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Noise

Noise is the stochastic component of a system’s dynamics arising from unresolved degrees of freedom, environmental coupling, or intrinsic fluctuations.

Noise is an ontic feature of physical systems. It is not error, ignorance, or measurement artifact. Relative to an effective description of state space, noise introduces stochastic perturbations that spread trajectories across accessible regions.

Noise does not act with purpose or direction. Its role is statistical: under fixed driving and constraints, it increases the likelihood that trajectories explore alternative regions of state space.

Through this role, noise:

• induces diffusion across accessible state space,
• drives transitions between metastable states,
• challenges the stability of distinctions,
• determines whether persistent distinctions survive or decay.

Distillation

Noise is what makes persistence difficult.

Why it matters

• Distinction: Without noise, asymmetries would never be tested.
• Constraint: Constraints matter only relative to noise strength and statistics.
• Entropy: Noise operationalizes entropic exploration without acting as a cause.
• Records: Memory durability is defined by resistance to noise-induced transitions.

Links

Related atoms

• Distinction
• Entropy
• Existence
• Ontic
• Persistence (Metastable State Property)
• Persistence Bias
• Time

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Used in molecules

Conflicts with

• Interpretations that treat noise as purely epistemic uncertainty.
• Views that assume noise can be eliminated in principle.
• Accounts that personify noise as a causal agent or goal-directed force.

Sources

• Source: Kubo, R. (1966). The fluctuation–dissipation theorem.

  • Key: @kuboFluctuationdissipationTheorem1966
  • Use here: Establishes noise as inseparable from dissipation and response.

• Source: Seifert, U. (2012). Stochastic thermodynamics, fluctuation theorems, and molecular machines.

  • Key: @seifertStochasticThermodynamicsFluctuation2012
  • Use here: Formalizes noise-driven transitions and entropy production.

• Source: Gardiner, C. W. (2009). Stochastic Methods.

  • Key: @gardinerStochasticMethodsHandbook2009
  • Use here: Mathematical foundations of stochastic dynamics.

Re-contextualization Log

• 2025-12-29

  • context: Needed to remove agent-like language and clarify statistical role
  • effect: refined
  • note: Reframed noise explicitly as a stochastic property of dynamics that challenges persistence without acting as a causal force.

• 2025-12-26

  • context: Required ontic adversary to Constraint and Persistence
  • effect: created
  • note: Defined noise as an ontic stochastic component of dynamics rather than epistemic uncertainty.