I always interpreted it as, eventually they’ll evolve, and will birth their equivalent of Shakespeare. Paralleling our own evolution.
All us monkeys already managed to write the works of Shakespeare once, why do we want to do it again
This raises an interesting question: Do other primates even have the same anatomy to get carpal tunnel? It’s just an inflammation of tissue in a very narrow part of the wrist that puts pressure on a nerve. Do monkies even have the same kind of tissues in the same narrow passage to get inflamed enough that it causes pressure on a nerve that gives mobility issues to their hands?
A finite number of monkeys would almost certainly just destroy their finite number of typewriters long before they randomly bashed out anything coherent, let alone Shakespeare. Infinite monkeys with infinite typewriters don’t have that problem though. As long as it doesnt break the laws of physics it would eventually happen, no matter how unlikely it is. That’s the whole point.
👋✌️
“It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times… you stupid monkey!”
This cracked me up. Thanks. I needed this.
You don’t actually need infinite time if you have infinite monkeys with typewriters. If the typing is truly random, one of the moneys will type the complete works of Shakespeare on the first try. Or maybe infinitely many will, but then you start having to reason about different sizes of infinity.
Even if you weren’t working in infinites, I bet the monkeys would eventually figure out that they can hold out for more banannas if we want them to keep typing.
The average person in this situation though I’d have less faith in. Instead, they’ll rally around their master and beat the other humans for not typing at the same pace as them.
It’s a thought exercise and a metaphor, not literal
What happens if they write the communist manifesto before any works of Shakespeare?
Where’s that fucking apes strong together meme
Me hiring monkey pinkertons for my infinite monkey theorem based publishing house, “wanna bet?”
/s
We are what happens to the monkeys when they’re done writing Shakespeare
You’d also have to pay them proper wages too, or they’d go on strike.
Reddit is basically prove that this theory is bullshit anyway.
Reddit is less creative than it is distributive. Terrible place for original content, but a reliable location to find reposts of trending material produced elsewhere.
If you’re looking for a real “10,000 monkeys on typewriters” situation, you’d be better off trolling through Tumblr or DeviantArt or 4chan.
It was more of an attempt at a joke. But the comments on reddit are rather close to the infinite monkey situation. While you are absolutely right that 4chan might be even closer. But 4chan is too hardcore for me, so I kind of forgot about it.
the comments on reddit are rather close to the infinite monkey situation
Damn, I wish they were that creative. I feel like there’s maybe 30 different predefined Reddit Comments that just get randomly spat out by a generator ever few minutes.
But 4chan is too hardcore for me, so I kind of forgot about it.
Fair. But nothing recreates the experience of a dozen chimps throwing shit at one another like 4chan.
