Note on: Barad, K. (nd) On
touching — The Inhuman That Therefore I Am
(v1.1). Preprint, forthcoming in The
Politics of Materiality, S Wizgall and K
Stakemeir, replacing an earlier article
published in differences, 23 (3): 206 –
23, 2012. Online
https://www.diaphanes.net/titel/on-touching-the-inhuman-that-therefore-i-am-v1-1-3075
Dave Harris
Touching brings a sense of otherness, or 'an
uncanny sense of the otherness of the self, a
literal holding oneself at a distance' (1).
[Exaggerating a lot] 'an infinity of others… are
aroused'. Touch is an issue in all sorts of
disciplinary knowledge, politics and cultural
traditions — 'entangled tales… diffractively
threaded through and enfolded in the other' just
like touching itself..
Feminist science studies engage with science in
all sorts of ways, including 'immersion,
entanglement, visual authenticity, ciliated sense…
multisensory dance'. This makes it richly
inventive and also committed to a more just world.
It wants to be in science not above it or outside
it, and sometimes refers to scientific activity
that practitioners engage in themselves.
Theorising is also about being in touch, being
'responsible and responsive to the world's
patternings and murmurings'. The best ones do not
pronounce from an exterior position but see
themselves as 'living and breathing reconfigurings
of the world. The world theorises as well as
experiments with itself… Creatures do not nearly
embody mathematical theories; they do mathematics'
(2 ) or life strays from calculable paths, testing
the waters, 'doing thought experiments with their
very being'. Thought is not ' a disembodied or
uniquely human activity… All lifeforms (including
inanimate forms of liveliness) do theory', hence
the need to do collaborative research.
Touch 'is the primary concern of physics'.
Particles can sense each other through direct
contact or action at a distance, in fields.
Energy is exchanged and motion changed, but what
does this entail? What actually is pressure or
temperature and what is measurement?. If we ask
these questions, we can 'open up new possibilities
for thinking'. If we develop feminist science
studies in particular, we engage with the
'material–affective dimensions' in science,
avoiding determinism. Touch therefore becomes
something physical, virtual, affective, showing
its 'e-motion-ality'.
The usual view of touch in physics that says it is
'but an electromagnetic interaction' (3), and that
the usual notion of contact is misleading because
we can never bring into direct contact the
electrons in our hands and the electrons in an
object — touch is an 'effective electromagnetic
repulsion' (3), but 'see how far that story gets
you with lovers. No wonder the Romantic poets had
had enough'. Quantum touching is different, it is
'radically queer'.
QFT suspects that the existence of matter is
transient, that identity is to be deconstructed,
never equated with essence. It thus becomes 'a
call, an alluring murmur from the insensible
within the sensible to radically rework the nature
of being in time'. But the philosophy needs care,
but from within science. Clearly this article only
grazes the surface.
QFT is a different ontology, rejecting the
classical notion of particles in the void, even
the addition of fields as separate elements. These
are 'intra-related' (4) in QFT. For example
particles 'are quanta of the fields'. Particles
are related to the void in a radically new way —
they are 'constitutively entangled with it' so the
void is 'a living breathing indeterminacy of
non-/being… a jubilant exploration of virtuality',
where virtual particles are 'having a field day
performing experiments in being and Time…
Virtuality is a kind of thought experiment the
world performs'. There is no metaphysics of
presence, no actual existence in space and time.
In other words, 'virtual particles are quantised
indeterminacies–in–action'. [Barad 2016 is
better on this]
Troubling notions are everywhere and difficulties
persist in QFT, say on the nature of the electron
— the original ball model ran into difficulty
because there seemed to be no positive charge to
contain them. One proposal suggested that the
electron is 'an negatively charged point
particle', with no internal structure, no
distributed charges. However point particles
interacting with surrounding electromagnetic
fields would produce an infinite 'self–energy
contribution'. This was one of the issues that led
to quantum theory. However, infinity is
[theoretically] multiplied and this must now be
accepted, so that the particle and void are
inseparable. Self-energy takes place when an
electron exchanges a virtual photon with itself –
Feynman himself [and thers --see Notes] used
humanistic terms about emitting and absorbing its
photons as 'immoral' and later as 'perversions'
(5) [So this could be playful anthropomorphism
which she also adopts?]
This leads us to the argument that touching
oneself is also 'a moral violation', [must be a
Freudian hangup] causing trouble because the very
notion of 'identity is radically queered'. There
are also troubling implications, for example
whether the issue is not really 'the possibility
of touch touching itself', which is apparently
parallel to the electron emitting a photon, which
makes a positron–electron pair which then
annihilate each other creating a new photon which
can be reabsorbed by the electron. This is but one
of an infinite number of possibilities, because
the virtual photons can also intra-act with
themselves, vanish, get reabsorbed and so on. This
shows that there is 'an infinite set of
possibilities involving every possible kind of
interaction with every possible kind of virtual
particle… there is a virtual exploration of every
possibility', an infinite set of possibilities. We
can understand it as 'the particle touching
itself, and then that touching touching itself,
and so on… Self touching is an encounter with the
infinite alterity of the self… An unfolding, an
involution'. It is 'polymorphous perversity [sic]
raised to an infinite power' (6). This shows that
the self 'is dispersed/diffracted through time and
being'.
