January 22, 2010
from the comments
This many-monkeys-typing-Hamlet thing has always interested me for oblique reasons. What are the odds that a person would arrive at the point of thinking about monkeys or randomness in this way? And what happens when we throw in the probability that monkeys would evolve over a few billion years of typing? I know I know, that’s not the question being asked. But it reminds me of many aspects of complexity theory (Santa Fe Institute, et. al.), and the notion that growth toward complexity isn’t just a curve of the most basic incremental steps, given that whole ordered parts may be assimilated along the way. Instead of giving them typewriters, read and perform Hamlet for the monkeys many times. Soon you would see great “To Be, or Not to Be” poses all over the place, and wonderfully elastic lip movements.
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