Michel Serres' theme of the emergence of signal from noise and pattern from randomness in "Exact and Human" parallels a line of reasoning within information theory known as Maximum Entropy Formalism, which suggests that the more random a message is, the more information it conveys.

Randomness by definition denotes an absence of pattern. However, the above theory suggests this duality should not be thought of as dichotomous, but dialectical. According to N. Katherine Hayles, they are engaged in the Derridan logic of supplementarity (68-95).

Derrida identifies this logic in a number of texts, including "Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences," with reference to the nature of structure and the play of relations between the center and its supplement – the something that is not.

Signal, pattern, information, are the centers, the privileged terms or elements that rely for their construction on a supplement: not-signal, randomness, noise.

Derrida brings us back to Derrida.

Since 'all of time' must also be defined by its lack thereof, Derrida's logic of the supplément makes sense of Madame de Maintenon's dilemma.

signal / noise

pattern / randomness

time / no-time

Lynette Boey