsic capacity of wave-based processes to retain relational difference across transformation, independently of stable geometry, material carriers, localization, or representational archives. The framework operates prior to metric space and remains applicable under collapse, turbulence, and discontinuity. By reframing memory as retention rather than state preservation, the paper provides a unified account of continuity of form, identity, and meaning across regimes where conventional storage-based models fail. ψ-Wave Memory is presented as a pre-metric, non-representational condition of persistence that grounds later physical, embodied, and semantic structures without reducing higher-level phenomena to physics.