An Epistemology of Noise

Cecile Malaspina is a visiting lecturer at the Royal College of Art, UK. She is the translator of G. Simondon’s On the Mode of Existence of Technical Objects, (forthcoming), and, together with Michael Zimmermann, of E. Morin’s Methode II (forthcoming).

Foreword by Ray Brassier
Acknowledgements
Note on Text
List of Abbreviations


Introduction
Part 1 Concepts: Information Entropy, Negentropy, Noise
I How to Draw the Line between Information and Noise
II Entropy as ‘Freedom of Choice’
III Information Entropy and Physical Entropy
IV The Idea of ‘Potential Information’
V Physical Concepts of Information and Informational Concepts of Physics
VI Information as Process Rather Than Content
VII To Think about Information as a Process of Individuation
VIII Redundancy and Necessity
IX Logic and Freedom of Choice
X Noise as Spurious Uncertainty
XI Negentropy
XII Complexity on the Basis of Noise
XIII The Astigmatism of Intuition
XIV The Path of Despair
Part 2 Empirical Noise
I On the Transduction of the Concept of Noise
II Accidental Information, Predictable Noise
III Ready-Made Information
IV Cosmic Background Radiation
V Noise in the Gap between Narratives
VI Noise in Finance
VII Statistics: The Discipline of the Prince
VIII 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 Noise
II Internal Chaos, Terror and Confusion
III The Vicious Whir of Sensations
IV Keat’s Negative Capability
V Closure to Noise and the Paradox of the Declining Life
VI The Catastophic Reaction to Noise
VII Anxiety
VIII Order
IX Control
X The Helmsman Metaphor: Kybernetes
XI The Helmsman in Plato’s Alcibiades Dialogue
Bibliography
Index