When I was reading Serres, I got all caught up in his object for philosophy - multiples. He says that 'only a unity seems rational to us' (2) but what many of us do not realise is that unity is both the 'sum' and the 'division' of the unit's parts. As usual, I got confused and started trying to make some sense of it all. I have been writing my thesis and my ideas have all been a jumble of thoughts, so when I started reading Serres, my thesis was not far from my mind. When Serres started talking about information as being 'either total or null' (5), something in my head clicked, or a flashlight went off (well, something happened.). Serres states that '[w]hen [information is] total or null, … unity appears, then comes a concept' (5). This made me think of my ideas before and after I started writing my thesis. I had to decide on what I wanted to write about. This was when I noticed the chaos, the noise in my mind. What is an idea? I had absolutely no idea, but reading Serres has help me frame the words to describe 'an idea'. The 'idea' arises from the chaos in the mind. It is the singular of the multiples of ideas. It is the sum of the multiples of ideas. For example, Before deciding on a thesis, you will think about writing about different things. For me, it was Vampires, but vampires are not merely creatures, they are representations of many things. For me, trying to pin the vampire down is like trying to pin down 'a seething, bubbling fluid in a vessel consisting of the solid material of buildings, laws, regulations, and historical traditions' (Musil 4). This 'crowd' of ideas threatened to overwhelm me, but then one idea suddenly detaches itself from this mass, it is the idea that best represents to me all the ideas in my head. It connects the various discordant thoughts together. It is 'the confident cord' (Serres 18), the final product that arises from the chaos of ideas. It is what Serres calls the 'known, knowable' work (18).  
   
When the 'information in the well' (Serres 18) of your mind is dispersed, no one can know or even begin to understand it. In a similar way, dispersed information is like no information at all. Information that is not there cannot be known nor understood because it is non-existent.
 
Ideas or thoughts that are properly formed free themselves 'from the chaotic background noise' (Serres 18). This is the genesis, the beginning. '[T]he knowable and the known are born from that unknown.' (Serres 18). In Musil's The Man without Qualities, noise is described as '[h]undreds of sounds … intertwined into a coil … with single barbs projecting, sharp edges running along it and submerging again' (3). These 'single barbs' are ideas that stand out from the chaos of ideas in the mind. As they are not fully formed or explored, they cannot detach themselves from the chaotic background noise. Instead, they run parallel to the background noise, a sort of an accompaniment to it. They are observed but not explored, and eventually become submerged once again. The ideas that do get thought out are the 'clear notes' that Musil talks about (3). They splinter, fly off and scatter. These become works, 'the knowable and the known' (Serres 18).		  
   
These works can be seen as snapshots, disruptions of the chaotic background noise, what also seems to be 'light bulb' moments, moments of unmeasurable clarity or distinction. What is produced at the end is a Pandora's box, a box in which the pandemonium of 'all profiles, all appearances, all representations' (Serres 19) are buried. When this completed product is revealed, anyone who views it will seek to perceive it from a point of view that they can understand, 'a spot from which a straightforward form will appear' (Serres 19). 'A representation' (Serres 19). As Serres says, 'Fools' (19), because when they do this, they fail to grasp the complete ichnography. They remove a note from a whole piece of music, a cell from the whole organism, if you like, and claim that that one note, or cell, is what the whole product is all about. They remove one possibility from the entire cauldron of seething possibilities and by doing so, they reduce the infinity of all possibilities to just the one.
 
This one possibility, is what Serres calls 'the local' (20). This limitation is a result of rationality. For to envision 'the global' (20) in its totality would 'leave us dazed' (20), confused by the confusion. As mere humans, we need order to understand disorder. To us, disorder means 'not to be rational … only a unity seems rational to us' (Serres 2). But then again, unity is both the sum and the division of a unit. Reason has to turn its back on the irrational in order to achieve a 'perfect flat projection' (Serres 21). However, to deny disorder means to repress, to close off all other possibilities. Yet this is not possible because the noise is there, it is in the sea, in the background noise of the cities in which we live, and it is in us, in our very minds and subconscious. 'What noise does the classical age repress, to what clamour does it close its ears, in order to invent our rationalism?' (Serres 21). What noise do we repress? 		 

 
Rational organised thought stems from chaotic background noise. It is stemmed into one channel. Yet from this channel various possibilities arise again. In which way does our tree point? Up towards 'the golden boughs' or down into 'the deep shade at the roots' (Serres 10)?

Karen Chen
 

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