Noise and morphogenesis: Uncertainty, randomness and control

Prado Casanova, Miguel

Abstract

This thesis presents a processual ontology of noise by virtue of which morphogenesis (in its most general understanding as the processes by which order/form is created) must be instantiated. Noise is here outlined as the far from equilibrium environment out of which metastable temporary ‘solutions’ can emerge as the system transitions through the pre-individual state space.

While frequently addressed by humanities and arts studies on the basis of its supposed disruptive character (often in terms of aesthetics), this thesis aims to thoroughly examine noise’s conceptual potencies. To explore and amplify the epistemic consequences not merely of the ineliminability of noise but of its originative power as well as within the course of the elimination of givenness by epistemology.

This philosophical work is informed by many different fields of contemporary science (namely: statistical physics, information theory, probability theory, 4E cognition, synthetic biology, nonlinear dynamics, complexity science and computer science) in order to assess and highlight the problems of the metascientific and ideological foundations of diverse projects of prediction and control of uncertainty. From algorithmic surveillance back to cybernetics and how these rendered noise “informationally heretical”. This conveys an analysis of how contemporary prediction technologies are dramatically transforming our relationship with the future and with uncertainty in a great number of our social structures. It is a philosophico-critical anthropology of data ontology and a critique of reductive pan-info-computationalism. Additionally, two practical examples of noise characterised as an enabling constraint for the functioning of complex adaptive systems are presented. These are at once biophysical and cognitive, : 1) interaction-dominance constituted by ‘pink noise’ and 2) noise as a source of variability that cells may exploit in (synthetic) biology.

Finally, noise is posited as an intractable active ontological randomness that limits the scope of determinism and that goes beyond unpredictability in any epistemological sense due to the insuperability of the situation in which epistemology finds itself following the critique of the given.

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Oct 14, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: May 20, 2021
• Keywords: Noise, Uncertainty, Randomness, Control, Ontology, Cybernetics, Information Theory, Individuation
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/6778759
• Citations for Published Sections: Prado Casanova, M. (2020). Noise and synthetic biology: How to deal with stochasticity?. NanoEthics, 14, 113-122. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11569-020-00366-4; Meacham, D., & Prado Casanova, M. (2018). The Over-Extended Mind? Pink Noise and the Ethics of In
• Award Date: May 20, 2021