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Universe would die before monkey with keyboard writes Shakespeare, study finds

theguardian.com

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Re: Universe would die before monkey with keyboard writes Shakespeare, study finds

#141

Post by tines »

bathtub365 wrote: post #94
qarl wrote: post #57

200,000 is quite a bit smaller than infinite.

The reporting on this paper is crazy. In the highlights section of the paper’s page on the journal’s website it says “The long-established result of the Infinite Monkeys Theorem is correct, but misleading.” but the Guardian article says “Australian mathematicians call into question the ‘infinite monkey theorem’ in new research on old adage”, which I read as contradictory to what’s in the paper.

It calls into question the applicability of the infinite monkeys theorem, so the headline is correct but misleading :)

Re: Universe would die before monkey with keyboard writes Shakespeare, study finds

#142

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

lucianbr wrote: post #114
ragnese wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, but the theorem is meant to explain what can happen in the universe over long time scales. I never understood it that way. I always interpreted it as a fun way to explain the mathematical truth that no matter how low a probability is, as long as it is technically above 0, the event it describes WILL eventually occur given enough time/trials/etc. I can't see anybody ever interpreting it as a statement about the…

> the event it describes WILL eventually occur given enough time/trials/etc. What's the meaning of writing WILL with capitals, and then saying "nobody is talking about the real, actual universe"? What is the value of certainty about what WILL happen in hypothetical universes?

> What is the value of certainty about what WILL happen in hypothetical universes?

Talking about something that would take greater than 1 googol years in our universe has about as much value as talking about something that would take 1 googol years in our universe.

In other words, the fact that something might probably occur right before the heat death of the universe, rather than after, isn't particularly useful either. For that matter, there's about an equal value in talking about something probably "only" a trillion years out, either.

Re: Universe would die before monkey with keyboard writes Shakespeare, study finds

#143

Post by appden »

> even if all the chimpanzees in the world were given the entire lifespan of the universe

Seems to me like a flawed “study” if the baseline assumption is that chimpanzees would type randomly even when given lifespans through the heat death of the universe, which is estimated at 10^100 (googol) years!

Re: Universe would die before monkey with keyboard writes Shakespeare, study finds

#144

Post by bluefirebrand »

thom wrote: post #108
bluefirebrand wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you had infinite monkies, what is the probability that one of them is actually a random number generator In the set of all infinite monkies there are infinite monkies that are random number generators

I believe that probability could plausibly be zero.

On an infinite scale it seems unlikely that the probability of anything is actually zero

Near zero, certainly, but not actually zero

Re: Universe would die before monkey with keyboard writes Shakespeare, study finds

#145

Post by zimpenfish »

umvi wrote: post #134
gleenn wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very computer science and not scientific response, but I look at the Game of Life, and it makes me realize that little patterns naturally form everywhere. Biology is just a little pattern that wants to replicate and survive and that doesn't have to mean intelligently.

> Biology is just a little pattern that wants to replicate and survive I don't really see biology as being a "little" pattern. To me, looking at the jump from replicating molecules in chemical soup to single cell organisms is like looking at the jump from an abacus to an Intel i9 processor.

> the jump from an abacus to an Intel i9 processor

Call it 75 years (1942 - before electronic computers to 2017 - first i9) which is about 39M minutes. Assume human innovation can work on an minutely cycle[0] and you've got 39M iterations from "no electronic computers" to "Intel i9".

I'd put decent money on there bring several orders of magnitude more chemical reactions than that per second in the primordial soup (good conditions for fast reactions and there was A LOT of it.) And it had about half a billion years (fifteen quadrillion, seven hundred seventy-eight trillion, eight hundred billion seconds) to cook before things really started happening.

Statistically, it was likely.

[0] Obviously optimistic but giving parallelism a chance.

Re: Universe would die before monkey with keyboard writes Shakespeare, study finds

#146

Post by triceratops »

umvi wrote: post #113

I am biased by my religious beliefs, but I've always struggled with the idea that abiogenesis could spontaneously occur in "just" a few billion years on earth. A few billion seems like not enough time. Even the simplest forms of life are mind bogglingly complex. Of course, it's a few billion years scaled across >1 life-friendly planets (since it only has to happen on 1 of them), but still just seems like not enough m…

We're in the universe where it did happen.

Re: Universe would die before monkey with keyboard writes Shakespeare, study finds

#147

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

chasd00 wrote: post #112
unyttigfjelltol wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clearly not infinite monkeys or infinite time. If either were truly infinite not only would this be possible, it would be mandatory and would occur infinite times.

Kind of embarrassing to even be in this thread spending time here but would it not also be probable, however unlikely, to never get the full works of Shakespeare?

With fixed tries/time, or without true randomness, yes.

With infinite tries/time and true randomness, no.

Re: Universe would die before monkey with keyboard writes Shakespeare, study finds

#148

Post by rogerclark »

umvi wrote: post #134
gleenn wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very computer science and not scientific response, but I look at the Game of Life, and it makes me realize that little patterns naturally form everywhere. Biology is just a little pattern that wants to replicate and survive and that doesn't have to mean intelligently.

> Biology is just a little pattern that wants to replicate and survive I don't really see biology as being a "little" pattern. To me, looking at the jump from replicating molecules in chemical soup to single cell organisms is like looking at the jump from an abacus to an Intel i9 processor.

I would guess that abiogenesis is often framed around randomness as a strategy to argue for its implausibility. Of course, a completely random system is unlikely to produce enough coherence to convince anyone that it could be possible.

But in reality, the universe is full of patterns. The laws of physics are not random. Water behaves in very specific ways. Our planet revolves around the Sun in 365 day intervals. The planet rotates every 24 hours. Even out of these two interlocking patterns, you can see how energy delivery to the surface of the planet could result in mechanical and chemical cycles that may result in non-random mineral formation, concentration gradients, and thermal dynamics.

Scientists argue that abiogenesis is a result of inherently chaotic but non-random processes, not a hypothetical probabilistic scenario like monkeys with typewriters.

Re: Universe would die before monkey with keyboard writes Shakespeare, study finds

#149

Post by zknow »

umvi wrote: post #113

I am biased by my religious beliefs, but I've always struggled with the idea that abiogenesis could spontaneously occur in "just" a few billion years on earth. A few billion seems like not enough time. Even the simplest forms of life are mind bogglingly complex. Of course, it's a few billion years scaled across >1 life-friendly planets (since it only has to happen on 1 of them), but still just seems like not enough m…

Have you ever considered the possibility of supernaturally guided evolution. Always seemed like an interesting possibility to me. So God creates an incredibly beautiful concept that life comes from. Seems like one of the most probable solutions to how astonishingly unlikely abiogenesis would be.
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