Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and MeaningMeeting the Universe Halfway is an ambitious book with far-reaching implications for numerous fields in the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. In this volume, Karen Barad, theoretical physicist and feminist theorist, elaborates her theory of agential realism. Offering an account of the world as a whole rather than as composed of separate natural and social realms, agential realism is at once a new epistemology, ontology, and ethics. The starting point for Barad’s analysis is the philosophical framework of quantum physicist Niels Bohr. Barad extends and partially revises Bohr’s philosophical views in light of current scholarship in physics, science studies, and the philosophy of science as well as feminist, poststructuralist, and other critical social theories. In the process, she significantly reworks understandings of space, time, matter, causality, agency, subjectivity, and objectivity. In an agential realist account, the world is made of entanglements of “social” and “natural” agencies, where the distinction between the two emerges out of specific intra-actions. Intra-activity is an inexhaustible dynamism that configures and reconfigures relations of space-time-matter. In explaining intra-activity, Barad reveals questions about how nature and culture interact and change over time to be fundamentally misguided. And she reframes understanding of the nature of scientific and political practices and their “interrelationship.” Thus she pays particular attention to the responsible practice of science, and she emphasizes changes in the understanding of political practices, critically reworking Judith Butler’s influential theory of performativity. Finally, Barad uses agential realism to produce a new interpretation of quantum physics, demonstrating that agential realism is more than a means of reflecting on science; it can be used to actually do science. |
From inside the book
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Page 4
... question - why Heisenberg went to see Bohr in 1941 - is the focal point of a recent Tony Award - winning play that considers the controversy surrounding this fateful meeting . The play doesn't resolve the controversy ; on the contrary ...
... question - why Heisenberg went to see Bohr in 1941 - is the focal point of a recent Tony Award - winning play that considers the controversy surrounding this fateful meeting . The play doesn't resolve the controversy ; on the contrary ...
Page 6
... question can be approached , two prior issues must be addressed . First of all , there is an important sense in which the question is not well defined . The interpretative issues in quantum physics ( i.e. , questions related to what the ...
... question can be approached , two prior issues must be addressed . First of all , there is an important sense in which the question is not well defined . The interpretative issues in quantum physics ( i.e. , questions related to what the ...
Page 7
... question to Bohr hangs in the air throughout Copenhagen . But for its playwright , Michael Frayn , this moral question is a side issue . The one that really interests him is the metaethical question of how it is possible to make moral ...
... question to Bohr hangs in the air throughout Copenhagen . But for its playwright , Michael Frayn , this moral question is a side issue . The one that really interests him is the metaethical question of how it is possible to make moral ...
Page 8
... questions of the playwright's motivations . ) The stakes are these . The controversy about the matter of Heisenberg's intentions in visiting Bohr in Nazi - occupied Copenhagen in 1941 has never been settled . Indeed , the question about ...
... questions of the playwright's motivations . ) The stakes are these . The controversy about the matter of Heisenberg's intentions in visiting Bohr in Nazi - occupied Copenhagen in 1941 has never been settled . Indeed , the question about ...
Page 14
... question of moral judgment and accountability ? Frayn makes another important move in the final draft that can perhaps shed further light on this key question . In the final draft , Frayn drives home the point that he sets out to make ...
... question of moral judgment and accountability ? Frayn makes another important move in the final draft that can perhaps shed further light on this key question . In the final draft , Frayn drives home the point that he sets out to make ...
Contents
Meeting the Universe Halfway | 39 |
Diffractions Differences Contingencies and Entanglements That Matter | 71 |
Niels Bohrs PhilosophyPhysics Quantum Physics and the Nature of Knowledge and Reality | 97 |
Agential Realism How MaterialDiscursive Practices Matter | 132 |
Getting Real Technoscientific Practices and the Materialization of Reality | 189 |
Spacetime Reconfigurings Naturalcultural Forces and Changing Topologies of Power | 223 |
Quantum Entanglements Experimental Metaphysics and the Nature of Nature | 247 |
The Ontology of Knowing the Intraactivity of Becoming and the Ethics of Mattering | 353 |
Cascade Experiment | 397 |
The Uncertainty Principle Is Not the Basis of Bohrs Complementarity | 399 |
Controversy concerning the Relationship between Bohrs Principle of Complementarity and Heisenbergs Uncertainty Principle | 402 |
Notes | 405 |
References | 477 |
| 493 | |
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agencies of observation analysis apparatus argue atom bodies Bohr Bohr's Bohr's account boundaries brittlestar Butler causal chapter classical physics complementarity concepts constituted Copenhagen interpretation crucial culture determinate device differential diffraction diffraction grating discursive practices discussion dynamics Einstein electron enacted entail entangled entities epistemological ethics example fact feminist Foucault Frayn gedanken experiment gender Haraway Heisenberg human important indeterminacy individual inherent interaction interference pattern interpretation intra-actions issue iterative material material-discursive matter meaning measurement ment metaphysical microscope momentum nature Niels Bohr nonhuman notion object ongoing ontological optics particle particular performative phenomena phenomenon philosophical physicists position possible posthumanist preexisting production properties quantum entanglement quantum eraser experiment quantum mechanics quantum physics quantum theory question reality reconfiguring relations representationalism result reworking role Schrödinger science studies scientific practices sense separate slit social space spatial specific spin superposition tion uncertainty principle understanding wave function wave-particle duality which-path information