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But Hamlet was written with intention.
The point in the expression is to underline how critical coincidences are, and how correlation is not causation. It's not that Hamlet is long and nigh impossible to "randomly" generate, but that at scale, seemingly impossible coincidences do actually happen.
It's kind of an outdated now too since it was a thought experiment and the monkeys were a stand-in for an abstract concept of a machine that creates an infinite amount of text.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.
Wrll that's exactly what I mean: The monkeys themselves have zero consciousness in the allegory. The ENTIRE POINT is they do not understand what they're writing. They are standing in for chaos, and Hamlet is standing in for any meaningful structure arising from chaos.
To add desire and intention to the allegory is SPECIFICALLY choosing to miss the entire point that the monkeys DO NOT know what they write, and that's critical to them being an agent of chaos.
It was also written by an ape, not a monkey.
Yeah in the same way that Québécois folks are Mainland frenchies
Technically we're all just really really really weird fish too
Your mom is an eukaryote.
You're just an especially active proto-fungus!
I’m not trying to correct you, but I would have said “a eukaryote,” and now I’m really curious about which is right. Does anyone know if there’s a resource to look this up?
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.
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.
Thanks for this, never actualy seen Hamlet so it's interesting to hear thr actual of where its from.
When did the human population stop being finite?
Turns out you don't need an infinite number of monkeys to get Hamlet.
Right. Maybe only... 117 billion, give or take like 7 billion.
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.
But universe is is finite with finite ending. Humans will die out way before the heat death of the universe
But universe is is finite with finite ending.
I don't think there's scientific consensus about that, is there?
Yes, please refer to my second paragraph.
When infinite growth became mainstream ideology.
"Ford!" he said, "there's an infinite number of monkeys outside who want to talk to us about this script for Hamlet they've worked out.
This is pretty dumb, the whole point of the monkey with typewriters thing is that they're typing random characters, not knowing the language.
Counterpoint: I think you just described Twitter.
The meta of the joke, as well as the philosophical idea that underpins it, is that the universe is based in probability and we are the result of those infinite dice rolls eventually making a human race that can think and be conscious and create Hamlet.
I just wrote it again, word for word, with 6 random button presses. CTRL+A, CTRL+C, CTRL+V. Where is my BANANA!?
🍌🍪you get a cookie too
This llama saying, 'we' & 'us' like he's one of us. 😡
maybe we are some Alien dude's crappy brute force solution to some problem
Apes
Act 3, scene 3, line 92
I sit here all day writing random words, and still no Shakespeare.
Still more comprehensible than the average monkey!
what about Hamlet 2?
Once more, not monkeys, Great Apes
Our tails are vestigial
hjfhsi ibghrkbkjkab orulkjd obno pmykb gthskt a otjsnono wobfrtinoe Hamlet hbjnsthon vjbigl hjkkohs jwaklnesgk;]]]]]];
So the experiment was a success then? What are we still doing here? Are we supposed to be writing Hamlet II: Electric Boogaloo? 2 Hamlet 2 Furious?
I cant wait for one of the monkeys to write " Plibious Montgomery: A tale of 37 doughnuts and the rise and fall of the neo llama consortiumismship."