Way back in 2010, I did the Infinite Monkeys theorem, which says an infinite number of monkeys unintelligently whacking away at typewriters would eventually reproduce Shakespeare.
Back in the day, when I was much younger and had much less sense, I was a helicopter pilot in the USAF. One night in the early 1980's, I was flying over central Germany in December in really bad weather in really bad icing conditions and and trying to understand an Air Traffic Controller who was giving me instructions in really bad English. This was a problem as I couldn't talk to him in German as my grasp of German was limited to ordering a frikadelle, a beer, and to asking where the bathroom was. So along with the execrable weather, there were language barriers that were making things just that much worse.
There were other aircraft in the sky and the pitch of the ATC dude's voice kept climbing as he worked to keep me out of everybody else's way and I kept having to ask him to repeat things and was generally being an American pain in his ass.
The icing was really becoming a problem as my helo did not have an anti-icing system and the Flight Manual was very specific in stating that if you encountered severe icing conditions, you were to descend immediately as severe icing buildup on the blades could result in the aircraft embarking on a sequence of rapid kinetic disassembly. I tried to impress upon the ATC dude that I really needed to descend out of the icing levels but he kept telling me to maintain my altitude. So there was a lot going on in the cockpit and my stress levels were pretty high also.
While all this was going on, sitting next to me in the copilot seat, was my copilot. His name was Scott. Nice guy and we got along well. And he was sitting over there talking about the beauty he found in the mathematics of fractals.
Now normally, the duties of the copilot are pretty much to just sit there, keep quiet, and to not touch anything. Occasionally, to make them feel useful, I would ask them to change a radio frequency or to hand me the instrument approach charts or to grab that pencil I just dropped. There were times when their participation became more useful, and this was definitely one of those times. And he was talking about fractals.
Scott's mind operated at rarified altitudes most normal people never suspect exist. I have no idea how he made it through flight school as he was incapable of grasping the mundanities of keeping his mind on the basic fundamentals of flight and aircraft control. He was always talking about some shit nobody had ever heard of before (like fractals), much less understood, but whatever it was sure sounded interesting and his enthusiasm was contagious. Scott was liked and tolerated by the rest of us, but when we got back that night, I pulled him aside and told him that he really needed to find a different way to make a living as he had no business being a pilot. He laughed and agreed.
I imagine flying with you would be a lot like flying with Scott.
Over the years, I occasionally wonder what he wound up doing. Whatever it was, I'll bet I've never heard of it.
I think the argument goes: yes the odds are great, but it HAPPENED, and our explanation makes the most sense because the answers supplied by religion don’t line up with our testable empirical evidence.
Which annoys the heck outta me because now I have to argue metaphysics and science-minded types HATE metaphysics and understand little to nothing about the presuppositions of their own worldview of naive Realism.
It's a funny thesis in relation to the Oxfordian claims. There are bunch of well-education and sophisticated people out there who believe a million monkeys could have written Shakespeare's works, but Shakespeare could not have.
OMG Doc. All my very simple mind could picture once I looked at the meme leading off your post and began reading about a million monkeys sitting at keyboards picking away was the current state of journalism, media, etc. clown show sitting at their desk pounding away the nonsense we have to read or listen to. Very funny.
All this monkey business shows is that most people have no sense of scale or order of magnitude..It's easy to calculate the odds of a monkey getting the word Shakespeare right...and they're long...Extend that to a sentence or a paragraph, and you realize the whole idea is ridiculous...
Is it warranted to assume that a keyboard-banging monkey would produce all letters in identical frequencies? Wouldn't it bang the middle more often?
The standard QWERTY layout places letters that have high frequencies in English in the periphery while J which is close to the center is somewhat rare (Wikipedia told me so).
The main thing is your observation at the end that Shakespeare himself [or Francis Bacon] couldn't have written all that without intelligence. A very interesting point.
Shakespeare penned 884,647 words" Doesn't count. What counts is Different words (and he added a few to the language).
"Shakespeare used approximately 31,534 different words in his written works. This includes 14,376 words that appear only once and 4,343 words that appear twice."
But still, lets assume that the Academy Monkeytorium ground out 100 trillion or so words. What are the chances of finding a sparticular pan of 22,000 words in that set?
And certainly they would have come up with the Republic long before......
Bob Newhart had a routine that ends with him reading the note"
Several problems with the randomness of the Million Monkeys: First the Typewriter is not a random artifact. How long would it take a Million monkeys to assemble a typewriter from Dirt? Second, It takes an intelligent mind to recognize if and when the monkeys duplicate the existing text of Shakespeare. Third, It takes intelligence to set up the experiment in the first place -- collecting and feeding a million monkeys, assembling and housing a million typewriters. Providing the paper and ribbons, clearing typewriter jams and maintenance.
I would guess 95% of the experiment is not random and only 5% is random keystrokes.
Now do a random protein, vital to any living organism, randomly assembled itself.
Back in the day, when I was much younger and had much less sense, I was a helicopter pilot in the USAF. One night in the early 1980's, I was flying over central Germany in December in really bad weather in really bad icing conditions and and trying to understand an Air Traffic Controller who was giving me instructions in really bad English. This was a problem as I couldn't talk to him in German as my grasp of German was limited to ordering a frikadelle, a beer, and to asking where the bathroom was. So along with the execrable weather, there were language barriers that were making things just that much worse.
