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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It’s kind of an outdated now too since it was a thought experiment and the monkeys were a stand-in for an abstract concept of a machine that creates an infinite amount of text.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.
randomly generated words
The hypothetical monkeys don’t type words, though. They type characters at random.
Yea but to offset that we set up the monkeys without typewriters and they gave us the typewriters, Hamlet, and the desire for both
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 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.
I guess I don’t think I see how that contradicts the initial post, but maybe that’s just because I’m reading the post as saying the same thing as “leave enough hydrogen alone for long enough and eventually it starts thinking”
Well, it’s more that observing that the allegory is based in reality … is quite literally turning it on its head. Saying, “but it’s tru tho” is a thought-terminating statement that ignores the entire reason WHY it is a valid allegory.
It is a valid allegory specifically because the monkeys didn’t intend to write a play. Shakespear wanted to write a play. The monkeys did not. It is a fundamental detail for the allegory to even work.
Gotcha gotcha. In other words: us being monkeys generating random output is an unfalsifiable hypothesis, so saying “it’s true” is unscientific. Yes, it could be true if free will didn’t exist, but since that’s not something that can be proven we shouldn’t use it as the basis for how we view reality. Something like that?
I mean, yea that works if you want to continue to carry it in that direction, but my point is… The expression is not commenting on humans what so ever. It’s commenting on the the law of averages vs the law of large numbers. The probability is not zero, so eventually, even seemingly impossible things WILL occur, and that it’s NOT some mystic sign if something rare does happen.
It was also written by an ape, not a monkey.
Yeah in the same way that Québécois folks are Mainland frenchies
Technically we’re all just really really really weird fish too
Your mom is an eukaryote.
We’re honestly closer to the platonic ideal of a fish than some of the things people call fish.
See the best begind the scenes podcast I know of.
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.
If no free will, no intention. It’s that simple. In strict determinism, every action, thought, feeling, whatever, was predetermined at the moment of the big bang by the starting state and physics.
I’m absolutely saying that all of humanities creations are “coincidence”. Just because you don’t like what I have to say doesn’t make me stupid. I know what I was describing.
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.
We think we are able to. Prove we aren’t just fancy biological computers. No one has proven what consciousness really even is yet.
If the quote was “a million microbes”, maybe you’d have a point. But it’s monkeys. Our closest ancestors. What we are one step removed from. And y’all trying to act like monkeys are robots and were transcendent beings made of energy or some shit. We’re animals, just like them. Slightly smarter, but animals. We are the monkeys.
what about Hamlet 2?
This is pretty dumb, the whole point of the monkey with typewriters thing is that they’re typing random characters, not knowing the language.
Counterpoint: I think you just described Twitter.
You’re right, but it isnt trying to actually argue that, its a joke.
I understand it’s a joke, but it’s a poorly-formed joke that exposes its writer not understanding the thing they’re riffing on, lol.
Would be kind of like making a joke based on a stereotype of NBA players mostly being redheads, with no such stereotype existing, lol.
Jokes necessarily often leave behind details to work.
Here the whole joke is pointing out similarities we see are forced.
And besides, it’s obvious the author was intentionally being “wrong”, otherwise we’d be suggesting the author assumed the thought-experiment was monkeys who knew language, intentionally typing out great works. That’s a pretty useless situation to make up, it doesn’t suggest anything interesting.
The joke is that the writer is intentionally misunderstanding.
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. 😡
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.
I sit here all day writing random words, and still no Shakespeare.
Still more comprehensible than the average monkey!
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
When did the human population stop being finite?
Turns out you don’t need an infinite number of monkeys to get Hamlet.
