For all the Grinches out there who prefer the precise silence and ‘control’ of the way we currently use our internet app, here are a few points in favor of noise:
- By scanning the noise, we find what we want without a priori expectations. Chalk it up to serendipity.
- The noise does not invalidate point-to-point connections. So, you can still selectively choose what streams you want to pay attention to.
- We’ve spent the last century understanding how to filter, manipulate, receive, and transmit electromagnetic noise. Improvements in finding the signal will also apply here: frequency tuners, band pass filters, transmitters, quanta formats, power intensity, and authority.
- We are already used to noise in the first world. Our brain and culture have evolved to wallow in the noise and actually survive. I see no difference in the internet-plumbed second world. We just need to refine our internet-noise senses.
Hmm. What would those senses be?
Read the other articles in this series:
1. Rambling on noise: The signal in the rambling.
2. Ramblings on noise: If the internet were noisy, what would our senses be?
3. Ramblings on noise: Filtering the fire-hose with ease.
4. Ramblings on noise: Interquantum translation.