There were other aircraft in the sky and the pitch of the ATC dude's voice kept climbing as he worked to keep me out of everybody else's way and I kept having to ask him to repeat things and was generally being an American pain in his ass.
The icing was really becoming a problem as my helo did not have an anti-icing system and the Flight Manual was very specific in stating that if you encountered severe icing conditions, you were to descend immediately as severe icing buildup on the blades could result in the aircraft embarking on a sequence of rapid kinetic disassembly. I tried to impress upon the ATC dude that I really needed to descend out of the icing levels but he kept telling me to maintain my altitude. So there was a lot going on in the cockpit and my stress levels were pretty high also.
While all this was going on, sitting next to me in the copilot seat, was my copilot. His name was Scott. Nice guy and we got along well. And he was sitting over there talking about the beauty he found in the mathematics of fractals.
Now normally, the duties of the copilot are pretty much to just sit there, keep quiet, and to not touch anything. Occasionally, to make them feel useful, I would ask them to change a radio frequency or to hand me the instrument approach charts or to grab that pencil I just dropped. There were times when their participation became more useful, and this was definitely one of those times. And he was talking about fractals.
Scott's mind operated at rarified altitudes most normal people never suspect exist. I have no idea how he made it through flight school as he was incapable of grasping the mundanities of keeping his mind on the basic fundamentals of flight and aircraft control. He was always talking about some shit nobody had ever heard of before (like fractals), much less understood, but whatever it was sure sounded interesting and his enthusiasm was contagious. Scott was liked and tolerated by the rest of us, but when we got back that night, I pulled him aside and told him that he really needed to find a different way to make a living as he had no business being a pilot. He laughed and agreed.
I imagine flying with you would be a lot like flying with Scott.
Over the years, I occasionally wonder what he wound up doing. Whatever it was, I'll bet I've never heard of it.
‘“Random” molecules bumping into one another isn’t enough to produce this.’
The same might not be said for the tax code.
The tax code is conclusive proof that we are being griefed by teenage space aliens.
The tax code requires spite and malice.
I think the argument goes: yes the odds are great, but it HAPPENED, and our explanation makes the most sense because the answers supplied by religion don’t line up with our testable empirical evidence.
Which annoys the heck outta me because now I have to argue metaphysics and science-minded types HATE metaphysics and understand little to nothing about the presuppositions of their own worldview of naive Realism.
That is the longest way to say "Bullshit" that I have ever read.
It's a funny thesis in relation to the Oxfordian claims. There are bunch of well-education and sophisticated people out there who believe a million monkeys could have written Shakespeare's works, but Shakespeare could not have.
OMG Doc. All my very simple mind could picture once I looked at the meme leading off your post and began reading about a million monkeys sitting at keyboards picking away was the current state of journalism, media, etc. clown show sitting at their desk pounding away the nonsense we have to read or listen to. Very funny.
All this monkey business shows is that most people have no sense of scale or order of magnitude..It's easy to calculate the odds of a monkey getting the word Shakespeare right...and they're long...Extend that to a sentence or a paragraph, and you realize the whole idea is ridiculous...
Is it warranted to assume that a keyboard-banging monkey would produce all letters in identical frequencies? Wouldn't it bang the middle more often?
The standard QWERTY layout places letters that have high frequencies in English in the periphery while J which is close to the center is somewhat rare (Wikipedia told me so).
Lovely. Shakespeare would no doubt have made a play about this.
The Typists
Much Ado about Macaques
Langur’s Labor Lost
Howler & Colobus
Macmarmoset
Capuchin & Mangabey
Orthelotan
King Colubus
A Midsummer Night’s Lemur
Taming of the Chimp
The main thing is your observation at the end that Shakespeare himself [or Francis Bacon] couldn't have written all that without intelligence. A very interesting point.
My brain really needed the belly laugh break from 'California Burning', and the confirmation hearings.
Special thanks for "bad-banana induced mishits".
Shakespeare penned 884,647 words" Doesn't count. What counts is Different words (and he added a few to the language).
"Shakespeare used approximately 31,534 different words in his written works. This includes 14,376 words that appear only once and 4,343 words that appear twice."
But still, lets assume that the Academy Monkeytorium ground out 100 trillion or so words. What are the chances of finding a sparticular pan of 22,000 words in that set?
And certainly they would have come up with the Republic long before......
Bob Newhart had a routine that ends with him reading the note"
"To be, or not to be - that is the gzigoplat"
Several problems with the randomness of the Million Monkeys: First the Typewriter is not a random artifact. How long would it take a Million monkeys to assemble a typewriter from Dirt? Second, It takes an intelligent mind to recognize if and when the monkeys duplicate the existing text of Shakespeare. Third, It takes intelligence to set up the experiment in the first place -- collecting and feeding a million monkeys, assembling and housing a million typewriters. Providing the paper and ribbons, clearing typewriter jams and maintenance.
I would guess 95% of the experiment is not random and only 5% is random keystrokes.
I guess there's a decent chance a monkey would break his keyboard or render it inoperable with his shit.
“Half of what I say is meaningless; but I say it so that the other half may reach you.”
- Khalil Gibran, Sand and Foam
Inexorable Logic…
Inflexible Logic: “I thought everybody was told about it in school”
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1940/02/03/inflexible-logic
Since I was disruptive in class, my sixth grade teacher would give me stuff like this to read. I didn’t understand all of it, but I never forgot it.