Ontology of Avulsion: Posthuman Freedom and Accidental Becoming Page: 67
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For Barad, the notion of time is performative. The experiment of the quantum eraser
further demonstrates time's performativity Emphasizing that an observer participates with the
becoming of material-semiotic agency, Barad observes that the becoming of such agency is
never permanent in time. The past is not that which is unchangeable, sedimented, but should be
understood to be in process:
the past was never simply there to begin with and the future is not simply what will
unfold; the "past" and the "future" are iteratively reworked and enfolded through the
iterative practices of spacetimemattering-including the which-slit detection and the
subsequent erasure of which-slit information- all are one phenomenon. There is no
spooky-action-at-a-distance coordination between individual particles separated in space
or individual events separated in time. Space and time are phenomenal, that is, they are
intra-actively produced in the making of phenomena; neither space nor time exist as
determinate givens outside of phenomena.'43
According to Barad, this radical quantum experiment demonstrates the degree to with
observation has an impact on the results. In a "which slit" experiment, researchers run electrons
through various slits to determine whether the electrons act as particles of waves. The
measurement demonstrates a pattern which indicates that the electrons operate as waves through
the slits. If a researcher designs the experiment in such a way that should determine which slit
the wave passed through, the results change. What is demonstrated is a pattern indicative of
particles having passed through both slits. The results of the experiment are contingent upon the
way in which the electrons are observed. When moving this experiment into the realm of time
with a "quantum eraser", these effects become even less intuitive. This eraser experiment splits
quantum particles into entangled pairs and has one entangled particle give results contingent
upon the researcher's ability to later determine what the second particle has done. The point here
is that the reality of what has occurred in the past is somehow contingent upon the observation of
that event by the researcher of the present. The traditional meaning of past/present is completely
143 Barad, Meeting the Universe Hatfway, 315.67
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Grossman, Jacob Wayne. Ontology of Avulsion: Posthuman Freedom and Accidental Becoming, dissertation, December 2021; Denton, Texas. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1873811/m1/73/: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; .