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Zusatztext This important study offers a rewarding exploration of its subject, not the least by revealing the deeper philosophical underpinnings of the mathematical and scientific theories of information and noise. The book rightly places them in complex relationships to each other, and against an uncritical opposition between them that has prevented us from understanding the nature of these relationships, and of noise and information themselves, for so long. Informationen zum Autor Cecile Malaspina is Associate Researcher at the CNRS lab Sphere (Science, Philosophy, History) Paris 7, Denis Diderot, France, and a member of the editorial board of Copy Press. She is the co-translator, with John Rogove, of Gilbert Simondon's On the Mode of Existence of Technical Objects (2016). Ray Brassier is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon. Vorwort This book addresses the rising prominence of the notion of ‘noise’ and asks: on what grounds do we judge what counts as information and what can be discarded as ‘noise’? Zusammenfassung What do we understand 'noise' to be? The term ‘noise’ no longer suggests only aesthetic judgement, as in acoustic or visual noise, and is now relevant to domains as varied as communication theory, physics and biology. This trans-disciplinary usage leads to confusion and complication, and reveals that the question of noise is a properly philosophical problem. Presenting an analysis of the rising interest in the notion of noise, this book investigates if there can be a coherent understanding of what it is, that can be effectively shared among the natural and human sciences, technology and the arts. Drawing the philosophical consequences of noise for the theory of knowledge, Malaspina undertakes a philosophical revaluation of Shannon and Weaver’s theory of ‘information entropy’; this forms the basis upon which to challenge the common idea that noise can be reduced to notions of error, disorder or disorganization. The wider consequences of this analysis relate the technological and scientific aspect of noise, with its cultural and psycho-social aspects. At the heart of Malaspina's argument is the contestation of the ground upon which we judge and distinguish noise from information and finally the exploration of its emancipatory potential. Inhaltsverzeichnis Foreword by Ray BrassierAcknowledgementsNote on TextList of AbbreviationsIntroductionPart 1 Concepts: Information Entropy, Negentropy, NoiseI How to Draw the Line between Information and NoiseII Entropy as ‘Freedom of Choice’III Information Entropy and Physical EntropyIV The Idea of ‘Potential Information’V Physical Concepts of Information and Informational Concepts of PhysicsVI Information as Process Rather Than ContentVII To Think about Information as a Process of IndividuationVIII Redundancy and NecessityIX Logic and Freedom of ChoiceX Noise as Spurious UncertaintyXI NegentropyXII Complexity on the Basis of NoiseXIII The Astigmatism of IntuitionXIV The Path of DespairPart 2 Empirical NoiseI On the Transduction of the Concept of NoiseII Accidental Information, Predictable Noise III Ready-Made InformationIV Cosmic Background Radiation V Noise in the Gap between NarrativesVI Noise in FinanceVII Statistics: The Discipline of the PrinceVIII The Man without Qualities IX Noise Abatement: The Dawn of Noise X Noise Pollution XI Toxic, Viral, Parasitic Part 3 The ‘Mental State of Noise’ I The Crossroads: Mathematical, Technical, Empirical and Subjective NoiseII Internal Chaos, Terror and Confusion III The Vicious Whir of SensationsIV Keat’s Negative CapabilityV Closure to Noise and the Paradox of the Declining LifeVI The Catastophic Reaction to Noise VII Anxiety VIII Order IX Control X The Helmsman Metaphor: Kybernetes XI The Helmsman in Plato’s Alcibiades DialogueBibliography Index...
