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Underground > Laboratory >

Monkeys and Shakespeare

13:07 / 12.05.03

Some scientists decided to test the old "infinite monkeys" hypothesis.

Wired reported on it:

Researchers at Plymouth University in England reported this week that primates left alone with a computer attacked the machine and failed to produce a single word.

"They pressed a lot of S's," researcher Mike Phillips said Friday. "Obviously, English isn't their first language."

A group of faculty and students in the university's media program left a computer in the monkey enclosure at Paignton Zoo in southwest England, home to six Sulawesi crested macaques. Then, they waited.

At first, said Phillips, "the lead male got a stone and started bashing the hell out of it.

"Another thing they were interested in was in defecating and urinating all over the keyboard," added Phillips, who runs the university's Institute of Digital Arts and Technologies.

Eventually, monkeys Elmo, Gum, Heather, Holly, Mistletoe and Rowan produced five pages of text, composed primarily of the letter S. Later, the letters A, J, L and M crept in.

The interesting part was their rationale, as explained on the experiment's home page:
The project is clearly not a scientific experiment, but hopefully does display some sense of integrity. Although it appears to test the truth of the formula, in reality it emphasises the unreliability of human (scientific) hypotheses. Animals are not simply metaphors for human endeavour. The joke (if indeed there is one) must not be seen to be at the expense of the monkeys but on the popular interest in the idea - especially those in the computer science and mathematics community (interested in chance, randomness, autonomous systems and artificial life).

In other words, the monkeys aren't random. By the end of the month, they had started to figure out how to use the word processor.

Oh, and there's links to diagrams, jpgs and a short Quicktime movie of the webcam at the experiment site.

13:15 / 12.05.03

And they did an experiment to test this? Dearie me.

*

13:31 / 12.05.03

This is silly. I heartily approve.

14:31 / 12.05.03

Actually, that sounds a lot like me before I've had my third cup of coffee.

09:21 / 13.05.03

ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
smsssssssssssjssssssssnssssssssssssssssss......

maybe they were trying to spell 'Shakespeare'?

10:35 / 13.05.03

Maybe they were attempting Tolkien, my precioussssssssss ...

16:46 / 13.05.03

What did they expect?
Christ- wish i'd done sciences. Please tell me you get to do equally stupid stuff in ALL university courses...

03:46 / 14.05.03

The project is clearly not a scientific experiment, but hopefully does display some sense of integrity. Although it appears to test the truth of the formula, in reality it emphasises the unreliability of human (scientific) hypotheses.

One of the integral features of a scientific hypothesis is that it is falsifiable. The infinite monkey concept cannot be tested, and is therefore not a hypothesis.

To be quite honest, I'm shocked by all of this. I'm shocked that six people acquired the materials for this project and performed it. I'm shocked that England's Art Council gave them funding. I'm shocked that wired reported on it, and I'm shocked that it was mentioned on Barbelith. Most of all, I'm shocked that I took thirty minutes out of my day to write a response to this crap.

08:36 / 14.05.03

Hey, isn't the whole idea that an infinite number of monkeys typing at an infinite number of typewriters will produce Shakespeare really simply rubbish. I mean, aside of whether or not the monkeys could actually spend the time using the keyboard to type with and not defecate upon, it seems to me that there is no reason why they must necessarily write Shakespeare. They might simply write an infinite amount of nonsense—or anything else! I don't think there is any guarantee that simply because there is an infinite resource entails that there are all and any varieties of production.

09:01 / 14.05.03

Well, I'm not so interested in whether creative is merely random chance or not, but I am curious to know how well those monkeys could learn to use a word processor. If they got as far as recognising that when they pressed a letter it appeared on the screen, then do you think they could learn to differentiate between letters?

I know other colonoies of primates have been taught sign language and recognition of visual symbols, so why not letters on a computer screen? My guess is it would be more problematic if they did not have an immediate external response to relate to the symbol.

Old brown-eye is back

12:10 / 14.05.03

Another unanswered question is if an infinite number of Shakespeares are left in a big cage for an infinite amount of time, would they eventually start to swing on the bars, pick nits off each other and shit all over the floor?

17:13 / 14.05.03

wasn't the point of the monkeys and typewriter business that you have to wait for the monkeys to evolve?

19:43 / 14.05.03

They might simply write an infinite amount of nonsense—or anything else!

The idea was that in an infinite amount of nonsense, you'd come across a finite set of symbols for all of Shakespeare's writings.

