Comment on Infintiy Infintiy Infintiy Infintiy Infintiy Infintiy Infintiy Infintiy

• NostraDavid@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  The “Infinite monkey theorem” concerns itself with Probability (the mathematical field). It has been mathematically proven that given the random input (the mathematical kind - not the human-created kind) of the monkeys, and the infinite time, the probability of the “complete works of William Shakespeare” rolling out of the typewriter in between the other random output is 1.

  It’s a mathematical theorem that just uses monkeys to speak to the imagination, not a practical exercise, other than to prove the maths.

  You should look into another brain-breaking probability problem called the “Monty Hall Problem”. Note that some of the greatest mathematical minds of the time failed said puzzle. Switching 100% increases the chance of winning. No, it won’t guarantee a win, but it will increase your chances, mathematically.

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  • BluesF@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    The probability is 1 but that does not mean that it will happen. There is a set of options where it does not happen. It happens “almost surely”.

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  • servobobo@feddit.nl ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    The proof assumes that the monkeys mash the keys at random and that there is a nonzero probability to write any chunk of text appearing in Shakespeare’s works. If there is a section that the monkeys cannot generate, for example if we removed the letter ‘e’ from their typewriter, the monkeys will never write the complete works of Shakespeare regardless of the amount of time spent on it, so their point still stands and it depends on the assumptions you make about the monkey typists’ typing skills.

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  • PR3CiSiON@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Yeah I get that, what I’m arguing is that monkey input != random input. Therefore the probably is not 1.

    And the Monty Hall problem is really cool, and yes, I’ve seen it before, but it doesn’t have anything to do with this one.

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• GiveMemes@jlai.lu ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Disagree. Within the confines of the thought experiment the monkeys are working with the standard alphabet and punctuation. There’s no reason to assume that they would never use the letter t or something like that, especially given the infinite time scale.

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  • PR3CiSiON@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I see what you’re saying, but I do think they would have behavioral ‘rules’ that would stop them even on an infinite time scale. It would work if monkeys were capable of pressing one letter at a time, walking away, and pressing another letter and so forth… and while that’s of course physically possible for the monkeys to do, I don’t think it’s actually possible because they are susceptible to their own behavior. Not saying they would never type one specific letter, but a better example would be the behavior of rolling their finger/hand while pressing a letter, such that a conglomeration of letters are pressed in a way that would never match a Shakespeare play.

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    • GiveMemes@jlai.lu ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      The problem is that you’re underestimating infinity then. If it only happens 1 in 1000000000000^10000 times but there’s an infinite number of attempts over an infinite amount of tine, it’s still bound to happen eventually.

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      • PR3CiSiON@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        No, I’m saying it’s not just improbable (if it were improbable, then yes, it would happen), I’m saying it’s impossible because of behavior.

        As a small example, let’s say you wanted to type the ABC’s. However, every time you typed, your finger slid to press the key next to it as well. Then, no matter how many times you tried, you would never be able to type the ABC’s. That’s an exaggerated example of what I believe the monkeys would do. They simply would not be able to type letters at random. The way they work, they would be forced to mush buttons that do not allow for whole words.

        If there was another scenario where there were about 30 boxes (one for each letter and any punctuation needed), and the monkey had to get a banana from one of the boxes, and that is what ‘typed’ the script, then yes, an infinite number of monkeys would be able to type Shakespeare. But because it’s a typewriter, I don’t think even an infinite amount would be able to.

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• Tibi@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Except for (cosmic-) bitflips and/or evolution changing the programming

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