# Monkeys Shakespeare and Should You Do It **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 12, 2005, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monkeys-shakespeare-and-should-you-do-it/325982 "2005-10-12T22:52:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Harmonious\_Discord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/74df32/32.png) [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2005, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monkeys-shakespeare-and-should-you-do-it/325982/21 "2005-10-13T16:01:52Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > I think the point is that, even if we had the infinite library, the overwhelming majority of it would be meaningless noise; we would be _far_ less likely to stumble across interesting or significant portions of it than we would be to just make them up from scratch in our own heads. Would people overloaded in this way forbid the release of anymore material? Once it’s mixed in with the stuff that was useful, would people give up on the medium totaly? In such as nobody could seperate the good texts from the worthless to restore the medium to meaniful copy. ---
**Author:** ![Harmonious\_Discord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/74df32/32.png) [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2005, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monkeys-shakespeare-and-should-you-do-it/325982/22 "2005-10-13T16:07:08Z")
Can a civilization start it’s decline, if to much non filtered information becomes available to the populace? I think it could. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2005, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monkeys-shakespeare-and-should-you-do-it/325982/23 "2005-10-13T16:21:33Z")
Look, you completely don’t understand. There is no “filtering” of meaningful texts out of the random junk. It can’t be done, even if you could break the laws of physics. In order to find meaningful texts in the random noise you’d have to know what those meaningful texts were. There’s no need to “forbid the release of anymore material”. There’s nothing to release or hold back. Anyone who wants to can generate any text they like. If you want to call that “finding a text among the random information”, go ahead, but it’s still writing the text you want. As in, you made it up. It doesn’t matter if you can point to the exact sector of random noise that you found the text from, you STILL SPECIFIED THE TEXT YOU WANTED TO FIND, which means YOU WROTE THE TEXT. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2005, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monkeys-shakespeare-and-should-you-do-it/325982/24 "2005-10-13T16:50:32Z")
> [@Mr2001](#): > > The program doesn’t _create_ that information, it just visualizes it. All that information already exists (in the sense that any number “exists”). > > Without some way for it to assign a value to each piece of information, it’s useless. Reminds me of the old joke/scam where you offer to sell a book containing the names and phone numbers of all the hot, single women in town. When the guy gives you the money, you give him a copy of the phone book. ---
**Author:** ![Harmonious\_Discord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/74df32/32.png) [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2005, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monkeys-shakespeare-and-should-you-do-it/325982/25 "2005-10-13T17:41:47Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Look, you completely don’t understand. There is no “filtering” of meaningful texts out of the random junk. > > It can’t be done, even if you could break the laws of physics. In order to find meaningful texts in the random noise you’d have to know what those meaningful texts were. > > There’s no need to “forbid the release of anymore material”. There’s nothing to release or hold back. Anyone who wants to can generate any text they like. If you want to call that “finding a text among the random information”, go ahead, but it’s still writing the text you want. As in, you made it up. It doesn’t matter if you can point to the exact sector of random noise that you found the text from, you STILL SPECIFIED THE TEXT YOU WANTED TO FIND, which means YOU WROTE THE TEXT. I do get the point. The library now contains 15 trillion pages of nosense. That is my point. The library is now almost useless. Would the populance have caught on and stopped the addition off garbage before you couldn’t find what you needed in everyday existance. Example: I need that formula for this calculation. Shit! I forgot the equation and I can’t find it with all this worthless crap in the library. I guess I’ll call my friend and hope they remember. I wish someone whould have stopped that idiot from ruining the library. ---
**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2005, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monkeys-shakespeare-and-should-you-do-it/325982/26 "2005-10-13T17:49:39Z")
Well, assuming that such an algorithm can exist, the infinite monkeys program will eventually produce a program that can be used to extract any information you want from the infinite monkey database. The problem, of course, will be finding \* that \* program. By the same logic, the infinite monkeys program will eventually churn out a written text version of the process for curing cancer, producing infinite amounts of safe, non-polluting energy, and the perfect personal ad. So why wouldn’t you want to do it? ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2005, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monkeys-shakespeare-and-should-you-do-it/325982/27 "2005-10-13T18:00:02Z")
