Silence, Disruptive Noise, and Constant Noise

Pairing up the concepts of silence and noise first leads us to establish the two as a dichotomy; something is either silent or it produces some kind of noise that disrupts the silence. However, the structure of silence and noise seems to be more triangular, where there is also a type of constant noise / white noise. This white noise shares qualities of both silence and disruptive noise while being separate from them both. It is silence in the way that it is not heard. It is not paid attention to, and it does not disturb anybody from their focus. However, it is also not silence, because it is a production of sound, and it can be focused upon if somebody wishes to do so. I think that claiming a triangular relationship between the three nodes of silence, disruptive noise, and constant noise is also significant in that it allows a combination (and opposition) among the three, for example, we can imaging something between disruptive noise and constant noise that is opposed to silence (perhaps we can even claim that Cage's Lecture on Nothing falls within this category, as it first presents itself as a lecture to be focused on and eventually dissolves into something repetitive to the point that it cannot do much more than be ignored).

We can also think of the relationship between silence and noise as one of necessity. Silence cannot exist without its being observed as different from noise, and vice versa. However, this distinction is also interesting in the way that we cannot fully reach one side or the other. By that, I mean that we can never experience true/pure silence or true/pure noise. There is also some difficulty in imagining what either of those would "sound" like-- for example, we might guess that a pure noise sounds identical to a pure silence because it cannot be differentiated from any other type of sound. The same is true with white noise. We often only recognize a white noise when it begins or when it ends, in other words, when it stands out in opposition of the previous semi-silent or semi-noisy state. Therefore, the relationship between silence and noise necessarily allows for silence and noise. We cannot even imagine any aspects of sound and hearing that lack the gradient distance between silence and noise.

Lastly, we must also notice something unique about the relationship between silence and noise in comparison to other sensory input. It is much easier to say that silence is necessary for noise than to claim that blindness is necessary for vision, or to claim the equivalent for any of the other senses. The relationship between sound and noise is less similar to the other senses and more similar to the relationship between sense and nonsense. Additionally, it can be said that the relationship between noise and silence is the relationship between sense and nonsense (here, we can look at the less conventional meanings of both, where nonsense could be used to mean "not relevant to the senses").