Thjatsi: One of the integral features of a scientific hypothesis is that it is falsifiable. The infinite monkey concept cannot be tested, and is therefore not a hypothesis.

You missed the point. They're not talking about the infinite monkey idea as a hypothesis, they're talking about hypotheses in general. They're questioning the way humans ask questions, which is pretty interesting. I'm sure the funding they required was pretty minimal - a PC, web cam, some software and permission to use a zoo's monkey house.

20:17 / 14.05.03

Why do people assume they'd write in english...maybe all those S M J A L are actually the monkey version of The Tempest. Maybe they're all dadaist?

20:59 / 14.05.03

is it at all interesting that S is the most popular letter in most languages?

21:46 / 14.05.03

Ah Kegboy, your response illustrates your genius!

But grant, “the idea was that in an infinite amount of nonsense, you'd come across a finite set of symbols for all of Shakespeare's writings” is exactly what I’m saying is mistaken. Again, even in any infinite set it seems to me that there is no reason to think that a certain finite pattern will occur. Think about the decimal expansion for pi: it’s infinite, but I’ve no guarantee that at some point there would be a specific finite pattern, say “14132413251426182739555.” The expansion could continue forever and yet that specific pattern need not ever occur!

16:14 / 15.05.03

infinity itself would promise that number set, that's the nature of infinity.

secondly, the so called monkey hypothesis is only flawed by competing definitions of "monkey."

the mathematical hypothesis supposes monkeys to be a random-character generator, whereas this experiment supposes them to be, well, monkeys. and obviously, there's a difference.

16:27 / 15.05.03

"infinity itself would promise that number set, that's the nature of infinity."

But this is exactly the statement that I am saying is mistaken! It is not "the nature of infinity" to make any "promises" about what elements constitute a specific infinity. Look at it this way: the set of even numbers is infinite, yet there is obviously no occurrence of any pattern which contains odd numbers. Simply because we have an infinite set doesn't mean we have the occurrence of every pattern.

17:55 / 15.05.03

Hee hee hee. Monkeys smash things. Hee hee hee.

18:14 / 15.05.03

I think we could be guaranteed every pattern if it's truly random and infinite. If there was a guarantee that a certain pattern wouldn't come up, it wouldn't be truly random. And forever is a long, long time.

18:30 / 15.05.03

" (1) I think we could be guaranteed every pattern if it's truly random and infinite. (2) If there was a guarantee that a certain pattern wouldn't come up, it wouldn't be truly random."

While I'd agree with your second conditional claim, clearly it doesn't entail the first. In a "truly random" sequence there can't be any guarantee about what patterns won't occur, but on the flip side, there can be no guarantee about what patterns will occur either! If there was a guarantee about what will occur, then how would the sequence be “random”?

So, (1) might be better expressed as: “If there is a random and infinite pattern, then there are no guarantees about which patterns will occur and which patterns will not occur.”

Yes, forever is a hell of a long time, but forever doesn’t say anything about content.

18:33 / 15.05.03

I think the argument is that an infinite set contains all other sets.

It strikes me that there's a discussion about infinity in the Head Shop this might be better suited to.

Spyder Todd 2008

18:40 / 15.05.03

Whether or not monkeys could write Shakespeare, I think Zilcho is bringing up a hugely important point aboult the nature of reality. We sort of assume that every possibility will eventually show up. But what if it doesn't? Isn't it possible that there are certain possiblities that are simply never going to happen? I'm not sure if I agree with that, but its an interesting hypothesis.

Kegboy, your genius astounds me!!

18:42 / 15.05.03

Yes, yes, I thought of that thread almost immediately. Would you prefer to take it over there then?

I'm saying that the claim that an infinite set contains all other sets is false. I have tried to provide some idea of why that is so. It seems to me that no one has offered any evidence as to why it's true, other than to merely claim that it is.

Clearly, an infinite set could be formed out of the following sets: {1}, {11}, {111}, {1111}, {11111}, {111111},..., but there ain't no occurrence of {23}!

18:45 / 15.05.03

"We sort of assume that every possibility will eventually show up."

Yeah, this makes me think of a passage in one of RAW's books where he talks about how if he could live long enough, then eventually he'd be lecturing to a room full of people named "Jesus" (or something like that): it's shoddy reasoning, and it's deceptive bullshit (as much as I enjoy RAW).

23:47 / 15.05.03

You missed the point. They're not talking about the infinite monkey idea as a hypothesis, they're talking about hypotheses in general.

I am aware that the infinite monkey concept was only a metaphor. However, since this project has nothing to do with hypotheses, I don't see how it can emphasise their unreliability. My point is that this isn't a reasonable way of proving their claim.

