[FRIAM] signal and noise

[Steve Smith]

Marcus Daniels wrote:
> “Noise” may have some quantitative properties but nothing that reveals ultimate causality without at least factoring all unseen events from the Big Bang onward.  Signal to noise is about being able to discriminate something you want from something you don’t.   Further, if you wanted to predict the noise part, it just wouldn’t be possible.  There are many different signals to consider that have differing relevance to different observers, and they to can be easier or harder to objectively discriminate from noise too.

My deep, intuitive belief about "the nature of reality" is that *noise* 
is a contrivance of the sentient/conscious (nominally human mind).   A 
trite way of saying this is "everything has meaning" which is no 
more/less trite than "everything is connected", etc., ad nauseum.

I think what you are saying here is that "noise" (and "meaning"?) are 
entirely contingent on a reductionist decomposition of (sub)systems...   
declaring (implicitely) what is interesting and then tautologically 
declaring anything that isn't *that* is *uninteresting* (noise?).

Indra's Net (or Dave's more familiar description "all contextualizes 
all")...


>
>> On Sep 8, 2022, at 4:14 PM, Prof David West <profwest at fastmail.fm> wrote:
>>
>> It seems, to me, that several conversations here—AI, hallucinogens, consciousness, participant observation, and epistemology—have a common aspect: a body of "data" and disagreement over which subset should be attended to (Signal) and that which is irrelevant (Noise).
>>
>> Arguments for sorting/categorization would include: lack of a Peircian convergence/consensus; inability to propose proper experiments; anecdotal versus systematic collection; an absolute conviction that everything is algorithmic and, even if the algorithm has yet to be discerned, it, ultimately, must be; etc..
>>
>> I often feel as if my positions on these various topics reduces, in some sense, to a conviction that there is overlooked Signal in everyone else's Noise; even to the point of believing the Noise IS the Signal.
>>
>> Is this in any way a "fair' or "reasonable" analysis?
>>
>> davew
>>
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