1,000,000 Monkeys Producing Shakespeare

People often use the proposition that "a million monkeys at a million typewriters will, if given long enough, eventually produce the works of Shakespeare" as a circumlocution for "random events will often produce meaningful output". But the works of Shakespeare as produced by monkeys are not the works of Shakespeare. Any meaning that the monkeys' version of the works of Shakespeare has is imparted to it by the reader. The letters themselves remain merely random arrangements of letters.

In fact, starting with monkeys typing letters begs the question because you're already beginning with atomic meaningful units. Why not start with words, sentences, or chapters?

Permalink | 2 Comments | Tags: Philosophy | id 8218

14:33 (utc-5)
edited: 14:52 (utc-5)