Signal-to-Noise

[Brotep]

I heard it once on NPR, or maybe it was one of those audiobooks I listen to on the bus. There are certain border disputes that Arthur Frommer will not warn you about, geographical boundaries not found in any atlas. These ambiguous lines of demarcation are figuratively drawn over the most prized territory of those who would think to divide it, or anything else for that matter.

Friend, let us call a lateral geniculate nucleus a lateral geniculate nucleus: it seems that if I name a given part of the brain, it might mean a smaller area to some neurologists, a larger area to others. The same area, yes--more or less--but the details may differ. This poses an obvious problem if I want to say what part of the brain does what. This is a problem in which the neurologists are not alone.

Arguing about nothing was never easier. Vastly different backgrounds, knowledge but a few keystrokes away and without preparation, no background provided. If Plato thought the written word would destroy us, imagine what he would have said about the Internet.

Think of it, as if it were difficult to have a perfect misunderstanding before this happened. If you have ever worked in food service then you know the value of expedient miscommunication, that when time is rationed out in seconds, you cannot afford to imprint your distinctions onto the customer but must settle for jamming the circular pegs of the menu into the square holes that are their different set of distinctions.

Perhaps you have heard of the Library of Babel. Seemingly infinite, it is filled with permutations of books real and unwritten. Somewhere on its shelves rests a complete and accurate map of your destiny. Cast alongside it, an infinitude of false accounts, to say nothing of the other books of the library. Even if you somehow found the right book, you would never know for sure. The mythical Crimson Hexagon could change all that, could let you know just what is what, and where, but Mother always told me not to trust strange hexagons.

To make a decision as to what is signal and what is noise, is to be practical and to overlook something.
Information overload is useless, but it is also freedom.

[LMNO]

I liked the last paragraph.


You should reverse engineer it from there.

[Brotep]

  As in, the last two sentences?
...Or including the Library of Babel stuff?

[LMNO]

Last two sentences.