Talk:Infinite monkey theorem

The falsity of the infinite monkey theorem

Can monkeys actually type books according to true experiments? The thought experiment is wrong because monkeys make neurotic repetitive movements, thus googolplex years wouldn't suffice. The only solution is to modify the keyboard, or use few buttons with Morse-like code. But if your experiment yields more books, the deep cause is your experiment design, not the monkeys. You can use a randomizer, or a biased pseudorandomizer, or some other model and animal. Thought experiments sometimes miss a point to make a point, thus real experiments are needed. 2A02:587:4F08:EF00:8CCB:23BE:9F78:3830 (talk) 12:32, 27 February 2025 (UTC)

That's beyond the point. Didlidoo (talk) 13:20, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

That point being, of course, that the monkeys are only a metaphor for random, mindless selection of letters. Randomizers, keyboards other than typewriters, or purpose-built machines of this type did not exist when this concept was developed, and would not have been understood by anyone hearing of or reading about it; typewriters were something most people could recognize and relate to (and to some extent, still are). I have no idea what "other animal" you propose to substitute, since no other animal besides humans is likely to be more suitable to the concept. I doubt most people could visualize a room full of dolphins typing away randomly. But to your point, no actual experiments are needed (though that hasn't stopped anyone from trying). It's a mathematical certainty that any text of any length will eventually be reproduced through sheer random selection of characters. But it might take an extremely long time, given a limited number of inputs by a limited number of typists, be they simian, cetacean, or crustacean... and that is the point of the "theorem": that random inputs will inevitably produce the desired results, but only with a vast quantity of time. P Aculeius (talk) 18:59, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

Picture

The picture is fun, but it’s a chimpanzee, not a monkey. —LukeSurl ^t c 11:02, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

This article is about a metaphor used to illustrate a point in mathematics. It has nothing to do with the taxonomy of the animals. Loosely speaking, "monkey" has been used to describe all simians, and this metaphor has never indicated a specific type, but is nearly always visualized using chimpanzees or something similar in appearance. That's probably because they're commonly used in contexts where the intended meaning is "sub-human intelligence" and a stereotypical caveman image isn't sub-human enough. From a practical standpoint, we can imagine chimpanzees plunking away at a typewriter, while their smaller cousins, the true monkeys, wouldn't be able to. But the main point is, the picture adequately represents the metaphor's intention, and is how it is conventionally depicted. Applying a strict taxonomic definition of "monkey" to a metaphor that has never employed it is both unnecessary and misleading. P Aculeius (talk) 18:44, 29 March 2025 (UTC)