Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning Book

This is one of the greatest philosophical books I have ever read. Karen Barad draws on figures such as Judith Bulter, Donna Haraway, and Michel Foucault to investigate the ontological implications of the insights in quantum physics of Niels Bohr. She argues for a completely new way of looking at the world, which she calls "agential realism," where the relationship preexists and constitutes the relata. Subject and object (or rather, the "agencies of observation" and the "object of observation") are not independently existing individuals, but exists on in their "intra-action." Barad criticizes the metaphysics of individualism, which is responsible for problematic representationalist and humanist presuppositions, while reconceptualizing notions such as causality, agency, objectivity, and responsibility.

The most fascinating aspect of the book is its emphasis on ethics. Although "ethics" is mentioned only a few times in the whole book, a major goal of the book is to rework responsibility and obligation (which can no longer involve a relation to a radically exteriorized "other"). Her ontology makes ethics a pervasive aspect of life. Indeed, she characterizes her work as a form of ethico-onto-epistem-ology, claiming that the three cannot be disentangled.

This book deals extensively with difficult issues in quantum physics, especially on the difference and incompatibility between (and the ontological implications of) Bohr's complementarity and Heisenberg's uncertainty. The most interesting part for me, someone with little physics background, was the discussion of the quantum eraser experiment, which is truly mind-blowing.