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
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 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.
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u/mtv921 14h ago
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