• Donkter@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      2 years ago

      It’s kind of an outdated now too since it was a thought experiment and the monkeys were a stand-in for an abstract concept of a machine that creates an infinite amount of text. We have proof that even a finite number of randomly generated words will produce at least the first 1,312,000 characters of Shakespeare.

      https://libraryofbabel.info/

    • fishos@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      2 years ago

      You assume intention. Fallacy of free will. Whoever wrote it, you would claim had “intention”. But given enough humans just faffing about randomly, one will eventually think up and write down “Hamlet”. It’s the same, you just want to ascribe higher meaning to it because it’s human.

        • fishos@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          2 years ago

          If no free will, no intention. It’s that simple. In strict determinism, every action, thought, feeling, whatever, was predetermined at the moment of the big bang by the starting state and physics.

          I’m absolutely saying that all of humanities creations are “coincidence”. Just because you don’t like what I have to say doesn’t make me stupid. I know what I was describing.

        • fishos@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          2 years ago

          We think we are able to. Prove we aren’t just fancy biological computers. No one has proven what consciousness really even is yet.

          If the quote was “a million microbes”, maybe you’d have a point. But it’s monkeys. Our closest ancestors. What we are one step removed from. And y’all trying to act like monkeys are robots and were transcendent beings made of energy or some shit. We’re animals, just like them. Slightly smarter, but animals. We are the monkeys.

  • pewgar_seemsimandroid@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    2 years ago

    Oakfield takeoff block ċiviċi Gucci ufcgugucugxcitftuxfuutxrz77rs7ra8stpvhizfrzytd89guct8ixtixgfy8xt88xguxfyfcyfhigiyfugih6fe4wrfuibrsw3yfkmezr3q7yuodttdhihigfyf. better have been the first time that was written or else

    edit: correcting spelling mistake ;)

    • Ephera@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      2 years ago

      I think, they mean across generations. Theoretically, infinite generations could follow, with therefore infinite new humans.

      Either way, it doesn’t actually need to be infinite, but rather just approaching infinity, to give high enough of a chance for a monkey to produce hamlet. Even just the 8 billion humans alive are already a pretty massive number of monkeys.

      • aname@lemmy.one
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        2 years ago

        But universe is is finite with finite ending. Humans will die out way before the heat death of the universe

        • oce 🐆@jlai.lu
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          2 years ago

          But universe is is finite with finite ending.

          I don’t think there’s scientific consensus about that, is there?

          • aname@lemmy.one
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            0
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            2 years ago

            Finiteness of the universe is not certain, but inevitability of entropy is pretty sure.

  • ObjectivityIncarnate@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    2 years ago

    This is pretty dumb, the whole point of the monkey with typewriters thing is that they’re typing random characters, not knowing the language.

      • ObjectivityIncarnate@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        2 years ago

        I understand it’s a joke, but it’s a poorly-formed joke that exposes its writer not understanding the thing they’re riffing on, lol.

        Would be kind of like making a joke based on a stereotype of NBA players mostly being redheads, with no such stereotype existing, lol.