Police sirens, airplanes, fireworks, motorcycles, leaf blowers, railroads, highways, concerts, horns, jackhammers, loud children, barking dogs... what do these all have in common? These are all loud noises... some even worse in our advanced, highly developed societies.
Our society has grown used to these noises, so much to that we tend not to think about their peculiarity. We tend to avoid thinking about the hinderance that unwanted noise causes ourselves and other people, and if it bothers us at all we tend to avoid speaking out.
According to Arthur Schopenhauer, noise is the most pertinent of all interruptions.
He believes that the most sensible and intelligent of all nations in Europe abide by the rule to "never interrupt", which they hold in high regard as an 11th commandment.
Noise is not just an interruption, but a disruption of thought. But if there is nothing to disrupt, noise doesn't feel as burdensome. As such, Schopenhauer remarks that those not sensitive to loud noise are people who do not think. Schopenhauer fails to understand how any deep thinker could be okay with loud noises.
"Noise kills thought, causing a steady increase in the labor of thinking". It's similar to having to walk with a weight on your foot! It can completely disrupt thought to where one loses track of what they had been thinking about. Some thinkers use their imagination and apply it to the real world. Many profound thoughts are forcibly forgotten and abandoned because of noise.
Schopenhauer especially disliked the sound of someone cracking a whip. This was common in 19th century Germany when horse carts were used as transportation. Whips would be needlessly used to control horses. According to Schopenhauer, the sound of a man cracking a whip both destroys thoughts and deprives life of peace.
It proves how senseless and thoughtlessness mankind must be to tolerate such sounds which "paralyzes the brain, destroys meditation, and murders thought."
Schopenhauer remarks "No one with anything like an idea in his head can avoid a feeling of actual pain of this sudden sharp crack, which destroys any quiet moment of pleasant thought." "How many great thoughts have been lost in the world by the cracking of a whip?"
But this "cursed" cracking a whip is not only a loud disruption that causes pain, but also near useless.
Its aim is to produce "intelligence" of the horse, but through the constant abuse of it, the animal becomes "habituated" to the sound that it "blunts his feelings" producing no effect at all. Animals actually perceive even the "faintest indications", hitting a horse with a whip actually achieves very little.
How many great thoughts are lost as a result? Arthur Schopenhauer also uses the slamming of doors as an example. "The general toleration of unnecessary noise—the slamming of doors, for instance, is direct evidence that the prevailing habit of mind is dullness and lack of thought."
I've always been plagued by misophonia - the most sensible phobia. I can related to Schopenhauer's suffering. Before every instance that I go outside I know that my concentration will be forcibly divided at various points during my adventure, and my dreams will be shattered.
What's worse is that my thoughts will be difficult to reconstruct because I won't be in flow. Noise doesn't just disrupt thought, it disrupts flow. It's similar to a basketball player who shoots a row of 3s and fails the 5th shot because he or she suddenly experienced a disruption in thought.
It's the consequence of living in the suburbs surrounded by many people.
Motorcyclists, ambulances, leaf blowers and vehicles give me the most trouble. But similar to the cracking of a whip, these noises are even less acceptable to me due to the fact that they seem largely unnecessary and senseless. Worst of all, when things get normalized they no longer seem problematic.
Why does an ambulance have to run at nearly 130 decibels instead of 80? Can people nearby really not hear 80? 130 decibels is enough to not only damage the hearing, but to cause pain. Why can't all motorcycles be designed to be quieter like those European models? Why can't people use rakes instead of leaf blowers?
You see, much of the noise we create can be easily reduced if we tried to. Think of all the amazing stories, songs, inventions, and much more that could have existed without the existence of loud noise and similar interruptions.
Noise carries with it health risks as well. Children in noisy areas lag behind peers in academic environment, and experience a greater risk of cardiovascular disease. Noise is also a major cause of stress, causing our bodies to release adrenaline and cortisol.
A 2014 economic assessment found that 3.9 billion dollars per year could be saved in health care costs just by lowering noise by 5 dB. The analyses suggested that a 5 dB noise reduction scenario would reduce the prevalence of hypertension by 1.4% and coronary heart disease by 1.8%.
I dream that I can live in a rural area, devoid of all unnecessary noise. A place where the only noise I hear comes from the world itself, the cosmos, and from animals. A place where one can be at peace, with nature, and no disruptions..
This is one reason I enjoy going outside late at night. It's lovely to be able to bask in nature when it's quiet, as intended. Why do humans have to disturb peace?
I think I overall agree with the concept of "noisiness," mainly because I think pretty often we try to formulate our own thoughts and rational arguments from a noisy crowd of ideas and then try to pick them up from those palace or set of chosen ideas and present them to the world as a theory. One thing that I suppose I once proposed in my own head is that people who are extremely logical or are well-versed with it tend to either have a very organised noise in their heads, or they articulate things so well that it comes to them naturally similar to how artistic abilities comes to someone. As someone who's plausibly on the autism spectrum, loud noises have been an annoyance to me since I was an infant and many things colliding with each other tends to be my view of the world and one of the things that drive me towards a lot of unnecessary anxiety - I think removal of noises or rather minimisation of those noisy concepts can be helpful in determining why we want to include certain aspects of our mind.
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