Monkeys and type writers
Discussion
Sirs, I've been found subverting the Higgs thread into a discussion on the probability of life, and as requested, have started this thread in the hope of gaining enlightment from your collective minds.
So we all know that given an extrodinary length of time (perhaps infinite) and an huge number of type writers a team of monkeys would eventually bash out the works of William Shakespear (through a process of random chance rather than some evolutionary process it must be added), I might be right in assuming they'd be as likely to do it on the first attempt as any other attempt, so it may only take a week or so.
This analogy is often repeated as expanation of infinity and the probability of things happening being a certainty given infinite or near infinite resources, such as the cosmos has.
It's obvious therefore, that aswell as the certainity of the works of Shakespear, Mozart or Eistein being present in the universe, created by monkeys, also present in the universe is a larger amount, practically infinite amount of meaningless drivel, on the way to completeing War and Peace the monkeys must have produced a fair amount of nonsense.
So my question for the scientists especially for those that think that philosophy is dead and science can provide all the anwers, such as Prof Hawkins, is what is it that gives a certain combination of events a meaning or purpose? And why does science only concentrate on those that they see the meaning in?
So we all know that given an extrodinary length of time (perhaps infinite) and an huge number of type writers a team of monkeys would eventually bash out the works of William Shakespear (through a process of random chance rather than some evolutionary process it must be added), I might be right in assuming they'd be as likely to do it on the first attempt as any other attempt, so it may only take a week or so.
This analogy is often repeated as expanation of infinity and the probability of things happening being a certainty given infinite or near infinite resources, such as the cosmos has.
It's obvious therefore, that aswell as the certainity of the works of Shakespear, Mozart or Eistein being present in the universe, created by monkeys, also present in the universe is a larger amount, practically infinite amount of meaningless drivel, on the way to completeing War and Peace the monkeys must have produced a fair amount of nonsense.
So my question for the scientists especially for those that think that philosophy is dead and science can provide all the anwers, such as Prof Hawkins, is what is it that gives a certain combination of events a meaning or purpose? And why does science only concentrate on those that they see the meaning in?
The "Monkeys and Shakespeare" analogy is well-used but can be mis-understood. In the analogy, there is nothing special about the works of Shakespeare, it is merely a vehicle for the idea of a specific series of letters, numbers and punctuation. In the analogy, there is no extra value placed on Shakespeare over the "meaningless drivel" that you rightly say would also be produced. The analogy makes no value statement about the outputs.
All the analogy is saying is that given enough time, any pre-specified sequence of characters will be produced by random typing. It uses the works of Shakespeare as an example of a pre-specified sequence. Not as an example of something of meaning or value.
Humanity gives meaning to things. Science might explain the "how?", only humanity can decide on an answer to the question of "why?".
All the analogy is saying is that given enough time, any pre-specified sequence of characters will be produced by random typing. It uses the works of Shakespeare as an example of a pre-specified sequence. Not as an example of something of meaning or value.
Humanity gives meaning to things. Science might explain the "how?", only humanity can decide on an answer to the question of "why?".
mattnunn said:
So my question for the scientists especially for those that think that philosophy is dead and science can provide all the anwers, such as Prof Hawkins, is what is it that gives a certain combination of events a meaning or purpose? And why does science only concentrate on those that they see the meaning in?
Science can explain how, but never why. That's where you're going wrong. A scientist will never try and see the "why" in an experiment.
www.junkworthknowing.com/technology/the_infinite_m...
'In 2003, Plymouth University researchers put six macaques in a cage with a desktop computer. The monkeys proceeded to bash the machine with a rock, urinate on it, and type the letter S a lot. The results were published in the book, Notes Towards The Complete Works of Shakespeare.'
'In 2003, Plymouth University researchers put six macaques in a cage with a desktop computer. The monkeys proceeded to bash the machine with a rock, urinate on it, and type the letter S a lot. The results were published in the book, Notes Towards The Complete Works of Shakespeare.'
ewenm said:
The "Monkeys and Shakespeare" analogy is well-used but can be mis-understood. In the analogy, there is nothing special about the works of Shakespeare, it is merely a vehicle for the idea of a specific series of letters, numbers and punctuation. In the analogy, there is no extra value placed on Shakespeare over the "meaningless drivel" that you rightly say would also be produced. The analogy makes no value statement about the outputs.
All the analogy is saying is that given enough time, any pre-specified sequence of characters will be produced by random typing. It uses the works of Shakespeare as an example of a pre-specified sequence. Not as an example of something of meaning or value.
Humanity gives meaning to things. Science might explain the "how?", only humanity can decide on an answer to the question of "why?".
So this is essentially my issue with the whole idea of Theoretical physics and how I perceive (perhaps incorrectly) what's going on a CERN etc...All the analogy is saying is that given enough time, any pre-specified sequence of characters will be produced by random typing. It uses the works of Shakespeare as an example of a pre-specified sequence. Not as an example of something of meaning or value.
