1231
All possible permutations
(i.imgur.com)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 01 Jun 2024
1231 points (98.0% liked)
Microblog Memes
5699 readers
4283 users here now
A place to share screenshots of Microblog posts, whether from Mastodon, tumblr, ~~Twitter~~ X, KBin, Threads or elsewhere.
Created as an evolution of White People Twitter and other tweet-capture subreddits.
Rules:
- Please put at least one word relevant to the post in the post title.
- Be nice.
- No advertising, brand promotion or guerilla marketing.
- Posters are encouraged to link to the toot or tweet etc in the description of posts.
Related communities:
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
I don't quite understand what you're saying. You say "Hamlet was written with intention", which in the case of that it was written by humans I agree with. But what about in the case of the monkeys?
We know Hamlet can be written with intention, but do the monkeys with typewriters imply that it needs to be or not to be? That is my question.
The infinite monkeys with infinite typewriters schtick is about random output.
Basically the monkeys don't intend to write anything, it just happens that stuff gets written whenever they get bored and hit a key to hear the funny pinging noise.
They're an inefficient random text generator and the thesis of the thought experiment is that even given completely random outputs enough time to observe makes any possible specific string output a certain part of the complete output string, no matter how silly or absurd or improbable.
A randomized system will produce all results over infinite time. All results of a random text generation includes the complete works of Shakespeare.
Right, the logic is this. First, out of 26 letters in both upper and lower cases, 10 Arabic numerals, whitespace and various common punctuation marks, there are dozens of symbols that can be typed at any time. Let's call it a nice round number like 50.
So when any of them has equal odds the likelihood that the next symbol you randomly type is any specific character, like the lowercase 'g', is 1 in 50. The liklihood that the letter after that is a lowercase 'o' is also 1 in 50. So the liklihood of both the 'g' and then the 'o' being pressed in succession to spell the work "go" is 1 in 50^2, i.e. 1 in 2,500. The liklihood of any specific 3, 4, and 5 characters would be 1 in 125,000, 1 in 6,250,000, and 1 in 312,500,000, respectively. As you can guess, to write a play like Hamlet with 130,000 letters in it, the odds would be astronomical. 1 in 50^130,000, to be specific.
You can't even comprehend how big a number 50^130,000 is. You can't even conceive of something at that scale. When I say that that number is more than all of the nanoseconds since the big bang multiplied by the number of molecules in the observable universe, that is such an understatement that it is funny. That doesn't actually even put a dent into how big that number is.
So then the chances of writing Hamlet may feel, intuitively, like the odds are actually 0. Something with such unbelievably low odds simply cannot practically happen, right? But that is not the case and I can prove it. Imagine a random letter generator that puts out a random series of letters, numbers, whitespace and punctuation. Imagine it had to output a selection of 130,000 characters. What does the output look like in your head? Probably a random mess of gibberish, right? The odds are good of that, after all. But, wait. What are the odds that the SPECIFIC mess of gibberish, that specific set of letters, was selected? Well, obviously, it would be 1 in 50^130,000. The exact same odds as Hamlet. The thing that feels literally impossible. That exact string of meaningless nonsense and the masterpiece by Shakespeare have the exact same odds of happening, and one of them already did. If one can happen, so can the other.
I posted this in a different thread recently:
=====
it is to illustrate the vastness of infinity not the efficacy of monkeys
assuming one infinite monkey:
sonnet 18 has 592 characters- or a chance of 4.3x10^-848
For scale - the universe is 1.3x10^10 years old.
And the ^-848 was 14 lines, a onehundredth of a single percent of the complete works.
However, it's infinite monkeys, so the time it would take is effectively how every long it takes for one monkey to type that many lines. A few days? A week? In an infinite monkey cage it's done at the first attempt: that's the size of infinity.
If you converted all the mass in the universe to energy, and all the time until it's heat death and could combine them into one machine: probably not enough to clear Titus Andronicus.
The case of the monkeys is a hypothetical to highlight that seemingly impossible things, like a fully cogent and understandable stage play, resulting from effective chaos is not actually impossible despite any human concept of impossible.
The monkeys with type writers are allegory for random. Adding intention makes it a decision, not a random event. The expression is not saying anything about decisions, but "form" rising from chaos.
I guess I don't think I see how that contradicts the initial post, but maybe that's just because I'm reading the post as saying the same thing as "leave enough hydrogen alone for long enough and eventually it starts thinking"
Well, it's more that observing that the allegory is based in reality ... is quite literally turning it on its head. Saying, "but it's tru tho" is a thought-terminating statement that ignores the entire reason WHY it is a valid allegory.
It is a valid allegory specifically because the monkeys didn't intend to write a play. Shakespear wanted to write a play. The monkeys did not. It is a fundamental detail for the allegory to even work.
Gotcha gotcha. In other words: us being monkeys generating random output is an unfalsifiable hypothesis, so saying "it's true" is unscientific. Yes, it could be true if free will didn't exist, but since that's not something that can be proven we shouldn't use it as the basis for how we view reality. Something like that?
I mean, yea that works if you want to continue to carry it in that direction, but my point is... The expression is not commenting on humans what so ever. It's commenting on the the law of averages vs the law of large numbers. The probability is not zero, so eventually, even seemingly impossible things WILL occur, and that it's NOT some mystic sign if something rare does happen.
In what way, shape, or form have we proven ourselves to be otherwise than agents of chaos?
I organized my manga collection alphabetically. Does that count?
Singlehandedly, you have brought us back from the very brink of destruction!