As the saying goes
An infinite number of multicellular organisms with an infinite number of writing utensils will eventually reproduce a recognizable literary work
A more pithier way of putting it is that we are the universe experiencing itself.
Am I the only one bothered by the use there instead of their?
You made me reread the post looking for any there, their, of even they’re.
He edited the title
Thanks, thought I was going … bananas.
We were there, monkeys all along. Or we were their monkeys all along. I’m so confused. This sentence makes no sense. My grammar sucks and i can’t even work this out.
Didn’t some math nerd prove that they would need more time than exists in the universe to make this happen?
It’s been calculated many times, and yes, it would take an absurdly long amount of time, and that’s the point. When dealing with infinities, time is irrelevant, whether you have infinite monkeys or one monkey and infinite time, they will still both do every possible thing a monkey could do.
In fact, infinite monkeys would not only write Hamlet, they would write it instantly, an infinite number of times, and in all possible languages, as well as the possible sequel where Marvel’s Blade shows up to fight vampires. Instantly.
Good luck finding them though.
100% and you probably know this, so I’m just addin: think of infinity as a sequence of infinite numbers. The number of all the even numbers, that stretch off into infinity, are also infinite. However, that infinite number isn’t as big as regular infinity.
You can have different sizes of infinity because when things get that big, the rules change. Its almost like infinity / 2 = smaller infinity.
Well, they wouldn’t write it instantly - in the best case, they would start writing it instantly, and finish in optimal time. However, it’s possible that no monkey would actually write it on the first try - we’d have to get into some complex predictions on monkey brains and physiology, it’s possible that with their brains and muscle structure they wouldn’t go for the kinds of character sequences to produce Hamlet, perhaps changing up patterns enough to produce something more random only after a certain amount of time.
Depending on how you formulate the experiment, it could be that no monkey could finish it before physiologically having to take a break or something, returning to specific patterns afterwards that would render it impossible for it to finish writing Hamlet, and thus no monkey would ever write Hamlet in a continuous string of characters, from start to end.
But yeah, if we just say they’re typing completely random characters without pause forever, yup, infinity dictates some fraction of monkeys would immediately be on the right track and finish writing as soon as possible, for anything you can think of.
That only is true with limited amounts of monkeys. A million might not do it in the first try, but an infinite amount would mean one of those monkeys at least would do it first try. Which monkey that is is just as absurd as asking when it will happen when we use infinite time instead.
Is the point of these logic memes to illustrate the properties of infinity or to prove a point about what can or cant be done though?
I think we’re looking too deep into what is really meant to be a simple thought experiment. Entertaining the discussion, however, if the occurrence of a monkey to type, say Hamlet, on the first try, is not physiologically possible for the mind and body of a monkey, it will never happen on the first try by any monkey even with infinite monkeys as it is not within the realm of possibilities. Infinity just means every possible outcome will occur, but anything outside of the realm of possibilities is still impossible and won’t happen no matter how many instances are attempted.
No. They proved it would take a finite number of monkeys longer than there is time in the universe. Not sure what the point of that paper was, since the theory involved an infinite number of monkeys.
They obviously weren’t very good at math if it already happened.
Did the monkeys do it? Or Shakespeare?
Hamlet is a remake of and Old Norse legend Amleth.
Shakespeare wasn’t even that good of a writer. There are better writers, more modern ones, like Stephen King and George RR Martin.
Why would people downvote this?
We’re in shitposts. This is pure gold!
To support OP, the greatest movie came out already and it’s called Bad Boys 2 with Will Smith and Martin Lawrence.
George “Let’s ignore half of history, take a superficial misrepresentation of the other half, sprinkle some sexual violence and betrayal over it all, then let everyone claim it’s historically accurate” R.R. “The Dothraki were actually fashioned as an amalgam of racist stereotypes I didn’t bother doing even the least bit of research on, but will pretend were an actual historical inspiration” Martin?
Not throwing shade on GoT as a work of fiction, mind, as long as people are aware that it’s solidly in the realm of fiction. Its popularity alone attests to its literary quality. A piece of fiction doesn’t need to be true to reality to be good (that’s the point of fiction, isn’t it?).
You do have to consider that the two unwritten books have the capability of affecting the previous books. Its hard to say that its a great series at this point in time, at least in my opinion. It definitely could be, I’m hoping someone with a better work ethic will take over when GRRM passes on.
I understand GRRM spawned a thing that got popular, but he is not a writer anyone should emulate. He’s one of the most unprofessional writers ive heard of, and thats been echoed by other well established writers.
Maybe could call it perpetual immaturity.
Yeah, there are some good modern german writers but goethe or lessing are still historical relevant authors. Old authors get read or discussed in school to learn more about the time they lived in
One of us even wrote:
It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times.
One of us even wrote this!
And you don’t start sentences with capital letters.
And you dont start sentences with and!
Unless you really want to!
No, it’s ok! As long as you end every sentence with an exclamation mark! You can do anything! The only limitation is your imagination!
I will read anything if its all exclamation points! The exciting rise at the end of every sentence is addicting! I want to go up and down this hill all day!
Yeah! I feel like doing a shit ton of cocain now!
I mean it’s better than capitalizing Random Words because you think it Looks Cool and it will Make America Great Again!
Or to write some WORDS completely in CAPITAL letters to CREATE disgusting CLICKBAIT titles.
nO I d’ont.
You rebel
Not just hamlet but the entire body of works accredited to Shakespeare
damn, that monkey must be pretty prolific, perhaps even rivaling Shakespeare! Do we know their name?
She was Wouldiwas Shookspeared and she wrote all of shakespears work in a span of one monkey life
Christopher Marlowe
The name of the kid: Shakespeare
and everymonkey clapped.
Prithee, good sir, wouldst know the stripling’s name?
'Twas William Shakespeare, ere he found his fame!
At least one overly-proficient monkey.
I thought they were written by a Klingon.
We also drew dickibutt
Life is amazing
Yeah and all by one monkey.
We’re apes though.
Great ones even!
We’re Grapes
Grape apes?
Grape vapes?
Great apes
Great tapes?
Apes are monkeys, in the same sense that humans are apes.
I’m not entirely sure that statement is correct, but it’s been a while since I took any anthropology courses…
Edit: I was wrong and remembered the tree incorrectly.
Family tree of primates. As you can see, old world monkeys and new world monkeys share their last common ancestor with the apes. That means that phylogenetically, that if they are both monkeys, then so are all the apes.
You are factually correct, the best kind of correct!
It is correct. I’ve been corrected on this before and did the research to discover I was wrong. Humans are Monkeys.
Yeah, looks like I was mistaken.
Good on you for realizing it. It was difficult for me to admit I was wrong when it happened to me as well, so I feel your confusion/pain :)
Nothing wrong with learning.
Not on a typewriter though. Task failed successfully.
If you’re paying, I’ll rewrite it on a typewriter for you.
Pretty sure some other monkey did tho
Not endless, i guarantee it.
The monkeys are really the friends we make along the way
A monkey wrote Hamlet. It got mediocre reviews.
It was the BLURST OF TIMES?!?
Unexpected Simpsons reference
Totally expected Simpsons reference…
We’re apes, not monkeys, though.
We’re both. Apes are a subset of old world monkeys.
e: sorry, old, not new
simiiformes / simians
Oh, my God, I was wrong, It was Earth all along!
