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Obligatory mention of the Borges short story "The Library of Babel", in which the narrator inhabits a universe of books containing every combination of letters

Obligatory mention of the Borges short story "The Library of Babel", in which the narrator inhabits a universe of books containing every combination of letters that can fit within some specific number of pages at a specific font size, thus containing every thing that could possibly be written by anyone.

ralusek 4y ago
Room of monkeys + typewriter + time = Shakespeare. Fuck, we forgot food.
- uplifter 4y ago
  In his book Programming the Universe[0][1], quantum physicist Seth Lloyd calculates that if you had every atom in the universe computing for the age of the universe to generate strings of text randomly, it would not likely have written even the first line of Hamlet. His solution to how we managed to get the entirety of Hamlet plus the rest of Shakespeare's works given much less resources (i.e. evolution on one small planet culminating in one playwright) is that the monkeys/atoms are not typing text into typewriters but instead typing code into a computers. [0]Programming the Universe, by Seth Lloyd, a great read about physics and computation: https://www.amazon.com/Programming-Universe-Quantum-Computer-Scientist/dp/1400033861 https://www.amazon.com/Programming-Universe-Quantum-Computer... [1]The book is accessible with free account at archive.org: https://archive.org/details/programmingunive00lloy/page/n13/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/programmingunive00lloy/page/n13/... [1]Interview with Lloyd where he also mentions this calculation (search for "hamlet"): https://www.technologyreview.com/2006/07/01/39028/qa-seth-lloyd/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2006/07/01/39028/qa-seth-ll...
porphyra 4y ago
In order to find an interesting book, the integer that points to its location would have the same amount of bytes of information as the book itself, so finding a good book is just as much work as writing it!
- mlyle 4y ago
  All you need to do is keep the books in a heap by their interestingness. ;) Then finding the most interesting book is Θ(1). It does take a little bit of work to take it off the heap to see what's next on your reading list, though.
- mgdlbp 4y ago
  The Library of Babel site uses an invertible PRNG for mapping position and content to allow searching https://libraryofbabel.info/book.cgi https://libraryofbabel.info/book.cgi https://libraryofbabel.info/theory4.html https://libraryofbabel.info/theory4.html
thrtythreeforty 4y ago
Also highly recommend "A Short Stay in Hell," a novelette based on the same Library concept. Helps wrap your head around what it means to be in such a place.
- agentwiggles 4y ago
  This story is seriously fascinating, such a great expansion of the Library Of Babel concept. It really gives a sense of the scale and also the hopelessness of finding _anything_ within the mess. First recommended to me on the horrorlit subreddit, and while it's certainly not traditional horror there is definitely some existential scariness to be found. Strongly recommended.
Arcorann 4y ago
Everyone always mentions "The Library of Babel"; considerably fewer bring up the work that inspired it, "The Universal Library" (Die Universalbibliothek) by Kurd Lasswitz [1], which places its treatment of a library containing every possible book of a given length in a somewhat different context. [1] https://mithilareview.com/lasswitz_09_17/ https://mithilareview.com/lasswitz_09_17/

ralusek 4y ago

Room of monkeys + typewriter + time = Shakespeare. Fuck, we forgot food.

uplifter 4y ago
In his book Programming the Universe[0][1], quantum physicist Seth Lloyd calculates that if you had every atom in the universe computing for the age of the universe to generate strings of text randomly, it would not likely have written even the first line of Hamlet. His solution to how we managed to get the entirety of Hamlet plus the rest of Shakespeare's works given much less resources (i.e. evolution on one small planet culminating in one playwright) is that the monkeys/atoms are not typing text into typewriters but instead typing code into a computers. [0]Programming the Universe, by Seth Lloyd, a great read about physics and computation: https://www.amazon.com/Programming-Universe-Quantum-Computer-Scientist/dp/1400033861 https://www.amazon.com/Programming-Universe-Quantum-Computer... [1]The book is accessible with free account at archive.org: https://archive.org/details/programmingunive00lloy/page/n13/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/programmingunive00lloy/page/n13/... [1]Interview with Lloyd where he also mentions this calculation (search for "hamlet"): https://www.technologyreview.com/2006/07/01/39028/qa-seth-lloyd/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2006/07/01/39028/qa-seth-ll...

porphyra 4y ago

In order to find an interesting book, the integer that points to its location would have the same amount of bytes of information as the book itself, so finding a good book is just as much work as writing it!

mlyle 4y ago
All you need to do is keep the books in a heap by their interestingness. ;) Then finding the most interesting book is Θ(1). It does take a little bit of work to take it off the heap to see what's next on your reading list, though.
mgdlbp 4y ago
The Library of Babel site uses an invertible PRNG for mapping position and content to allow searching https://libraryofbabel.info/book.cgi https://libraryofbabel.info/book.cgi https://libraryofbabel.info/theory4.html https://libraryofbabel.info/theory4.html

thrtythreeforty 4y ago

Also highly recommend "A Short Stay in Hell," a novelette based on the same Library concept. Helps wrap your head around what it means to be in such a place.

agentwiggles 4y ago
This story is seriously fascinating, such a great expansion of the Library Of Babel concept. It really gives a sense of the scale and also the hopelessness of finding _anything_ within the mess. First recommended to me on the horrorlit subreddit, and while it's certainly not traditional horror there is definitely some existential scariness to be found. Strongly recommended.

Arcorann 4y ago

Everyone always mentions "The Library of Babel"; considerably fewer bring up the work that inspired it, "The Universal Library" (Die Universalbibliothek) by Kurd Lasswitz [1], which places its treatment of a library containing every possible book of a given length in a somewhat different context. [1] https://mithilareview.com/lasswitz_09_17/ https://mithilareview.com/lasswitz_09_17/