Testing random number generators
WSC '92 Proceedings of the 24th conference on Winter simulation
The Pragmatic Roots of Context
CONTEXT '99 Proceedings of the Second International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Modeling and Using Context
Context in social simulation: why it can't be wished away
Computational & Mathematical Organization Theory
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The idea of noise is now widespread in many fields of study. However to a large extent the use of this term is unexamined. It has become part of the practice of science without entering to a significant extent as part of its explicit theory. Here I try to produce a clearer and more coherent account of the term. I start with a picture of noise from electrical engineering. I then generalise this to the widest conception: that of noise as what is unwanted. A closely related conception is noise as what is unexplained. A particular case of this later usage is where a source of randomness can be used to stand-in for this residual. I argue that noise and randomness are not the same. I explore the possible relation between noise and context, and propose a new conception of noise: namely that noise is what can result from an extra-contextual signal. I finish with an application of the analysis of noise to the relation of determinism and randomness.