Comment on Infinite Monkey Theorem

JackbyDev@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

• ameancow@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Most people don’t get the thought experiment at all.

  I’ve seen 300+ deep comment chains on reddit with people arguing bitterly back and forth if a monkey could even operate a typewriter, and how it’s absolutely impossible to get monkeys to type out a book, etc, etc, etc.

  I hate it here.

  source

  • TheOakTree@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    I think too many people don’t consider the monkey is not supposed to be making decisions, it’s just supposed to be inputting anything, literally anything, on a typewriter.

    Like a random value generator, for typewriter keys.

    source

    • ameancow@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      You could get the same result throwing an infinite number of typewriters down an infinitely long mineshaft, but there will be even fewer people who would understand it 😭

      source

      • JackbyDev@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        Worse, creationists use the “watch maker’s paradox” as evidence of creation. Same idea but watch parts in a washing machine.

        source

        • -> View More Comments
    • TriflingToad@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      I mean, if they are actually monkeys who don’t know to type, some of them will still press keys once or twice. And if there’s infinite monkeys, they will still type it out.

      source

      • TheOakTree@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        Hell, if you have infinite time and infinite typewriters, you don’t even need the monkeys. You could probably depend on hail pressing those keys, the argument still stands. As long as there are inputs, ever.

        source

        • -> View More Comments
      • ameancow@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        If you’re talking magical, biologically accurate monkeys, then they will eventually shit out models of every scene of your life, replicated in perfect detail in monkey feces. Not just once, but an infinite number of times, and also in every possible configuration your life may have ever existed in, every choice you could have made. An infinite number of times.

        source

        • -> View More Comments
  • JackbyDev@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    The funny thing is, if you truly have infinite monkeys, it doesn’t matter if they’re using it correctly or not. There is an infinite amount of them.

    source

    • exasperation@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Some infinities are bigger than others, though.

      Even if you have countably infinite monkeys typing countably infinite strings for an infinite period of time, there will be an infinite number of strings that the monkeys haven’t typed, that will never be in the set of completed typed strings.

      source
• Dagwood222@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  This is why I go online.

  source