Humanity gives meaning to things. Science might explain the "how?", only humanity can decide on an answer to the question of "why?".
They appear to have generated some phillosophy of the physical world during the early part of the last century, then spent the last 40 years attempting to proove correct some theory.
The discussion on probability, with the monkeys etc, concludes all things are possible, equally likely, and that the universe is crammed with an infinite amount of information. It's my position that had Higgs come up with a theory of another type, given the resources, we'd be able to find data to match his theory amongst the meaningless chatter of the universe.
This is surely logical and backed up by your own comments, if humans give the universe it's meaning inversly the universe (which contains all equally likely possibilities) can present all solutions to any given question of it.
Science was science when Faraday and Newton were making discoveries from positions of ignorance to our perception of the workings of th universe, what CERN seem to me to have done is to pose a question of the universe and set about finding an answer, which the universe will always have, becasue it contains all answers to all questions. All is possible and equally likely.
mattnunn said:
So this is essentially my issue with the whole idea of Theoretical physics and how I perceive (perhaps incorrectly) what's going on a CERN etc...
They appear to have generated some phillosophy of the physical world during the early part of the last century, then spent the last 40 years attempting to proove correct some theory.
The discussion on probability, with the monkeys etc, concludes all things are possible, equally likely, and that the universe is crammed with an infinite amount of information. It's my position that had Higgs come up with a theory of another type, given the resources, we'd be able to find data to match his theory amongst the meaningless chatter of the universe.
"Equally likely"? Where are you getting that from? Some things are more likely to happen than others. In the monkey scenario, in the amount of time it would take for the specific sequence of Shakespeare to appear from random typings, more likely things would happen many more times.They appear to have generated some phillosophy of the physical world during the early part of the last century, then spent the last 40 years attempting to proove correct some theory.
The discussion on probability, with the monkeys etc, concludes all things are possible, equally likely, and that the universe is crammed with an infinite amount of information. It's my position that had Higgs come up with a theory of another type, given the resources, we'd be able to find data to match his theory amongst the meaningless chatter of the universe.
Higgs came up with a theory that described an observation. Part of that theory suggested the existence of a Higgs boson at specific energy levels - this is what the LHC experiments went looking for.
The point of the science is that it has to fit with what we have already observed and the new/unexplained phenomena it aims to explain. It's no use generating a theory that explains the acceleration of the expansion of the cosmos but that fails to work with Newton and Einstein.
mattnunn said:
This is surely logical and backed up by your own comments, if humans give the universe it's meaning inversly the universe (which contains all equally likely possibilities) can present all solutions to any given question of it.
Science was science when Faraday and Newton were making discoveries from positions of ignorance to our perception of the workings of th universe, what CERN seem to me to have done is to pose a question of the universe and set about finding an answer, which the universe will always have, becasue it contains all answers to all questions. All is possible and equally likely.
You need to let go of the equally likely bit - it's wrong. Monkeys typing the word "the" by random typing is much more likely than them typing a limerick. Given enough time they will type said limerick, but in that time they will also type "the" many millions of times. Given enough time, both will happen, but that does not mean they are equally likely.Science was science when Faraday and Newton were making discoveries from positions of ignorance to our perception of the workings of th universe, what CERN seem to me to have done is to pose a question of the universe and set about finding an answer, which the universe will always have, becasue it contains all answers to all questions. All is possible and equally likely.
Edited by ewenm on Tuesday 10th July 13:41
ewenm said:
You need to let go of the equally likely bit - it's wrong. Monkeys typing the word "the" by random typing is much more likely than them typing a limerick. Given enough time they will type said limerick, but in that time they will also type "the" many millions of times. Given enough time, both will happen, but that does not mean they are equally likely.
Point holds, given the data of what the monkeys had typed we could find "the", "Limerick", "Pogostick" or "umbungowangechumchum"The repition would not be eqaully probable due to the complexity of their nature, but the probability of their existence is equally likely - is it not? It's a trap to assume repition or frequency is equal to a truth as this prooves, "the" is equally occuing as "hte" - but only one of these contains a "truth" of knowledge when presented to our human mind. This is the black swan problem again - don't assume that just because something happens a lot it's valid, take my posting on here for example.
Too many of these assertions about time and typewriters continue with the unproven assumption that Shakespeare actually wrote Shakespeare.
You should first task the monkeys to test this hypothesis - perhaps get them to construct a Playwright Accelerator in a big field on the Swiss borders - then you have the problem of determining whether typewriters can be replaced by a Word Processing package, given the tendency for these to have speeling corekshun algernonrythms.....