So this is perversity 'at the root of unwanted
infinity' and in QFT it has led to doubts about
the very possibility of calculability. Of course
it gets '"renormalised"'. In physics, we can
explain this in terms of invoking two sorts of
infinities or perversions — self touching and
nakedness. One infinity is associated with the
'"bare" point particle' as above. The point
particle and the void can be involved in
'systematic cancellation of infinities'. The bare
point cancels the infinity associated with a cloud
of virtual particles; the vacuum contributes
characteristics, dresses the electron. This is a
way of mathematically handling infinity as well,
subtracting one from another — 'a tour de force'
that is also 'a queer theorists delight' because
it shows that matter is 'a massive overlaying of
perversities: an infinity of infinities' [this
made me think of the gravity wave collapse theory
associated with Penrose. The maths involved might
be the one he refers to]. Whatever the
mathematics, however there is still no 'conceptual
cancellation. The infinities are not avoided'. It
is a way of physics reconstructing itself,
thinking of new configurations, and we can see
this as 'a sign that the theory is vibrant and
alive, not "sick"'.
So to summarise, QFT undoes the basic
ontology of particles and void, 'a foundational
reductionist essentialism'. The void is not empty
but awash with indeterminacies. Physical particles
interact with virtual particles in the void 'and
are thereby inseparable from it' there is an
'infinite plethora of alterities… constitutive
inclusions' (6--7). This radically undoes
identity. The perversities are intrinsic to the
theory. [But then the usual step…] 'Desire cannot
be eliminated from the core of being' (7).
Indeterminacy has 'incalculable effects on
mattering' and we should take these into account.
[And then a rash generalisation…] 'All touching
entails an infinite alterity, so that touching the
other is touching all others', self and strangers.
Even the smallest bits of matter are 'a
multitude' because each individual already
includes all possible intra-actions with itself.
We can agree with Derrida who says that identity
affirms itself by opening up the possibility of a
difference from itself — '"the stranger at home"'.
Individuals are always indebted to others, a
matter of giving and receiving. Derrida again
talks about self touching as not cancelling
alterity, which remains to haunt it. Radical
indeterminacy and openness matter, and are 'the
condition for the possibility of all structures'.
There is no closure except by taking into account
im/possibilities and indeterminacies.
Electrons can be seen to meet each other halfway
[geddit?] when they intra-ract. They show that all
material entities are entangled 'relations of
becoming', and even materiality itself is 'always
already touched by and touching infinite
configurations of other beings and other times'.
So matter is something it does, a matter of
response, 'condensations of respons-ability'. It
follows [for her] that 'each of "us"' is
constituted by this response – ability, [and then
a slip to the other meaning of responsible]'
responsible for the other, in touch with the
other' [she has nearly discovered sociology]
If we take quantum mechanics seriously we have to
challenge conventional thinking. There are no
discrete independent objects, but an entangled
realm, random connections might in fact be
correlations with other events elsewhere [ quoting
Greenstein and Zajonc --pass]. Nothingness
is threaded through all being/becoming. Matter is
'infinitely and infinitesimally shot through with
alterity' (8). We now need to focus on
'constitutive exclusions' [indeed — these happen
in the actual world], but we need to proceed by
'sensing the abyss' [of the infinite possibility]
in order to trouble our ordinary binaries. We need
to face the inhuman to develop a suitable ethics,
in order to understand our own inhumanity where we
lack compassion, 'facing the inhuman within us'in
order to develop feeling, care and response.
Levinas agrees that the self is at the root of
caring, even though he operates with 'conventional
notions of ethics' by staying with this human
problem. Derrida explains it as a responsibility
derived from the other. Another philosopher,
Lingis, argues that responsibility '"is
coextensive with our sensibility"', because it
exposes us to the outside. Barad wants to extend
this to 'the insensible as well as the sensible',
openings to the inside as well as the outside (9)
[another ontological colonisation really]. We need
to develop an ethics 'that is alive to the
virtual', recognising infinite indeterminacy,
nothingness, and hence 'the muted cries, and
silence that speaks of possibilities of justice to
come' [interestingly, note 24, page 14 says that
she finds herself experimenting with 'different
narrative registers' especially 'poetics as a mode
of expression' she sees this is not moving away
from thinking rigorously, but rather luring us to
'engaging the force of imagination in its
materiality'. Bacon himself talked about this. We
need imagination to sense the insensible and the
indeterminate, to appreciate and help us touch
'the imaginings of materiality itself in its
ongoing thought experiments'].