I’m thinking you still don’t get it. The library doesn’t contain 15 trillion pages of nonsense. 15 trillion pages of nonsense mixed in with everything else would be trivial to deal with. You’ve got 15 trillion quadrillion quintillion sextillion to the septillionth power to the octillionth power of pages of nonsense to deal with. With an infinite library of every possible text the average amount of meaningful text is zero. The library is worthless. Nobody is going to start adding books of random characters to a real library or strings of random characters to a database. Yeah, the idea is that some of those books could be real books! But in practice there are many many many more potential books than there are atoms in the universe. Only a miniscule fraction of those potential books have any meaning at all. In practice a library is going to be much smaller than the entire universe, in fact it probably can’t be much larger than a single solar system. So a computer constructed of all the matter in our solar system could only contain an infintesimal fraction of an infintesimal fraction of all possible books. In fact, the likelihood is that such a computer wouldn’t even contain ONE INTELLIGIBLE BOOK! We’re not talking about a bunch of treasures mixed in with a bunch of misinformation mixed in with a bunch of gibberish, we’re talking an average information amount of zero. Nothing. Nada. The library contains no more information than the real library Mangetout provided you earlier. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2005, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monkeys-shakespeare-and-should-you-do-it/325982/28 "2005-10-13T23:48:27Z")
> [@Finagle](#): > > By the same logic, the infinite monkeys program will eventually churn out a written text version of the process for curing cancer, producing infinite amounts of safe, non-polluting energy, and the perfect personal ad. So why wouldn’t you want to do it? Because, assuming you could find the “process for curing cancer” text, there would be thousands (at least) of variations on it, and no way of knowing which one describes an actual workable process. Access to such a database would provide zero useful clues to medical researchers working on the problem. They might as well try to seek guidance by sticking a knife between the pages of a treatise on cat breeding. ---
**Author:** ![Harmonious\_Discord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/74df32/32.png) [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2005, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monkeys-shakespeare-and-should-you-do-it/325982/29 "2005-10-14T01:53:44Z")
I don’t want to take away from the linked thread on could this be done. I’m going to ask this one be closed since only a couple posters are willing to stay on the implcations if we did. ---
**Author:** ![Ms2001](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ms2001/32/18463_2.png) [@Ms2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms2001)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2005, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monkeys-shakespeare-and-should-you-do-it/325982/30 "2005-10-14T02:01:21Z")
Dude, there are no implications. You can already generate all the gibberish you want, and the world isn’t falling apart. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2005, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monkeys-shakespeare-and-should-you-do-it/325982/31 "2005-10-14T06:17:37Z")
> [@Mr2001](#): > > You can already generate all the gibberish you want, and the world isn’t falling apart. Isn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2005, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monkeys-shakespeare-and-should-you-do-it/325982/32 "2005-10-14T06:20:53Z")
The upside of this thread is I now know where I can purchase Baboon Plasma if I am ever running short (thank you Google Ads!) ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2005, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monkeys-shakespeare-and-should-you-do-it/325982/33 "2005-10-14T07:34:18Z")
> [@Harmonious Discord](#): > > I don’t want to take away from the linked thread on could this be done. I’m going to ask this one be closed since only a couple posters are willing to stay on the implcations if we did. The implications are that anyone bothering to search the library would be simply wasting their time; as they would only find what they already know; maybe you could get some religious folks interested in it, as a form of meditation or something. There has been a SF short story on exactly this subject - the people searching the infinite library were monks, hoping to find some pattern in it; of course there _was_ pattern in some of it - there had to be, because there was _everything_ in it. I think people are generally pragmatic enough to not waste their time looking for the printed form of words they already know amongst a sea of noise; I suggest the societal implications would be nil. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2005, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monkeys-shakespeare-and-should-you-do-it/325982/34 "2005-10-14T14:08:58Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > I’m thinking you still don’t get it. The library doesn’t contain 15 trillion pages of nonsense. 