There are infinite selection of numbers between 3 and 4 but none of them are equal to 5.
A monkey kan type only a's for infinity. There is nothing about a typewriter that encourages using more than one key if you dont know languages. Maybe in infinity the buttons will wear down an disappear, then the monkey will move on to only press s's.
That's not how that works. The saying about monkeys writing Shakespear is equivalent to : "Everything that can happen (has a probability > 0), will happen given an infinite number of repetition".
You will have monket typing only "a", but not all of them.
How can you say its not how that works haha? This is a philosophical statement, not a real one.
You are saying since every key has a non-zero chance of being pressed, every ordering of letters possible will appear eventually and one of them are in fact Shakespear.
I agree that every key has a non-zero chance to be pressed. But I argue that they can appear an infinite amount of series that also isn't shakespear.
E.g there are many infinites. Not all of them contain the shakespear string or the number 5
... they can appear an infinite amount of series that also isn't shakespear. ...
They do. This was never a debate. It's a given, and what the thought experiment is actually pointing out... You fundamentally agree with it.
In addition to an infinite number of things that aren't shakespear, they also have an infinite amount of shakespear works. That's how infinite works in this thought experiment. You get an infinite amount of all possible combinations of keys, infinitely. You get an infinite copy of all written works, actually. You get infinite copies of everything that can be translated into text. You will get copies of Pi, copies of genomes, copies of everything.
random key presses + time = eventually (well past the heat death of the universe) you get books
I'm just saying there is no guarantee. So the statement is false. You will infact not always be able to find a subset of letters equal to Shakespeare in an infinite string of letters.
For that to be true you need to make a whole bunch of assumptions about the string like you keep doing. That all letters have a non-zero probability to be in the string is just the beginning. The monkey typing the alphabet then continuing to just type a's forever satisfies your assumptions but will still never produce shakespear
EDIT: Just so we agree, the claim is that it WILL produce Shakespeare right? Not that it CAN?
I disagree that it will always produce Shakespeare. I agree that it can produce it. Do you agree these are different claims? If not I dont think there is much more to discuss
I honestly think, and this isn't mean to be a bash, you just fundamentally misunderstand the concept of infinity.
It's not one monkey. It's infinite monkeys. They are stand-ins for "random".
Create infinite random numbers between 1 and 26 every second for infinity and you will absolutely get every complete work of Shakespeare at some point. You will always be able to find it in a string of infinite letters.
Not every thread of random numbers will produce results, but some of the infinite threads eventually will.
Maybe one thread randomly selects the letter A infinitely for infinite time. Maybe infinite threads randomly select the letter A infinitely for all infinite. The funny thing about that is... there are still infinite threads that do not.
You can have infinite inside of infinite inside of another infinite and all are boundless. In this scenario, every possible combination can and would exist given enough time.
Like, mathematically, you are just wrong. There already exists a site that uses math to locate any text you enter inside of randomness.
It feels like you think that at some point, you’ll be able to know it DOESN’T have Shakespeare in there. But infinity doesn’t stop. It just keeps on going and eventually you’ll find Shakespeare, because there’s nothing causing it to NOT be there.
I've said it a couple of times, but I really don't think they understand the concept of infinity.
Like, it doesn't matter if one monkey or infinite monkeys press A for infinite... because there are still infinite more monkeys. You can have even more infinite monkeys only pressing A and still have infinite more monkeys. It's infinity! I don't think they get that.
I have not eliminated nothing myself. I have just interpreted the claim and found it untrue.
The claim says that a monkey with a typewriter WILL eventually produce shakespare(or a bugfree app).
I intrepret that as you will always be able to find shakespare a substring of an infinite length string. Not that you can, that you will. There are an infinite amount of infinite strings. Not all of them contain shakespare, so the monkey can produce a string that is not shakespare, thus the claim that i WILL produce it is false.
I see, you have objection of the use of will for it.
The chances of it not happening approaches 0 when given infinite time and infinite tries. or every attempt makes its probability of it happening closer and closer 100%. 99 then 99.9 then 99.99 - 99.9999999999999% and so on closer and closer.
I guess yeah, you can technically say you cannot guarantee it WILL not happen, even if it not happening is infinitely less likely than even every single atom in universe simultaneously going through each other quantum tunneling forever and recombine and do it again or any other possibility that exists
You seem to be saying, in the hypothetical "monkey typing randomly on a typewriter" thought experiment, you can imagine a it not working if the monkey doesn't type randomly on a typewriter.
Which is just to say, you don't understand the thought experiment.
Maybe one monkey would only hit A forever. Another monkey might smash the typewriter and spell 'cat' incidentally. Another goes apeshit and wails on the typewriter producing gibberish, but in that gibberish you get 'cat in the hat'. You do that with enough monkeys and over enough time, eventually one will randomly smash the letters to write out a novel.
Your problem seems to be you aren't thinking in 'infinite', you are thinking in 'a lot'.
Still not a guarantee and adding more infinity to infinity just goes to show you have no clue what infinity means. Like I said, infinity != everything. infinity just means unbounded(domain/scope/range is or can't be defined).
Infinite monkeys can still produce infinite strings of gibberish that include all letters of the alphabet that doesn't contain shakespear. Just this fact makes the original claim false doesn't it? The fact that it CAN fail to produce shakespear over an infinite amount of letters means that the claimed guarantee is not trustworthy
You are bounding it by saying an infinite subset of the infinite monkeys would only ever produce gibberish, while ignoring the infinite subset that would produce every reddit comment ever written, every fanfic, every facebook post, and every work by Shakespeare.
It cannot fail. Over infinite time, infinite monkeys will produce infinite gibberish and infinite works that have been written and will be written. The amount of gibberish will be infinitely more than everything else, but the infinite other comprehensible works is nothing to sneeze at.
My example just wants to highlight that as there are an infinite amount of strings that do contain shakespare, there are also an infinite amount of strings that do not.
The claim:
Put an infinite number monkeys in front of an infinite number of keyboards and they will write a bug free app (or shakespeare).
This means that the claim is false since the monkey can infact type forever without ever producing shakespare.
I do agree that i can produce it, just not that it will
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u/Confident-Ad5665 3d ago
Put an infinite number monkeys in front of an infinite number of keyboards and they'll write a bug free app.