androogee (they/she)

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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 3rd, 2023

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  • Just because a set is infinite does not mean that it will contain every possible permutation of something. That’s a common thought but a provably untrue one.

    For example, there are infinite even numbers, and none of them are 3. Not a single one. If someone claimed that generating infinite even numbers would eventually return a 3, you wouldn’t take them seriously, and rightly so.

    But here’s the rub: you can also generate infinite even numbers and never return a 2. Every time you generate an even number, there are infinite numbers that it could be. Even if you don’t allow numbers to repeat, it’s not like you are gonna exhaust the amount of non-2 even numbers.

    Just because a set is infinite does not mean that it will contain every possible permutation of something.

    So back to the typewriters. You might say that while there are infinite numbers, there are not infinite permutations of a string of characters the length of the works of Shakespeare.

    And that’s true.

    If you were to say that a string of characters the length of the works of Shakespeare (or longer) could never be repeated exactly, the yes they would type the works of Shakespeare.

    But then they wouldn’t be typing randomly.

    Randomness repeats. Infinite randomness can repeat infinitely.

    And we are not dealing with strings of characters the length of the works of Shakespeare. We’re dealing with strings of characters of infinite length. And there are, in fact, infinite permutations of those.

    So… Yeah.

    There’s no logical basis for infinite monkeys typing infinitely, inevitably producing the works of Shakespeare. Or fecal dioramas or alternate universes where Spider-Man is real or whatever else. Doesn’t hold water.