• ObjectivityIncarnate@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    This is pretty dumb, the whole point of the monkey with typewriters thing is that they’re typing random characters, not knowing the language.

    • Poplar?@lemmy.worldOP
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      7 months ago

      You’re right, but it isnt trying to actually argue that, its a joke.

      • ObjectivityIncarnate@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        I understand it’s a joke, but it’s a poorly-formed joke that exposes its writer not understanding the thing they’re riffing on, lol.

        Would be kind of like making a joke based on a stereotype of NBA players mostly being redheads, with no such stereotype existing, lol.

        • Poplar?@lemmy.worldOP
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          7 months ago

          Jokes necessarily often leave behind details to work.

          Here the whole joke is pointing out similarities we see are forced.

          And besides, it’s obvious the author was intentionally being “wrong”, otherwise we’d be suggesting the author assumed the thought-experiment was monkeys who knew language, intentionally typing out great works. That’s a pretty useless situation to make up, it doesn’t suggest anything interesting.

        • pyre@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          you can take the redditor out of reddit, but you can’t take reddit out of the redditor.

    • ameancow@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      The meta of the joke, as well as the philosophical idea that underpins it, is that the universe is based in probability and we are the result of those infinite dice rolls eventually making a human race that can think and be conscious and create Hamlet.

    • hark@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      But what is random, really? Why did those monkeys smash the keys that they did?