In graduate school we had to answer this on a test question and it took all of 5 minutes...should have published it, I guess
I was going to say, we went over this in undergrad Statistical Mechanics and Thermodynamics.
Universe would die before monkey with keyboard writes Shakespeare, study finds
111–120 of 164 posts
Re: Universe would die before monkey with keyboard writes Shakespeare, study finds
#112200,000 is quite a bit smaller than infinite.
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?
Re: Universe would die before monkey with keyboard writes Shakespeare, study finds
#113I 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 monkeys and typewriters in the given timeframe to produce something as astonishingly complex as life, let alone Shakespeare.
Re: Universe would die before monkey with keyboard writes Shakespeare, study finds
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, but the theorem is meant to explain what can happen in the universe over long time scales. The point is that there isn't enough time in the universe for all the random stuff to happen that scientists pin on random chance. The theorem was memorable, but a cop out.
> 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?
Re: Universe would die before monkey with keyboard writes Shakespeare, study finds
#115A monkey with keyboard already wrote Shakespeare, duh. Other monkeys called it Shakespeare.
Apes aren't monkeys.
Re: Universe would die before monkey with keyboard writes Shakespeare, study finds
#116Empirically a monkey did already creat the works of Shakespeare in a mere 13billion years. This is the time it took for the universe to form, earth to evolve to create a monkey that could write all those words down. The entire process from start to finish is way more complicated and random than anyone typing 26 character randomly into the keyboard. But I guess we are talking about uniform distributions here.
This sequence replaces an infinite God with ~infinite time and then draws the wrong conclusion.
Re: Universe would die before monkey with keyboard writes Shakespeare, study finds
#117it was the best of times, it was the blurst of times!?!?!
Heh reminds me of working with LLMs.
Re: Universe would die before monkey with keyboard writes Shakespeare, study finds
#118Surely it depends on the calibre of monkey we deploy
Re: Universe would die before monkey with keyboard writes Shakespeare, study finds
#119I 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…
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.
Re: Universe would die before monkey with keyboard writes Shakespeare, study finds
#120I thought the saying was “infinite monkeys..” and in that case you would get the full works of Shakespeare immediately. With an infinite amount of time and one monkey you’d get the full works of Shakespeare in every language supported by the typewriter any number of times in a row you wished. In fact, you’d get anything you wanted as long as the probability was > 0 Edit: after walking my dogs, isn’t the probability o…
> isn’t the probability of the full works of Shakespeare never being typed out also > 0?
No