So the researchers didn’t refute the assumption “given an infinite amount of time,” and instead chose to address the long finite-time case, which is fundamentally different.
The study found a finite number of monkeys in a finite amount of time would not write all the works of Shakespeare.
Yeah, no, using a finite number to try and disprove a theory that is all specifically about infinite numbers isn’t poking holes in anything…
the time it would take for a typing monkey to replicate Shakespeare’s plays, sonnets and poems would be longer than the lifespan of our universe.
Which means that while mathematically true, the theorem is “misleading”, they said.
Gotta read the articles 👍
Gotta read the articles 👍
No, you…
As well as looking at the abilities of a single monkey, the study also did a series of calculations based on the current global population of chimpanzees, which is roughly 200,000.
(E: never mind that, as has already been suggested to you, the theoretical thought experiment in question specifies not only infinite monkeys, but infinite time too, so they’ve not stuck to either parameter)
(E: never mind that, as has already been suggested to you, the theoretical thought experiment in question specifies not only infinite monkeys, but infinite time too, so they’ve not stuck to either parameter)
Whoah, whoah, whoah… Big critical thinker here thinks the paper is about disproving a thought experiment?
You understand that this is impossible? Even if it were attempted, such a venture is more a philosophical one, not a mathematicians forte.
Obviously the paper is not looking at that, it’s doing math
“Yes, it is true that given infinite resources, any text of any length would inevitably be produced eventually. While true, this also has no relevance to our own universe, as ‘reaching infinity’ in resources is not something which can ever happen.”
That needing to be pointed out to you is… Well you’ll have to excuse me if I don’t waste my energy “critically thinking” yet 👍
If there are an infinite number of trials (either infinite monkeys or infinite time), the outcome is truly random, and the desired text is finite, it must necessarily happen at some point. In fact, it’d happen an infinite number of times.
The original thought experiment clearly states infinite. As soon as you bound that in any way (such as not infinite monkeys, but 1 monkey for every atom in the universe) you’re talking about another experiment entirely. Infinite means infinite, not really really big. Gotta use some critical thinking 👍
The theorem is not misleading, it literally states infinite monkeys. Not 200k monkeys or even 200 decillion monkeys, infinite. If it’s possible for the monkeys to press the keys in the right order, then the time it will take for one of them to write Shakespeare’s complete works will be limited only by their typing speed.
The “theorem”, if we wanna call it that, says that, given an infinite amount of monkeys and time, they could write Shakespeare.
This doesn’t mean it’s actually possible in the real world, it’s just to say that random events can seem, from the outside, like intelligent creations. Like a cloud that looks like a pig, no one actually created it to look like that, it was just random happenstance.
A monkey already wrote Shakespeare. Anything it’s possible.
Wasn’t the saying an infinite number of monkeys on an infinite number of typewriters? If so then they’d write Hamlet and indeed every other book written or ever will be written in however long it would conceivably take to type them out if you were copying them.
I don’t really know how this myth? paradox is supposed to work? I know infinity isn’t a number but a concept and in theory I understand what it’s trying to say, but if I have an infinite amount of scrap yards and infinite amount of tornadoes, they can go on forever, but they’ll never assemble a Boing 747.
Not the same the monkeys have all the capabilities and tools to cohesively combine letters words and white space. A tornado cannot weld and program controllers and solder. But a monkey can type randomly even wacking randomly. The idea is that given an infinite truly random output of text by the nature of infinity the text of Shakespeare will be outputted in its entirety eventually
The idea is that given an infinite truly random output of text by the nature of infinity the text of Shakespeare will be outputted in its entirety eventually
Only for a certain kind of randomness. For example, it’s possible to construct a random process that at each step emits a uniformly distributed character, but which also includes a filter that blocks the emission of the string “Falstaff” if it occurs. Such a process cannot ever produce the complete works of Shakespeare, since the complete works include that string, though it will still contain (for example) every lost work of Aristotle, as well as an infinite number of false and corrupted versions of those works.
But yeah, an unconstrained uniform-random-distributed countably infinite sequence of printable English characters and whitespace cannot be proven to not contain the complete works of Shakespeare, or any other finite sequence. I believe it’s also impossible to exclude any countably infinite sequence, but I might be wrong on that part, since my mathematics education happened a very long time ago.
An infinite number of monkeys typing randomly on an infinite number of typewriters, so long as the writing is truly random, will eventually write every novel. Once you factor in the infinite number of monkeys, every novel in existence will not only be written, it will be written an infinite number of times.
It’s like saying if you had a random number generator and gave it an infinite amount of time generating 16 numbers at a time, it would eventually generate every bank card number ever an infinite number of times. Give that task to an infinite number of random number generators and they will generate every bank card number an infinite number of times instantaneously.
Come to think of it, if the tornado throws around junk completely randomly, and provided there’s enough material in every junkyard to assemble a plane, the tornado will eventually assemble it. That’s the power of infinity and randomness.
Once you factor in the infinite number of monkeys, every novel in existence will not only be written, it will be written an infinite number of times.
You don’t need an infinite number of monkeys to ensure that. The cardinality of an infinite collection of 2-tuples (monkey, char) is the same as the cardinality of an infinite sequence of characters, just as the cardinality of the rational numbers is the same as the cardinality of the integers.
And in a countably infinite sequence of uniformly random characters, there is no assurance that any particular finite sequence will occur only a finite number of times.
Same way in the infinite random non repeating numbers of Pi is the binary of a 4k resolution photo of Betty White nude holding a snake on a tiger.
It’s random forever and eventually the 1s and 0s fall into place. The problem is the monkeys repeating themselves.
The problem here is the implied entropic outcomes of each system.
If the monkeys were replaced with true-random number generators, then you’d eventually get shakespear. But they aren’t RNG engines, and they aren’t quantumly random.
Instead, the monkeys have a large-ish but very finite number of logical branches that they can take in their decision-making processes, with slight variations within a fixed genetic scope. They will slam away at the typewriters in a very specific monkey kind of way.
At the end of the thought experiment, you will end up with an infinite amount of monkey-gibberish and a slightly smaller infinite amount of soiled or destroyed typewriters.