You should first task the monkeys to test this hypothesis - perhaps get them to construct a Playwright Accelerator in a big field on the Swiss borders - then you have the problem of determining whether typewriters can be replaced by a Word Processing package, given the tendency for these to have speeling corekshun algernonrythms.....
mattnunn said:
Point holds, given the data of what the monkeys had typed we could find "the", "Limerick", "Pogostick" or "umbungowangechumchum"
The repition would not be eqaully probable due to the complexity of their nature, but the probability of their existence is equally likely - is it not? It's a trap to assume repition or frequency is equal to a truth as this prooves, "the" is equally occuing as "hte" - but only one of these contains a "truth" of knowledge when presented to our human mind. This is the black swan problem again - don't assume that just because something happens a lot it's valid, take my posting on here for example.
If you're going with the probability of their existence then the important bit is "given enough time". In the case of Shakespeare, I suspect the time required would be many thousands if not millions of multiples of the timespan of the universe. The repition would not be eqaully probable due to the complexity of their nature, but the probability of their existence is equally likely - is it not? It's a trap to assume repition or frequency is equal to a truth as this prooves, "the" is equally occuing as "hte" - but only one of these contains a "truth" of knowledge when presented to our human mind. This is the black swan problem again - don't assume that just because something happens a lot it's valid, take my posting on here for example.
Similarly, the theories of quantum mechanics do not prevent a group of particles, say a pea, spontaneously moving 1 inch to the left. The probability of this is very low and you can work out how long (on average) you'd have to wait to see it happen. Brian Cox did this calculation on TV with Wossy recently (A night with the stars (?) IIRC) and it came out as far far longer than the Universe has so far existed.
So, you can say that given enough time, everything that could happen will happen (of course things with probability 0 still won't happen). However, the probability of something happening is still governed by the physical laws of our universe.
In the monkey analogy, "the" and "hte" are equally valid and hold equal amounts of "truth" (i.e. none). There is no difference between them. I'll state it again, the use of Shakespeare is merely a placeholder for any specific sequence of letters. Only humans ascribe knowledge to certain combinations of letters. Probabilities ascribe no such meaning or knowledge.
K12beano said:
Too many of these assertions about time and typewriters continue with the unproven assumption that Shakespeare actually wrote Shakespeare.
Who cares? Someone (or someones) wrote the plays etc. By convention we call that someone (or group of someones) Shakespeare. Whether the boy Will actually wrote them or not is largely irrelevant 
mattnunn said:
So my question for the scientists especially for those that think that philosophy is dead and science can provide all the anwers, such as Prof Hawkins, is what is it that gives a certain combination of events a meaning or purpose? And why does science only concentrate on those that they see the meaning in?
If you read your first post (the piece about is an extract) the answers you seek are remarkably simple.We have the great works of literature, but we've only had a short tenure in the Cosmos, we didn't need an infinite number of anything to achieve them, we needed knowledge and language, monkeys have neither so can't span the intricacies of the written word or the imagination to do such.
So something is 'going on'.
Philosophy isn't what is going on, because philosophy is not present unless there is a medium to convey it or assemble the emotions.
Animals, primates have emotions, but they can't assemble them cohesively and explain them to others in anything other than the ambiguity of vision, therefore cannot return to them, mull them over and learn from them unless they're base, such as reward/food and even that is instinctive rather philosophical.
So for any 'philosopher' to question the need to concentrate on what gave philosophers their collective breath (the uncharitable might call it wind) is irony piled upon irony.
The concentration on what works, means you are warm and well fed and can punch a keyboard with your stubby little fingers all day long, pontificating about philosophy and how much better or more valid it is... the irony is lost on you, but to me it is stark.
In addition we don't concentrate on only what we see meaning in, so much of what we do is a stab in the dark that it's hard to frame the words to describe how wrong your are.
Science has its own version of philosophy though and just like science itself it has a validity entirely missing from philosophy, we call it Hypothesis and it differs from just the mad rambling of the bearded idiot philosopher in that it starts with something that has substance.
You could say that the days of the itinerant, wandering philosopher roaming about offering platitudes and bullshine wrapped up in mysticism are long gone... but you are here and the rambling and shining of bulls gathers pace with everything you type.
Join the Philosophers of the 21st C and start hypothecating, start with substance and at least try to stay within touching distance throughout the hypothesis... avoid God, avoid the Mystic, avoid the overblown 'woo' of the mysteries and I'll take you seriously, until then you're just another nutter selectively taking snippets of information that you can just about get your head around, twisting and contorting them as you do this and then returning the 'nugget' of your tortured minds aberrations back at us to ridicule.
If you are going to mull over the eternal verities, at least learn enough to construct some f
king prose so it doesn't come across as a dreary, half-baked barely comprehensible mish-mash of platitudes and codswallop.You've been outgunned by far more eloquent philosophers of the past... at least they had the merit of being readable.
Cheers
Gene.
Edotted fur spoiling mustooks.
Edited by Gene Vincent on Tuesday 10th July 15:10
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