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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

#31

Post by hermitcrab »

dcminter wrote: post #10
kypro wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah exactly, it's a thought experiment about infinities... Is someone going to publish a study concluding that Hilbert's Hotel couldn't be built on Earth too? Why are people even spending money on this research? What are they trying to prove/disprove?

It's just barely possible that this is not an entirely serious paper. Scientists like to have fun too, you know? Not to mention that frivolous research has been known to pay surprising dividends.

Maybe they are after an Ig Nobel prize?

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

#32

Post by The_Blade »

hermitcrab wrote: post #22
The_Blade wrote: post #20

it was the best of times, it was the blurst of times!?!?!

Wrong writer (Dickens).

yes, i understand the difference between Shakespeare and Dickens, it's a Simpsons reference to the infinite monkey theorem in play here

you must be a devil with the ladies

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

#33

Post by dangsux »

The_Blade wrote: post #32
hermitcrab wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wrong writer (Dickens).

yes, i understand the difference between Shakespeare and Dickens, it's a Simpsons reference to the infinite monkey theorem in play here you must be a devil with the ladies

[dead]

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

#35

Post by Retric »

jdthedisciple wrote: post #21
cortic wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

correctly is doing a lot of heavy lifting there, and the selection process in evolution is not random.

Not the selection itself is random, but the existence of genetic variants to select from randomly arises due to random genetic mutations according to the theory

The critical difference is evolutionary only needs relatively short sequences to be randomly generated, and there’s many valid sequences.

Building a book by generating a single random text string is practically impossible, but if you lock in any given word that’s correct and retry that’ll quickly get something. You’ll have most 8 letter or shorter words correct after 1 trillion runs, and many 9 letter words. It wouldn’t be done, but someone could probably read and understand the work at that point.

Further it’s possible for a few even longer words to match at that point. People think it’s unlikely that specific sequences happened randomly, but what they ignore is all the potential sequences that didn’t occur.

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

#36

Post by jdthedisciple »

Retric wrote: post #35
jdthedisciple wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the selection itself is random, but the existence of genetic variants to select from randomly arises due to random genetic mutations according to the theory

The critical difference is evolutionary only needs relatively short sequences to be randomly generated, and there’s many valid sequences. Building a book by generating a single random text string is practically impossible, but if you lock in any given word that’s correct and retry that’ll quickly get something. You’ll have most 8 letter or shorter words correct after 1 trillion runs, and many 9 letter words. It would…

The many valid sequences are relatively nothing compared to the infinitely many invalid ones, right?

> You’ll have most 6 letter or shorter words correct after 1 billion tries.

You think that's "quick" for dna which is made up of billions of 6-base-sequences and for a species that can only reproduce sexually once every decade or so at best?

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

#37

Post by 23B1 »

The_Blade wrote: post #32
hermitcrab wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wrong writer (Dickens).

yes, i understand the difference between Shakespeare and Dickens, it's a Simpsons reference to the infinite monkey theorem in play here you must be a devil with the ladies

come for the archive.is link, scroll for the pedantry

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

#38

Post by jdthedisciple »

hermitcrab wrote: post #27
jdthedisciple wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flawed point if it is used to justify the random speciation of evolution. If they can't type out shakespeare, how can evolution randomly yet correctly type out billions of base sequences of dna in just a cple mil yrs?

Life has had 3-4 billions years to evolve on earth. I suggest you read 'the blind watchmaker' by Dawkins to answer your other question.

You are just repeating the point that was being argued against.

If the lifetime of the universe isn't enough to randomly produce Shakespeare, 3-4 billions of years are cute but useless to randomly produce anything even near as sophisticated as our 46 chromosome set.

I imagine Dawkins still just repeats the conjecture "but it's 3-4 billion years, anything can happen!"

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

#39

Post by ykonstant »

card_zero wrote: post #14
kypro wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah exactly, it's a thought experiment about infinities... Is someone going to publish a study concluding that Hilbert's Hotel couldn't be built on Earth too? Why are people even spending money on this research? What are they trying to prove/disprove?

Perhaps they're finitists, or ultrafinitists?

Many years ago someone complimented me saying I am extra fine; your comment makes me think I'll start identifying as an extrafinitist ╰(∀)╯
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