From the Mental State of Noise to the New Frontiers of Techno-Human Cognition

Creative Disruptions Across AI, Gaming, Modelling, French Theory, and Politics
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-041-13059-8
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Buch, Englisch, 190 Seiten, Format (B × H): 174 mm x 246 mm

Reihe: Angelaki: New Work in the Theoretical Humanities

At the intersection of humanities and science, this book reexamines noise as a fundamental force in shaping contemporary thought and digital culture. Anchored by the republication of Steven Sands and John Ratey's influential 1986 article "The concept of noise", this volume explores how noise transcends its traditional definition as unwanted sound or mere signal interference to become a generative force in our increasingly complex, digitized world.

The book brings together leading thinkers including Catherine Malabou, Rosa Menkman, and Yuk Hui to investigate noise across multiple domains: from semantic disruptions in Large Language Models to the algorithmic unconscious, from gaming platforms to glitch aesthetics, and from protest movements to post-semiotic French theory. Building on Sands and Ratey's pioneering concept of "the mental state of noise", it reveals how noise functions, also, as a catalyst for emergence, creativity, and transformative change in contemporary society. The chapters in this interdisciplinary collection challenge conventional understandings of complex systems, cognition, and computation, offering fresh perspectives on the relationship between human thought and technological advancement. By positioning noise as central to 21st-century techno-human cognition and cultural evolution, the volume opens new pathways for understanding the intersection of mind, machine, and meaning.

Essential reading for scholars and students in contemporary philosophy, science and technology studies, media and cultural studies, digital humanities, and digital arts, this volume demonstrates how noise has become instrumental in reshaping our understanding of the modern world and its possibilities. It was originally published as a special issue of Angelaki.

Zielgruppe

Postgraduate, Undergraduate Advanced, and Undergraduate Core

Autoren/Hrsg.

Malaspina, Cecile

Fachgebiete

• Mathematik | Informatik EDV | Informatik Informatik Künstliche Intelligenz
• Sozialwissenschaften Psychologie Allgemeine Psychologie Kognitionspsychologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Philosophie: Allgemeines, Methoden

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Foreword Introduction: From the Mental State of Noise to the New Frontiers of Cognition 1. The Concept of Noise 2. Intelligence as a Border Activity Between the Modelled and the Unmodelled 3. The Intelligence of Player Habits and Reflexivity in Magic: The Gathering Arena Limited Draft 4. Looking Through the Algorithmic Unconscious: Antimediation and Noise 5. Noisiness, the Stuff of Thought 6. Creativity: Transcending the Cybernetic Mode via the Virtuality of Relevant Noise 7. The Mental State of Noise: Oliver Sacks’ Musicophilia or Should We Stop the Brain’s Noise? 8. Pierced Eardrums: Liminal Noise in Post-Semiotic French Thought 9. Semantic Noise and Conceptual Stagnation in Natural Language Processing 10. Noise Strike: Wakeful Listening at the Limits of Liberal Cognition 11. Topos of Noise 12. Sketch of an Axiology of Contingency 13. The Shredded Hologram Rose

Über Autor(innen)

Cécile Malaspina is Programmer for Art and Curatorial Studies at the New Centre for Research & Practice and programme director at the Collège International de Philosophie, Paris (Ciph). She is Visiting Research Fellow in the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures of the Arts & Humanities Faculty at King’s College London. She is the author of An Epistemology of Noise (2018) and principal translator of Gilbert Simondon’s On the Mode of Existence of Technical Objects (2017). She is a member of the editorial boards of Angelaki: Journal for the Theoretical Humanities, Copy Press, and is guest editor for Nature: Humanities and Social Sciences Communications.