15 trillion pages of nonsense mixed in with everything else would be trivial to deal with. You’ve got 15 trillion quadrillion quintillion sextillion to the septillionth power to the octillionth power of pages of nonsense to deal with. > > With an infinite library of every possible text the average amount of meaningful text is zero. The library is worthless. > > Nobody is going to start adding books of random characters to a real library or strings of random characters to a database. Yeah, the idea is that some of those books could be real books! But in practice there are many many many more potential books than there are atoms in the universe. Only a miniscule fraction of those potential books have any meaning at all. In practice a library is going to be much smaller than the entire universe, in fact it probably can’t be much larger than a single solar system. So a computer constructed of all the matter in our solar system could only contain an infintesimal fraction of an infintesimal fraction of all possible books. In fact, the likelihood is that such a computer wouldn’t even contain ONE INTELLIGIBLE BOOK! We’re not talking about a bunch of treasures mixed in with a bunch of misinformation mixed in with a bunch of gibberish, we’re talking an average information amount of zero. Nothing. Nada. The library contains no more information than the real library Mangetout provided you earlier. To restate the above, which is pretty much on the money. Imagine every atom in the universe is a book. Imagine every book is utter, utter gibberish except one. What are your chances of finding the one meaningful book in the universe? Now reflect that this mathematical model is so hopelessly _over-optimistic_ that it just isn’t funny. Is the scale of the problem registering yet? ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2005, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monkeys-shakespeare-and-should-you-do-it/325982/35 "2005-10-14T14:55:34Z")
So there are more gibberish books than there are adams in the universe? ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2005, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monkeys-shakespeare-and-should-you-do-it/325982/36 "2005-10-14T15:00:20Z")
My friend, there are more gibberish books than there are legal games of chess. Most of them are about chess, judging from what I see at W H Smith. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2005, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monkeys-shakespeare-and-should-you-do-it/325982/37 "2005-10-14T15:54:02Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > OK, lets suppose we’ve got super-duper-reverse-quantum-anti-polarity computers that can generate random text really really really fast. OK, you’ve generated a vast database of random output, as much as if the entire universe were made of supercomputers and those supercomputers had generated random text until the end of the universe. If we did have super-duper-reverse-quantum-anti-polarity computers, I’m sure there would be many more useful projects than this to use them for. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2005, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monkeys-shakespeare-and-should-you-do-it/325982/38 "2005-10-14T18:44:34Z")
> [@Anne Neville](#): > > If we did have super-duper-reverse-quantum-anti-polarity computers, I’m sure there would be many more useful projects than this to use them for. Psssst. Ixnay on the omputerscay ojectspray. [http://afsf.lackland.af.mil/Images/WWII/pages/WWII%20Careless11\_gif.htm](http://afsf.lackland.af.mil/Images/WWII/pages/WWII%20Careless11_gif.htm) ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2005, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monkeys-shakespeare-and-should-you-do-it/325982/39 "2005-10-14T20:58:31Z")
Paging Mr. Borges. 🙂 The other way of looking at it is this: the only way of finding the useful documents in the library is to have a copy of the useful document already for comparison. In a normal library the title will (usually do) but here there will be a very, very, very large number of different books with the same title. It’s like hiding a needle in an infinitely large haystack. ---
**Author:** ![Thrasymachus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ce73a5/32.png) [@Thrasymachus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thrasymachus)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2005, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monkeys-shakespeare-and-should-you-do-it/325982/40 "2005-10-14T21:21:47Z")
Maybe an analogy: Suppose you have a cryptographic message that was coded by substituting letters with other letter according to a list of random numbers. This is the so called “one time pad” approach to cryptography. Naturally, to decode it, all you do is transpose again according to the list - which both the sender and sendee have a copy of ahead of time. Now suppose you intercept the message: vbnsifowtnmkotui31fwbqtiph31uvfnjqfijop It’s unbreakable by analysis, because the message can decode to any possible text with the same number of characters. Which was the true message? The infinite library has the same flaw. You can get any text possible, therefore information isn’t really being created. If you use words instead, it shaves a few orders of magntitude off of the impossibly large number, not very helpful unless the domain of possibilities is already very short. Applying word frequency and other things would get you closer, but then at some level you get to the point where you’re defining what you want a priori as other posters have noted. That said, a project which used computers to randomly create sentences of words, figured out their meaning, and linked them together to form a coherent “book” with some sort of plot and continuity would be a nifty project. Really, that’s not far from what human authors do. With the state of AI what it is, I think “See spot run!” is about all we would get from a university level effort supercomputer author, but it’s an interesting thought nonetheless. At least a fair shade better than those silly monkeys. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monkeys-shakespeare-and-should-you-do-it/325982.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monkeys-shakespeare-and-should-you-do-it/325982.md?page=3)