From Michel Serres:
There, precisely, is the origin. Noise and nausea, noise and the nautical, noise and the navy belong to the same family. We mustn’t be surprised. We never hear what we call background noise so well as we do at the seaside. That placid or vehement uproar seems established there for all eternity. In the strict horizontal of it all, stable, unstable cascades are endlessly trading. Space is assailed, as a whole, by the murmur; we are utterly taken over by this same murmuring. This restlessness is within hearing, just shy of definite signals, just shy of silence. The silence of the sea is mere appearance. Background noise may well be the ground of our being. It may be that our being is not at rest, it may be that it is not in motion, it may be that our being is disturbed. The background noise never ceases; it is limitless, continuous, unending, unchanging. It has itself no background, no contradictory. How much noise must be made to silence noise? And what terrible fury puts fury in order? Noise cannot be a phenomenon; every phenomenon is separated from it, a silhouette on a backdrop, like a beacon against the fog, as every message, every cry, every call, every signal must be separated from the hubbub that occupies silence, in order to be, to be perceived, to be known, to be exchanged. As soon as a phenomenon appears, it leaves the noise; as soon as a form looms up or pokes through, it reveals itself by veiling noise. So noise is not a matter of phenomenology, so it is a matter of being itself. It settles in subjects as well as in objects, in hearing as well as in space, in the observers as well as the observed, it moves through the means and the tools of observation, whether material or logical, hardware or software, constructed channels or languages; it is part of the in-itself, part of the for-itself; it cuts across the oldest and surest philosophical divisions, yes, noise is metaphysical. It is the complement to physics, in the broadest sense. One hears its subliminal huffing and soughing on the high seas. (Genesis, 13)
July 7, 2007 at 8:47 pm
Must be in the air… http://metastableequilibrium.blogspot.com/2007/07/bring-noise.html
July 7, 2007 at 10:10 pm
I’ve been working my way through Serres’ The Birth of Physics. Truly amazing book. Have you taken a look at it? I haven’t yet read Parasite, but everything I’ve read about it sounds enticing. I will confess that I find his style a bit overwrought at times.
July 10, 2007 at 3:10 am
Yes, overwrought. But only at times. I’ve not yet taken a look at The Birth of Physics, but it is on the reading list and I will just assume that it is in fact an amazing read.