They're questioning the way humans ask questions, which is pretty interesting.

I agree that exploring epistemology is a valuable activity. However, failing to find a rational answer to your question leaves you no better off than if you had never asked the question at all.

I'm sure the funding they required was pretty minimal - a PC, web cam, some software and permission to use a zoo's monkey house.

The amount of funding is irrelevant. Even if it cost less than a candy bar, it would still be a waste of resources.

21:46 / 16.05.03

At first, said Phillips, "the lead male got a stone and started bashing the hell out of it.
"Another thing they were interested in was in defecating and urinating all over the keyboard," added Phillips

The lead male later said, "there's no way we're gonna end up chained to a desk all day like you stinkin' humans, so we acted dumb. We got out of being forced to wait on the no-furs all damn day by screwing up the tea-party experiments, and we fucked this one up good too. Wanna buy a Madonna bootleg? Anything you want. Got Kazaa running right now."

tom-karika nukes it from orbit

22:33 / 16.05.03

This is wrong:

'Given an infinite number of monkeys and an infinite number of typewriters, they will eventually come up with the complete works of Shakespeare.'

This is right

'Given an infinite number of monkeys and an infininte number of typewriters, they will come up with the complete works of Shakespeare Instantaneously'

*Aside*

If an event has a probablity of zero, will it eventually occur if given an infinite number of chances to happen? Or is there no such thing as an event which truly has a probability of zero? What about the probability that 2 = 3, or something else mathematically showable to be untrue?

*

03:39 / 17.05.03

Anyone read or see the David Ives' play "Words, words, words"? It's part of "All in the Timing". It's got monkeys, who happen to be Marlowe, Kafka, and someone I forget. I think it's very pertinent to this particular project.

We're The Great Old Ones Now

07:16 / 19.05.03

'Given an infinite number of monkeys and an infininte number of typewriters, they will come up with the complete works of Shakespeare Instantaneously'

Hmmm, no. 'Instaneously' - assuming you mean by that they all hit one random key at once - they'd come up with an infinite number of single letters which, if you went and linked them up would include the complete works of everyone as ordered appearances in the infinite chain of random letters.

But as we know, it also comes down to whether monkeys are random - if there's something in monkey brains which makes them hit a specific area of the keyboard first time around, then you could get an infinite number of Ss.

Monkeys aren't random - but how not-random are they?

09:45 / 19.05.03

Maybe theyr not random- perhaps they'r trying to say "what the f* are that lot doin, locking us in a room with this...?" in monkey-language.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

12:09 / 19.05.03

"Of course, when I captured Clive he was completely wild."

"Wild? I was absolutely livid!"

15:06 / 19.05.03

You missed the point. They're not talking about the infinite monkey idea as a hypothesis, they're talking about hypotheses in general.

I am aware that the infinite monkey concept was only a metaphor. However, since this project has nothing to do with hypotheses, I don't see how it can emphasise their unreliability. My point is that this isn't a reasonable way of proving their claim.

I think it's more of a reductio ad absurdum about the assumptions that go into hypotheses, most specifically, assumptions about animals as completely irrational & random, rather than having a different sense of order and rationality than human beings.

It's basically a publicity stunt, yeah, but one which has a point.

I'm sure the funding they required was pretty minimal - a PC, web cam, some software and permission to use a zoo's monkey house.

The amount of funding is irrelevant. Even if it cost less than a candy bar, it would still be a waste of resources.

Bear in mind, it wasn't a science grant, but an arts grant. So I suppose it could be said that anything that generates thought & conversation would be fulfilling the job as art. Conceptual art, sure. And art about/using the trappings of science.

02:51 / 20.05.03

...think it's more of a reductio ad absurdum about the assumptions that go into hypotheses, most specifically, assumptions about animals as completely irrational & random, rather than having a different sense of order and rationality than human beings.

But assumptions about animals have nothing to do with the fundamental nature of a hypothesis. In addition, I know of no one in the scientific community who thinks that animals are random or without purpose.

Bear in mind, it wasn't a science grant, but an arts grant. So I suppose it could be said that anything that generates thought & conversation would be fulfilling the job as art.

We have a difference of opinion on what art is. I disagree that anything that can provoke conversation or thought is art, since I think it broadens the spectrum of art to the point of silliness. The British Art Counsel is, of course, free to make their own decisions. However, if they are publicly funded, and I was a citizen of the UK, I'd be really pissed off right now.