Online research in philosophy

Patient To examine neural responses to aurally-presented sentences, a sparse imaging technique was used to minimize interference from scanner noise. The patient was played a single sentence (or noise-equivalent) in the 7.4s silent period before a single 1.6s scan with stimulus timing jittered relative to scan onset. There were 118 spoken sentences trials, 59 signal correlated noise trials, and an additional 60 silent trials for the purpose of monitoring data quality. The signal correlated noise stimuli had the same duration, spectral profile and amplitude envelope as the original speech, but were entirely unintelligible (S1). The experiment was divided into three sessions of 79 trials with events pseudo-randomly ordered within each scanning session. The sentences were presented using a MRI compatible auditory stimulusdelivery system (Resonance Technology, Northridge, CA), with insert earplugs to further attenuate scanner noise. DMDX software running on a Windows XP PC was used to present the stimulus items.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. But on uninteresting topics, surprising claims usually are surprising evidence; we rarely make claims without suffi- cient evidence. On interesting topics, however, we can have interests in exaggerating or downplaying our evidence, and our actions often deviate from our interests. In a simple model of noisy humans reporting on extraordinary evidence, we find that extraordinary claims from low noise people are extraordinary evidence, but such claims from high noise people are not; their claims are more likely unusual noise than unusual truth. When people are organized into a reporting chain, noise levels grow exponentially with chain length; long chains seem incapable of communicating extraordinary evidence.

Human consciousness usually displays a striking unity. When one experiences a noise and, say, a pain, one is not conscious of the noise and then, separately, of the pain. One is conscious of the noise and pain together, as aspects of a single conscious experience. Since at least the time of Immanuel Kant (1781/7), this phenomenon has been called the unity of consciousness . More generally, it is consciousness not of A and, separately, of B and, separately, of C, but of A-and-B- and-C together, as the contents of a single conscious state.

We analyzed the variability of response in records obtained from MT (V5) of awake, behaving monkeys and kindly provided to us by Newsome and Bair (see Newsome et al 1990 for Methods). Some sets of random dot kinematograms had been generated with a constant randomization seed (novar stimuli), while others had been generated with varying randomization seeds (var stimuli). The neural responses to novar stimuli exhibited a remarkable degree of consistent temporal modulation, while the responses to var stimuli were homogeneous over the presentation time. We suspected that correspondence noise might be a major source of variability and to test this we compared the variability of response to novar and var stimuli, making the assumption that the variability observed in responses to novar stimuli reflected the internal noise only, whereas variability in the case of var stimuli reflected internal noise and external noise. From this assumption, we could estimate the relative importance of external noise and internal noise in this system. The main conclusions are:- (1) Efficiency values (up to about 35%) calculated from neural responses in MT are of the same order as those of human observers, (Barlow and Tripathy 1997) (2) External correspondence noise is a significant factor in limiting the detectability of coherent motion in these random dot stimuli.

The importance of applying game theory to the evolution of information in the presence of noise has recently become widely recognized. This Special Issue addresses the theme of spontaneously emergent order in both classical and quantum systems subject to external noise, and includes papers directly related to game theory or the development of supporting techniques. In the following editorial overview we examine the broader context of the subject, including the tension between the destructive and creative aspects of noise, and foreshadow the significance of some of the subsequent papers in the volume.

Perception represents colors inexactly. This inexactness results from phenomenally manifest noise, and results in apparent violations of the transitivity of perceptual indiscriminability. Whether these violations are genuine depends on what is meant by 'transitivity of perceptual indiscriminability'.

The importance of applying game theory to the evolution of information in the presence of noise has recently become widely recognized. This Special Issue addresses the theme of spontaneously emergent order in both classical and quantum systems subject to external noise, and includes papers directly related to game theory or the development of supporting techniques. In the following editorial overview we examine the broader context of the subject, including the tension between the destructive and creative aspects of noise, and foreshadow the significance of some of the subsequent papers in the volume.

I begin with a personal confession. Philosophical discussions of existence have always bored me. When they occur, my eyes glaze over and my attention falters. Basically ontological questions often seem best decided by banging on the table--rocks exist, fairies do not. Argument can appear long-winded and miss the point. Sometimes a quick distinction resolves any apparent difficulty. Does a falling tree in an earless forest make noise, ie does the noise exist? Well, if noise means that an ear must be there to hear it, then the answer to the question is evidently "no." But if noise means that, if there were (counterfactually) someone there, then he would hear it, then just as obviously, the answer becomes "yes.".

People made forecasts from graphically presented time series. Series were sinusoids overlaid by a zero or positive linear trend and a zero, low, moderate, or high level of noise. Forecasting performance was affected by both these variables. However, it did not correlate with ability to identify the trend and correlated significantly with ability to detect the sinusoidal pattern only when series were noise-free. A second experiment showed that the effect of data noise was not influenced by the number of forecasts that people made from a series. These findings are consistent with the view that data noise does not affect the way that forecasts are made but that it impairs them for two reasons. First, it renders the anchor-and-adjust heuristics underlying them less effective. Second, it causes people to add more noise to their judgements in their attempts to make them representative of the data.

Noise appears to critique the prevailing cognitive and social habits of modernity by providing concrete and particular art objects that demand attention and jar us from one-dimensional life. Noise sounds, for a moment, like a true alternative not only to contemporary music but to a whole way of thinking through abstract generalisation and living through commercial mediation. Understood in this way, noise makes sense. Once noise is no longer inscrutable, however, it is assimilated into popular culture and becomes a commercial novelty. The blatant contradiction of the commodification of noise gives rise to a second order of critique wherein noise parades its uselessness and occasions reflection on the tortured existence of art in modernity, the ubiquity of identity thinking, and the relation between use and exchange value. This ironic endgame for noise, however, is itself absorbed by consumer culture and noise lives on as but another cool, extreme product. The cultural reception of noise thereby demonstrates the mechanism by which modernity absorbs artistic attempts to critique it, and noise is ultimately understood as a desperate but spectacular failure.