So the infinite monkey theorem, right, the idea that if you stick an infinite number of monkeys in a room with an infinite number of typewriters, they will eventually write out the complete works of Shakespeare – in 1939 Borges traced the concept back to Aristotle, and just now I feel like I finally got the gag.
The history bit
Borges goes over the sources in The Total Library (1939). (This essay sets up his famous short story The Library of Babel (1941) in which the books contain every possible ordering of just 25 basic characters.)
Borges cites Aristotle who introduces the idea of atoms like letters of the alphabet, followed by Cicero who, in On the Nature of the Gods, anticipates movable type:
I do not marvel that there should be anyone who can persuade himself that certain solid and individual bodies are pulled along by the force of gravity, and that the fortuitous collision of those particles produces this beautiful world that we see. He who considers this possible will also be able to believe that if innumerable characters of gold, each representing one of the twenty-one letters of the alphabet, were thrown together onto the ground, they might produce the Annals of Ennius. I doubt whether chance could possibly create even a single verse to read.
Borges then leaps forward to Huxley:
Huxley … says that a half-dozen monkeys provided with typewriters would, in a few eternities, produce all the books in the British Museum.
(Borges footnotes: Strictly speaking, one immortal monkey would be sufficient.)
BUT! Borges seems to misstep here.
The quote is attributed to “Huxley” but - which Huxley? - there are many. It should have (I think?) been Thomas Huxley, early evolutionist, first; others credit Aldous Huxley (novelist) or Julian Huxley (biologist) – but the monkeys were hearsay in any event, and according to this fascinating and tangled account, the infinite monkeys framing originated with either French mathematician ?mile Borel (in 1913) or English physicist Arthur Eddington (in 1929).
If infinite monkeys had infinite typewriters, could they retell a metaphor about infinite monkeys and, etc.
Though I don’t know when the Shakespeare bit appeared.
The theorem has been tested!
Twenty years ago:
Lecturers and students from the University of Plymouth wanted to test the claim that an infinite number of monkeys given typewriters would create the works of The Bard.
A single computer was placed in a monkey enclosure at Paignton Zoo to monitor the literary output of six primates.
But after a month, the Sulawesi crested macaques had only succeeded in partially destroying the machine, using it as a lavatory, and mostly typing the letter “s”.
I remember this! They had a grant from the Arts Council, mostly for purchasing the hardware to set up a radio link so the activities in the enclosure could be watched live on a website.
More art like this pls.
The gag is that we know the answer.
Could infinite monkeys eventually write the complete works of Shakespeare?
Yes, because we are the monkeys, and one of us monkeys was called Shakespeare, and he did indeed write the complete works, by tautological definition, and it didn’t take an infinity of monkeys, it took approx 94 billion, that being the number of humans who had ever lived till 1650, and it didn’t take an eternity but only 190,000 years.
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‘Yes, we’ll see them together some Saturday afternoon then,’ she said. ‘I won’t have any hand in your not going to Cathedral on Sunday morning. I suppose we must be getting back. What time was it when you looked at your watch just now?’ "In China and some other countries it is not considered necessary to give the girls any education; but in Japan it is not so. The girls are educated here, though not so much as the boys; and of late years they have established schools where they receive what we call the higher branches of instruction. Every year new schools for girls are opened; and a great many of the Japanese who formerly would not be seen in public with their wives have adopted the Western idea, and bring their wives into society. The marriage laws have been arranged so as to allow the different classes to marry among[Pg 258] each other, and the government is doing all it can to improve the condition of the women. They were better off before than the women of any other Eastern country; and if things go on as they are now going, they will be still better in a few years. The world moves. "Frank and Fred." She whispered something to herself in horrified dismay; but then she looked at me with her eyes very blue and said "You'll see him about it, won't you? You must help unravel this tangle, Richard; and if you do I'll--I'll dance at your wedding; yours and--somebody's we know!" Her eyes began forewith. Lawrence laughed silently. He seemed to be intensely amused about something. He took a flat brown paper parcel from his pocket. making a notable addition to American literature. I did truly. "Surely," said the minister, "surely." There might have been men who would have remembered that Mrs. Lawton was a tough woman, even for a mining town, and who would in the names of their own wives have refused to let her cross the threshold of their homes. But he saw that she was ill, and he did not so much as hesitate. "I feel awful sorry for you sir," said the Lieutenant, much moved. "And if I had it in my power you should go. But I have got my orders, and I must obey them. I musn't allow anybody not actually be longing to the army to pass on across the river on the train." "Throw a piece o' that fat pine on the fire. Shorty," said the Deacon, "and let's see what I've got." "Further admonitions," continued the Lieutenant, "had the same result, and I was about to call a guard to put him under arrest, when I happened to notice a pair of field-glasses that the prisoner had picked up, and was evidently intending to appropriate to his own use, and not account for them. This was confirmed by his approaching me in a menacing manner, insolently demanding their return, and threatening me in a loud voice if I did not give them up, which I properly refused to do, and ordered a Sergeant who had come up to seize and buck-and-gag him. The Sergeant, against whom I shall appear later, did not obey my orders, but seemed to abet his companion's gross insubordination. The scene finally culminated, in the presence of a number of enlisted men, in the prisoner's wrenching the field-glasses away from me by main force, and would have struck me had not the Sergeant prevented this. It was such an act as in any other army in the world would have subjected the offender to instant execution. It was only possible in—" "Don't soft-soap me," the old woman snapped. "I'm too old for it and I'm too tough for it. I want to look at some facts, and I want you to look at them, too." She paused, and nobody said a word. "I want to start with a simple statement. We're in trouble." RE: Fruyling's World "MACDONALD'S GATE" "Read me some of it." "Well, I want something better than that." HoME大香蕉第一时间
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So the infinite monkey theorem, right, the idea that if you stick an infinite number of monkeys in a room with an infinite number of typewriters, they will eventually write out the complete works of Shakespeare – in 1939 Borges traced the concept back to Aristotle, and just now I feel like I finally got the gag.
The history bit
Borges goes over the sources in The Total Library (1939). (This essay sets up his famous short story The Library of Babel (1941) in which )
Borges cites Aristotle who introduces the idea of atoms like letters of the alphabet, followed by Cicero who, in On the Nature of the Gods, anticipates movable type:
Borges then leaps forward to Huxley:
(Borges footnotes: )
BUT! Borges seems to misstep here.
The quote is attributed to “Huxley” but - which Huxley? - there are many. It should have (I think?) been Thomas Huxley, early evolutionist, first; others credit Aldous Huxley (novelist) or Julian Huxley (biologist) – but the monkeys were hearsay in any event, and according to this fascinating and tangled account, the infinite monkeys framing originated with either French mathematician ?mile Borel (in 1913) or English physicist Arthur Eddington (in 1929).
If infinite monkeys had infinite typewriters, could they retell a metaphor about infinite monkeys and, etc.
Though I don’t know when the Shakespeare bit appeared.
The theorem has been tested!
Twenty years ago:
I remember this! They had a grant from the Arts Council, mostly for
More art like this pls.
The gag is that we know the answer.
Could infinite monkeys eventually write the complete works of Shakespeare?
Yes, because we are the monkeys, and one of us monkeys was called Shakespeare, and he did indeed write the complete works, by tautological definition, and it didn’t take an infinity of monkeys, it took approx 94 billion, that being the number of humans who had ever lived till 1650, and it didn’t take an eternity but only 190,000 years.
Lol.