Snapshot of a quantized body: Learning from the Daoist body

Abstract

In Snapshots from Home, Karin Fierke calls for radically repositioning the apparatus through which we interpret the world, inviting us to bridge the seemingly insurmountable chasm between quantum science and ancient Asian thought and practice to think about a more Global International Relations. Specifically, we are daringly tasked to consider how the ‘weird’ mathematics of quantum physics and science is paralleled by deeply relational ancient non-Western systems of knowledge. Fierke’s starting point is Bohr’s wholistic quantum physics but her main interest and focus is a deep reflection on its broad similarities with Buddhism, Hinduism and Daoism. Considering the parallels Fierke draws between the relational frames of quantum science and Daoism in the context of a raving pandemic, I feel challenged to bring the body into the conversation. How does Fierke’s apparatus prompt us to think and act ethically in relation to the emerging postgenomic body arising from recent advances in microbiology including quantum microbiology ? It is a permeable body that is deeply quantum entangled in and with the natural and social-cultural environment and/or context. What can we learn from the relational strategies and actions attached to the Daoist body to thinking about the contemporary quantized bodies and the governance of their health?