"Noise is the most impertinent of all forms of interruption. It is not only an interruption, but also a disruption of thought." (Arthur Schopenhauer, "Parerga and Paralipomena", 1851)
"Mathematics is the predominant science of our time; its conquests grow daily, though without noise; he who does not employ it for himself, will some day find it employed against himself." (Johann F Herbart, Werke, 1890)
"Life pushes its way through this fatalistically
determined world like a river flowing upstream. It is a system of utterly
improbable order, a message in a world of noise." (Joseph H Rush,
"The Dawn of Life", 1957)
"Higher, directed forms of energy (e.g., mechanical,
electric, chemical) are dissipated, that is, progressively converted into the
lowest form of energy, i.e., undirected heat movement of molecules; chemical
systems tend toward equilibria with maximum entropy; machines wear out owing to
friction; in communication channels, information can only be lost by conversion
of messages into noise but not vice versa, and so forth." (Ludwig von
Bertalanffy, "Robots, Men and Minds", 1967)
"To adapt to a changing environment, the system needs a
variety of stable states that is large enough to react to all perturbations but
not so large as to make its evolution uncontrollably chaotic. The most adequate
states are selected according to their fitness, either directly by the
environment, or by subsystems that have adapted to the environment at an
earlier stage. Formally, the basic mechanism underlying self-organization is
the (often noise-driven) variation which explores different regions in the
system’s state space until it enters an attractor. This precludes further
variation outside the attractor, and thus restricts the freedom of the system’s
components to behave independently. This is equivalent to the increase of
coherence, or decrease of statistical entropy, that defines self-organization."
(Francis Heylighen, "The Science Of Self-Organization And
Adaptivity", 1970)
"Probability plays a central role in many fields, from
quantum mechanics to information theory, and even older fields use probability
now that the presence of 'nois' is officially admitted. The newer
aspects of many fields start with the admission of uncertainty." (Richard
Hamming, "Methods of Mathematics Applied to Calculus, Probability, and
Statistics", 1985)
"An essential element of dynamics systems is a positive
feedback that self-enhances the initial deviation from the mean. The avalanche
is proverbial. Cities grow since they attract more people, and in the universe,
a local accumulation of dust may attract more dust, eventually leading to the
birth of a star. Earlier or later, self-enhancing processes evoke an
antagonistic reaction. A collapsing stock market stimulates the purchase of
shares at a low price, thereby stabilizing the market. The increasing noise,
dirt, crime and traffic jams may discourage people from moving into a big
city." (Hans Meinhardt, "The Algorithmic Beauty of Sea Shells",
1995)
"Rather mathematicians like to look for patterns, and
the primes probably offer the ultimate challenge. When you look at a list of
them stretching off to infinity, they look chaotic, like weeds growing through
an expanse of grass representing all numbers. For centuries mathematicians have
striven to find rhyme and reason amongst this jumble. Is there any music that
we can hear in this random noise? Is there a fast way to spot that a particular
number is prime? Once you have one prime, how much further must you count
before you find the next one on the list? These are the sort of questions that
have tantalized generations." (Marcus du Sautoy, "The Music of the
Primes", 1998)
"Data are collected as a basis for action. Yet before
anyone can use data as a basis for action the data have to be interpreted. The
proper interpretation of data will require that the data be presented in
context, and that the analysis technique used will filter out the
noise." (Donald J Wheeler,
"Understanding Variation: The Key to Managing Chaos" 2nd Ed., 2000)
"Data are generally collected as a basis for action.
However, unless potential signals are separated from probable noise, the
actions taken may be totally inconsistent with the data. Thus, the proper use
of data requires that you have simple and effective methods of analysis which
will properly separate potential signals from probable noise." (Donald J
Wheeler, "Understanding Variation: The Key to Managing Chaos" 2nd
Ed., 2000)
