The Noise Problem.

What is noise?

Noise is considered an input in many classical engineering problems.  The main case is observational noise, where an observation of a system is considered to be composed of information about the system plus a noise factor.  The observation is taken as a combination of a signal plus noise of a know distribution in estimation theory.
However, through the action of the third thing principle, simply acknowledging that noise exists and that it interferes with observation does not render a binary termination.

Conventional explanation of noise

Noise is commonly thought to occur from thermal processes and quantum effects.  [hmm, really?]  Heat jostles molecules or atoms into emitting various particles (photons, electrons, etc.).  Quantum noise is caused by step changes in physical state that occur according to some distribution.  A familiar example of quantum noise is the ticking of the Geiger counter.
This, however, does not tell us where the energy in noise comes from.  Noise is well-characterized, yet understood only in general terms.  What powers noise?

Unifying noise

The two seemingly unrelated sources of noise can be represented as decay processes: heat flowing to dissipation, the inevitable decrease to a lower quantum energy level.  Noise can be viewed therefore not as a seperate source of information [what information can you get from noise? On/Off, channel bandwidth and frequency response] but the result of removing correlation from a series of observations both independant and dependant.

Noise from information

The power for noise is information that no longer can be used to assemble the state of the system.  It is information that still can satisfy some theorem, as long as it is not the theorem that generated it (that would simply be an observation of the system, of course).

The entropic demise of noise

Running noise through correlating system reduces its contribution to the bit rate (raw data, not information buts).  Since all natural systems tend to the rest state, noise is constantly disappearing.  Noise, it seems, it the philosophical last stop before oblivion.  One speculation is that noise is the sound of information crossing the entropic event horizon back into the hypercycle.

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