Throughout these last few decades, phenomenology and modern physics have slowly started to approach each other in order to bridge the gap between subjective and objective. In this thesis I aim to show an approach done with the help of Karen Barad's agential realism; a quantum interpretation enabling us to better understand and analyse our complex world, as well as our perception of it. Taking inspiration from new materialism, phenomenology, and physics, I see a need to properly leave discrete dualism (...) behind, in order to be able to describe cultural and material structures as continuous manifolds. Instead of endlessly searching for their binary and changeless parts. (shrink)

Calculus is seen as describing continuous functions through the act of breaking them down to the smallest possible parts, suggesting that the whole is only an aggregation of its parts. But modern science has demanded the creation of new kinds of measurements, where the deterministic rules of classical physics cease to exist and we can no longer see the individual member parts as sole explanations towards the continuity of the whole. There is a duality between states of dis/continuous being, and (...) we seem to be doomed to only see the measured discontinuous version grounded in our own objectivity. But can the knowledge of this duality maybe help us better understand the social consequences of our world’s massively intraconnected social order? With the infrastructure of modern trade, seemingly instant communication possibilities, and newly created tribes numbering beyond what we thought possible; we have created a world that seem to defy our preconceptions of what social groups and responsibility means. Using agential realism and its groundbreaking insights into quantum philosophy with the idea of complementarity, I think we can start to understand these new states of being, and with it bring about a better grasp of the ethics that are an intrinsic part of all. Setting a foundation for how we can understand the duality of groups and individuals across all areas of our world, seeing complementarity as the grounding state of un/certain objectivity. (shrink)

Within the interdisciplinary field of new materialism Karen Barad’s theory of agential realism deconstructs our current euro-western metaphysical perception of the world and our existence within it, to then re-build an understanding based on relatively new findings within quantum physics. In this thesis I try to recreate Barad’s theory to see what ethical consequences might come from it. Together with practical examples within the discourse of today’s social world and our global connectedness I hope to create a better understanding of (...) the impact of our actions and being on our culture and what we call the natural world. Removing the unique agency given to human culture and language to instead, with the help of post-humanistic ideas, add agency as a universal enactment rather than an attribute, we should start to see ourselves as active and real parts of the world-building that is our home. One main question that I see arise in the end is: what does responsibility entail when we all are one and the same? (shrink)