The Flat Earth Society
Other Discussion Boards => The Lounge => Topic started by: skeptical scientist on December 02, 2006, 09:52:12 PM
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Markov chain speech generators are designed around the following mechanism: they take a large body of written text, an n-word string within that text, and then add successive words by finding a random occurrence in the text of the last n words, and then adding the next word after that occurrence. The results are often garbled, but sometimes strangely enlightening.
See Mark V Shaney (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_V_Shaney) and Dissociated Press (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissociated_press) for examples.
My amusing thought/question is if someone were to take 100 random posts in angry ranting for the source material, how long do you think it would take to distinguish a bot using Markov chain processes from a typical angry REer? How long would it take before it used the phrase "TheEngineer is a douchebag"?
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It used to be said that given sufficient monkeys, sufficient typewriters, sufficient paper and sufficient time, one would produce the entire works of Shakespear.
This bulletin board proves that theory wrong.
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It used to be said that given sufficient monkeys, sufficient typewriters, sufficient paper and sufficient time, one would produce the entire works of Shakespear.
This bulletin board proves that theory wrong.
...
sufficient time
Congratulations, you are a "monkey".
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Congratulations, you are a "monkey".
Congratulations on only obeying orders.
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It used to be said that given sufficient monkeys, sufficient typewriters, sufficient paper and sufficient time, one would produce the entire works of Shakespear.
This bulletin board proves that theory wrong.
No, it used to be said that given an infinite number of Monkeys, an infinite number of typewriters, and an infinite amount of time, one of the monkeys would eventually produce the entire works of William Shakespeare.
This forum obviously does not prove this wrong since we only have a finite amount of "monkeys".
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This forum obviously does not prove this wrong since we only have a finite amount of "monkeys".
What about Master Beast?
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What about Master Beast?
Beast is an infinite number of monkeys?
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Beast is an infinite number of monkeys?
You make a good point: that exagerates Master Beast's uses.
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No, it used to be said that given an infinite number of Monkeys, an infinite number of typewriters, and an infinite amount of time, one of the monkeys would eventually produce the entire works of William Shakespeare.
This forum obviously does not prove this wrong since we only have a finite amount of "monkeys".
Ummm... are you sure it's infinite and not just any number? Because even with one eternal monkey with enough time, the complete works of Shakespeare would be typed. Granted it would take a long long long time. But if what you're saying is true, with an infinite amount of monkeys provided, the complete works of Shakespeare would be typed by one of the monkeys on the first try.
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Ummm... are you sure it's infinite and not just any number? Because even with one eternal monkey with enough time, the complete works of Shakespeare would be typed. Granted it would take a long long long time. But if what you're saying is true, with an infinite amount of monkeys provided, the complete works of Shakespeare would be typed by one of the monkeys on the first try.
Oh yeah. Oops, I didn't mean to put "an infinite amount of time". :oops:
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It used to be said that given sufficient monkeys, sufficient typewriters, sufficient paper and sufficient time, one would produce the entire works of Shakespear.
This bulletin board proves that theory wrong.
Given sufficient typewriters, sufficient paper and sufficient time you may be found humorous.
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I'm still not convinced by these "infinite trials" scenarios, specifically: infinite monkeys will type Shakespear, and infinite worlds means another one just like ours exists. I feel that if I shoot an infinite number of arrows at an infinitely large target (aiming randomly every time), I might still never hit the bullseye.
Are we talking about a guarantee, or a probability approaching one?
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Are we talking about a guarantee, or a probability approaching one?
The way I've always seen it is a probability approaching one as the number of Monkeys approaches infinity.
Edit: Here's the Wiki article on it (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_Monkey_Theorem).
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I feel that if I shoot an infinite number of arrows at an infinitely large target (aiming randomly every time), I might still never hit the bullseye.
The complete works of Shakespeare is not an infinitely large target. It's very finite.
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The complete works of Shakespeare is not an infinitely large target. It's very finite.