'"Entanglements are relations of obligation… to
the other"' (9) [quoting herself here from Quantum
Entanglements]. Ethics always includes
something other than self. We should not impose
human values on the world, however, but rather
expose ourselves to 'the Other'. This is not a
choice or a human obligation but '"an incarnate
relation that precedes the intentionality of
consciousness"', and already integral relation to
the world and its becoming — we have to open up
this worldly '"enabling of responsiveness"', but
first accepting otherness. 'Ethicality entails
hospitality to the stranger threaded through
oneself and through all being and non-/being' [a
massive undertaking, endless debt].
We need to focus on the inhuman and insensible,
the incalculable in order to see just what
responsibility entails. [We can see this as] 'a
cacophony of whispered screens, grasps, and cries
[from] an infinite multitude of indeterminate
beings'. We cannot shut this out or its
'irrationality… perversity… madness' in order to
achieve an orderly world. This is what makes an
orderly world possible, so indeterminacy 'is not a
lack, a loss, but an affirmation, a celebration of
the plenitude of nothingness' (10).
Back to a diffractive reading of Levinas by
Lingis, through another diffractive reading by
Zornberg [a lot of stuff about the background hum
of life, the need to acknowledge elemental
otherness including the earth. Zizek is worked in
here somewhere. Communion between people depends
on '"the capacity to draw on an elemental life
that is experienced as inhuman"' {Christianity
really}, so contact with the other is improved by
attending to the inhuman. Relationships with
others are a matter of also celebrating shared
impersonality]. The inhuman is not just a lack of
compassion but the very condition of possibility
of feeling, being in touch with the other, 'the
exchange of e-motion' in the binding obligations
of entanglements' [she has nearly discovered the
social again]. We have to reach out to 'the
insensible otherness'. Complete understanding or
empathy is not required, instead we must take
responsibility for 'the infinitude of the other,
welcoming the stranger… who gifts us both with the
ability to respond and the longing for
justice-to-come'.
[The endnote explains that this was a chance to
correct mistakes left in at proofreading made in
an earlier published essay in differences.
This is the official version]
In note 1, she expresses her 'virtual engagements
and entanglements with Derrida' after two
colleagues offered a materialist reading of his
work. Note 2 suggests a need to join 'with other
feminist and postcolonial theorists in troubling
the notion of touch as an innocent form of
engagement… A mutually consenting act between
individuals, free of culture, history and
politics' [ Anzaldua is one source for this]. Note
7 says that response – ability is rooted in
laboratory practice in Schrader, requiring fine
details — apparently these will resolve
controversial 'incompatible laboratory findings'[a
bit what she does with Feynman and the quantum
eraser experiment]. Note 8 says that 'measurements
[sic] is a form of touching', which initially
became problematic with Heisenberg's uncertainty
principle, now, replaced by the 'more fundamental
notion of quantum entanglement' which is a
contemporary expression of Böhr's
"indeterminacy principle"' it is this argument
that means touch takes the form of 'intra-actions
not interactions'. Note 9 explains that QFT
includes insights from special relativity, but its
philosophical implications 'are much less
explored' (12). Note 10 offers a fuller account of
science in a forthcoming book. She recommends one
of her own articles to introduce QFT — What Is
The Measure of Nothingness. Note 12 says
that Kaiser has also used moral terms to describe
quantum behaviour. Note 14 spells out some
additional pairings with virtual electrons. Note
15 discusses in a bit more detail the two kinds of
infinities, but says we have to acquire a
technical language to grasp this — 'I'm not making
up my own metaphorical terms to help make this
more accessible' (13). Note 18 points to the
'constituentive indeterminacy of being and time'
which she has not got time to develop. It denies
there is a binary between being and becoming, and
argues that all being- becoming is a
'superposition of all possible histories'. This
implies that time itself [restricts the
possibilities], while matter is 'always already a
dynamic field of matterings'. Both the metaphysics
of presence and the metaphysics of individualism
is deconstructed. Note 20 points out from her Quantum
Entanglements piece that 'the conditions of
possibility of mattering are also conditions in
possibility: interactions necessarily entail
constitutive exclusions' [but instead of focusing
on these, she says that they imply 'new reducible
openness. However when we become accountable for
phenomena we have to take constitutive exclusions
into account.
Note 21 says the inhuman is not the same as the
nonhuman, which is produced through the action of
particular cuts. The inhuman is 'an infinite
intimacy that touches the very nature of touch' a
space of indeterminacy that can 'inhabit the
between of particular entanglements'. Note 22
points out that some people say that Levinas
introduces 'racialised essentialism is into his
philosophy' (14). Note 24 we have discussed. Note
25 says she intends to 'develop the notion of the
queer inhuman'.
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