But Hamlet was written with intention.
The point in the expression is to underline how critical coincidences are, and how correlation is not causation. It's not that Hamlet is long and nigh impossible to "randomly" generate, but that at scale, seemingly impossible coincidences do actually happen.
It's kind of an outdated now too since it was a thought experiment and the monkeys were a stand-in for an abstract concept of a machine that creates an infinite amount of text. We have proof that even a finite number of randomly generated words will produce at least the first 1,312,000 characters of Shakespeare.
Wrll that's exactly what I mean: The monkeys themselves have zero consciousness in the allegory. The ENTIRE POINT is they do not understand what they're writing. They are standing in for chaos, and Hamlet is standing in for any meaningful structure arising from chaos.
To add desire and intention to the allegory is SPECIFICALLY choosing to miss the entire point that the monkeys DO NOT know what they write, and that's critical to them being an agent of chaos.
It was also written by an ape, not a monkey.
I don't quite understand what you're saying. You say "Hamlet was written with intention", which in the case of that it was written by humans I agree with. But what about in the case of the monkeys?
We know Hamlet can be written with intention, but do the monkeys with typewriters imply that it needs to be or not to be? That is my question.
The infinite monkeys with infinite typewriters schtick is about random output.
Basically the monkeys don't intend to write anything, it just happens that stuff gets written whenever they get bored and hit a key to hear the funny pinging noise.
They're an inefficient random text generator and the thesis of the thought experiment is that even given completely random outputs enough time to observe makes any possible specific string output a certain part of the complete output string, no matter how silly or absurd or improbable.
A randomized system will produce all results over infinite time. All results of a random text generation includes the complete works of Shakespeare.
The case of the monkeys is a hypothetical to highlight that seemingly impossible things, like a fully cogent and understandable stage play, resulting from effective chaos is not actually impossible despite any human concept of impossible.
The monkeys with type writers are allegory for random. Adding intention makes it a decision, not a random event. The expression is not saying anything about decisions, but "form" rising from chaos.
Thanks for this, never actualy seen Hamlet so it's interesting to hear thr actual of where its from.
Yea but to offset that we set up the monkeys without typewriters and they gave us the typewriters, Hamlet, and the desire for both
You assume intention. Fallacy of free will. Whoever wrote it, you would claim had "intention". But given enough humans just faffing about randomly, one will eventually think up and write down "Hamlet". It's the same, you just want to ascribe higher meaning to it because it's human.
You're just describing the mechanics of a coincidence, which is exactly the entire point.
I don't assume intention with Hamlet. There WAS intent there. The entire fucking point of the expression is people add intention when there IS NOT any. By using a situation that DID have intent, it is quite literally missing the entire point.
It is utterly stupid to try and twist a reality in to a different, incompatible hypothetical. Especially when reality is antithetical to the entire point.
The thing with humans as opposed to simpler primates randomly mashing keyboards for eternity is that we're able to synthesize complex ideas related to our own experiences. That's what the difference is. Hamlet is the culmination of and synthesization of the many experiences of humans and Shakespeare.
When did the human population stop being finite?
Turns out you don't need an infinite number of monkeys to get Hamlet.
Right. Maybe only... 117 billion, give or take like 7 billion.
I think, they mean across generations. Theoretically, infinite generations could follow, with therefore infinite new humans.
Either way, it doesn't actually need to be infinite, but rather just approaching infinity, to give high enough of a chance for a monkey to produce hamlet. Even just the 8 billion humans alive are already a pretty massive number of monkeys.
When infinite growth became mainstream ideology.
"It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times"? You stupid monkey!
"Ford!" he said, "there's an infinite number of monkeys outside who want to talk to us about this script for Hamlet they've worked out.
I just wrote it again, word for word, with 6 random button presses. CTRL+A, CTRL+C, CTRL+V. Where is my BANANA!?
🍌🍪you get a cookie too
This is pretty dumb, the whole point of the monkey with typewriters thing is that they're typing random characters, not knowing the language.
You're right, but it isnt trying to actually argue that, its a joke.
Counterpoint: I think you just described Twitter.
The meta of the joke, as well as the philosophical idea that underpins it, is that the universe is based in probability and we are the result of those infinite dice rolls eventually making a human race that can think and be conscious and create Hamlet.
But what is random, really? Why did those monkeys smash the keys that they did?
This llama saying, 'we' & 'us' like he's one of us. 😡
maybe we are some Alien dude's crappy brute force solution to some problem
Apes
I sit here all day writing random words, and still no Shakespeare.
Still more comprehensible than the average monkey!
Act 3, scene 3, line 92
Once more, not monkeys, Great Apes
Our tails are vestigial
So the experiment was a success then? What are we still doing here? Are we supposed to be writing Hamlet II: Electric Boogaloo? 2 Hamlet 2 Furious?
Hamlet Surfers.
what about Hamlet 2?
hjfhsi ibghrkbkjkab orulkjd obno pmykb gthskt a otjsnono wobfrtinoe Hamlet hbjnsthon vjbigl hjkkohs jwaklnesgk;]]]]]];
It's good, but it's not in iambic pentameter.
Not only have we written Hamlet but we have written Hamlet but it has a random r in the almost end but not quite and it is the only randomly placed r
I cant wait for one of the monkeys to write " Plibious Montgomery: A tale of 37 doughnuts and the rise and fall of the neo llama consortiumismship."
Just ask Gemini.
At this point, several apes have written Hamlet with variying degrees of minor changes to things like the character names and settings.
Oakfield takeoff block ċiviċi Gucci ufcgugucugxcitftuxfuutxrz77rs7ra8stpvhizfrzytd89guct8ixtixgfy8xt88xguxfyfcyfhigiyfugih6fe4wrfuibrsw3yfkmezr3q7yuodttdhihigfyf. better have been the first time that was written or else
edit: correcting spelling mistake ;)
Damnit, now I need to change my luggage password.