Indeed, the bullseye is also a very small, finite target. The set of all things that can be typed on a typewriter, however, is most certainly an infinitely large target.
Hitting the bullseye is to firing at an infinite target as typing Shakespeare is to typing strings of letters.
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Wouldn't the actual target not be "all possible combinations" but instead be "the complete works of Shakespeare"? In this case, firing an infinite number of arrows in all directions would cause at least one to hit the finite target of "the complete works of Shakespeare."
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Hitting the bullseye is to firing at an infinite target as typing Shakespeare is to typing strings of letters.
Hitting the bullseye is to typing shakespeare as infinity of real numbers to infinity of natural numbers.
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Wouldn't the actual target not be "all possible combinations" but instead be "the complete works of Shakespeare"?
By "target" I mean not "the thing I want to hit" but rather "that compressed wood fibre board with red and white circles painted on it, except in this case infinitely wide." In other words, the "target" is the set of all possible results of the experiment; it has a subset which I've labelled the "bullseye" and is the desired result of the experiment.
In this case, firing an infinite number of arrows in all directions would cause at least one to hit the finite target of "the complete works of Shakespeare."
Obviously, firing in all directions guarantees that an arrow will strike the bullseye. How can you guarantee that you will fire in all directions? That is exactly my point. I can fire an infinite number of arrows at the left half of the target, for example; then no arrows will be going to the right.
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The exact theorem states that if a single monkey types infinitely many consecutive symbols chosen randomly from a finite set containing all symbols in the complete works of Shakespeare, then with probability 1, he types the complete works. The proof goes as follows: let m be the size of the alphabet of symbols, and n be the length of the Bard's complete works. We can divide the monkeys typing into infinitely many blocks of length n. The probability that each block matches the complete works is (1/m)^n, which is a very small but nonzero number. If we make infinitely many attempts to do something with a small but positive chance of success, we will do it with probability 1, as the probability of not doing it over k trials goes to zero as k goes to infinity.
Alternatively, one could use the probabilities of the individual keys to construct a uniform probability measure on the set of all infinite strings; then the measure of the set of strings containing the complete works is 1. Of course, the monkey COULD type nothing but the letter a, but this scenario is not terribly likely.
The result is called the infinite monkey theorem, which has got to be the best title of any theorem in mathematics.
I'm not sure what exactly you mean by firing arrows at an infinite target, as one could imagine many ways of doing it which provide different probabilities of hitting the bullseye, but if the probability of hitting the bullseye in a single shot is zero, then it is a different situation entirely from the complete works, because the chance of typing the complete works in n letters, while exceedingly small, is not zero.
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[ . . ].
Given sufficient typewriters, sufficient paper and sufficient time you may be found humorous.
You forgot the monkeys.
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[ . . ].
Given sufficient typewriters, sufficient paper and sufficient time you may be found humorous.
You forgot the monkeys.
You're not offended that he forgot about you, are you?
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The result is called the infinite monkey theorem, which has got to be the best title of any theorem in mathematics.
The infinite monkey theorem is clearly Turing compaitible.
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[ . . ].
Given sufficient typewriters, sufficient paper and sufficient time you may be found humorous.
You forgot the monkeys.
You're not offended that he forgot about you, are you?
Who is going to laugh?
Please try to keep up at the back.
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[ . . ].
Given sufficient typewriters, sufficient paper and sufficient time you may be found humorous.
You forgot the monkeys.
You're not offended that he forgot about you, are you?
Who is going to laugh?
Please try to keep up at the back.
Try not taking me so seriously.
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Try not taking me so seriously.
Not much chance of that.
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Try not taking me so seriously.
Not much chance of that. :wink:
What does that even mean? You're going to continue to take him seriously? Who did you intend us to laugh at, because currently it's you.
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Try not taking me so seriously.
Not much chance of that. :wink:
What does that even mean? You're going to continue to take him seriously? Who did you intend us to laugh at, because currently it's you.
It is apparent to me that I don't try hard enough. For this, I am saddened.