infinite monkeys
An infinite number of monkeys typing on an infinite number of typewriters would not produce Shakespear, but an infinite pile of monkey-gibberish. That's because typing monkeys aren't truly random - as no physical process is.
A truly infinite, truly random process would theoretically produce the complete works of Shakespear, etc. Of course it would, in theory produce every possible combination of letters, numbers, punctuation, etc - so it would produce any book ever written or that will ever be written - but the concentration of meaningful combinations would be extremely low. The vast majority would be meaningless garbage. Not only would it produce Hamlet - it would produce a version of Hamlet with every conceivable combination of every conceivable typo. It would produce the very product of taking a copy of Hamlet and a copy of "A Tale of Two Cities", putting them in a blender and arranging the shreds in any arbitrary order.
A truly infinite, truly random process would theoretically produce the complete works of Shakespear, etc. Of course it would, in theory produce every possible combination of letters, numbers, punctuation, etc - so it would produce any book ever written or that will ever be written - but the concentration of meaningful combinations would be extremely low. The vast majority would be meaningless garbage. Not only would it produce Hamlet - it would produce a version of Hamlet with every conceivable combination of every conceivable typo. It would produce the very product of taking a copy of Hamlet and a copy of "A Tale of Two Cities", putting them in a blender and arranging the shreds in any arbitrary order.
posted by phil at 7:01 PM
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Sorry, I meant to say
Jorge Luis Borges called it "the Library of Babel" in Labyrinths(1962)
PS: Do you have a point? It's okay if you don't, some of my blog posts don't either. I'm just wondering.
PPS: I'm sorry if some of my commments seem antagonistic. They aren't meant to be. I'm just sick of people (not you) saying that their belifs need to be protected from criticism while ridiculing mine at the same time. Not just Christian either (though there are plenty of them, too)
Come on! They're just f---ing cartoons! Get over it!
No point really, just that this is a classic illustration supporting Evolution which never made any sense to me - even when I still accepted Evolution - it may be one of the topics that prompted me to critically examine the theory.
In what way does The Library of Babel support evolution? If you mean the infinite monkeys thing, I have heard it often used as part of an argument against evolution, but never for it(that I have heard.
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