lol, but for real, what Barad is suggesting really is difficult to do, or at least I'm finding it difficult to do.

We believe words are more understandable and apprehensible than the physical world. We believe words are more understandable and apprehensible than the physical world. We believe words are more understandable and apprehensible than the physical world. . .

It seems crazy because our society is so science and tech driven, but she's right. We believe words to be prior (ontologically) to the world around us because they are a part of "us," our own minds.

Distorting Descartes's famous thought experiment here seems to help me understand this. While I suspect the average person could be pushed into admitting the possibility of an evil demon spinning an elaborate hoax for you, deceiving your physical senses and tricking your brain, I can't imagine finding anyone who would admit the opposite. The opposite would be that the external world exists largely as you perceive it. The demon is not manipulating your experience of the natural world at all. Instead, he is tricking you into believing you exist.

We're so Cartesian we can't even conceive of it being otherwise. Perhaps Spinoza would help here, as well as other monist ontologies?

Someone please redeem this annotation I don't even know what is happening anymore.