The Infinite Monkey Theorem: Given an endless amount of time, a monkey hitting keys on a typewriter at random will type out any given text, and eventually turn up with the complete works of Shakespeare. Before any point in that infinite amount of time where the monkey writes out anything remotely Shakespeareian, it’s likely the monkey would have written what would be considered indecipherable. However, it’s also likely that it could have written something that is even somewhat comprehensible. It could have written the Declaration of Independence, Oliver Twist, or even Romeo and Juliet, but the name Randy replaces every instance of Romeo’s. It could also write none of that, or all of it warped together. And if the monkey didn’t stop writing after it had replicated the works of Shakespeare, it would have produced everything ever. Because the monkey has an infinite amount of time, it will have written every possible arrangement of 29 characters within the English language, letters, spaces, periods, and commas in all. Now, imagine that each paragraph the monkey writes is put on a page. Each page is taken and put into a library, composed of endless corridors and stairways, leading into an unmeasurable beyond, surrounded by only books and shelves.
|
|
The Short Story:
Written by Jorge Luis Borges, The Library of Babel (1941) is a short story in which the narrator describes their universe, also known as the Library. The Library is “composed of an indefinite and perhaps infinite number of hexagonal galleries.” Each gallery has two open walls with stations containing the necessities to live, and five shelves on each remaining wall, twenty shelves in total. Each shelf holds thirty-five books, each with 410 pages; each page having 40 lines and about 80 characters per line.
We are given little details of the narrator's identity other than that they, like all other wanderers of The Library, were born in it, spent their youth searching for a certain book, and will soon die. The narrator informs us that once they die, their body will be thrown over the railings, damned to rot in a perpetual descent into a bottomless void.
In the current era, one can travel for days before coming across another living soul, unlike hundreds of years ago, when “there was one man for every three hexagons”. Death has taken its toll, disease, and the deterioration of mental health have decimated the population.
Along with the travelers and wanderers of The Library, come innumerable perceptions of their confined existence in the perpetual hallways and stairways, beliefs manifest themselves in a myriad of different forms.
Yet, in all, only one is regarded as true by all travelers of the Library. No two books are identical. Two books may appear similar to one another, but there’s still some variation that can distinguish one from another, no matter how small, there is possibly a single letter of difference.
We know that the narrator, like many others, is sure that The Library is a product of something divine. “The Library has existed ab aeternitate” and is the product of some “malevolent demiurge”. The Library is too perfect, too intentional, for it all to be some coincidence. The letters in the books are symmetrical. There are stations in each hexagon to ensure survival. The eternal Library, with all its books and bookcases for humanity to wander.
The fascinating nature of the Library is not measured by how many books make it up, nor is it the eternal labyrinth that it’s composed of. It’s the fact that The Library contains every single bit of information possible. In some sentence, in some paragraph, in some book, on some shelf, and in some bookcase is the exact date and time of when I will die. And so is the exact time and date that you will die. But there are billions and trillions of books that get the dates wrong. It’s most likely that any somewhat comprehensible paragraph you find will be false.
The Library is a paradox. To access the answer to your question, you must already know the true answer. Not some falsified version. It is impossible to search the books and find what you seek at random. There are simply too many possibilities. As stated by the narrator, “[F]or every sensible line of straightforward statement, there are leagues of senseless cacophonies, verbal jumbles and incoherences.” The Library doesn’t seek to deceive, it’s not malicious nor malevolent. It’s simply the Library’s nature. The Library is this amalgamation of symmetry and perfected chaos. It’s no wonder those who traverse the eternal expanse of spiraling stairs grow to revere the books themselves.
As it came to be known that the Library held every book possible, the people felt endless joy. It was simple, no problem couldn't be solved by a book. No question could be unanswered, for some solution was guaranteed to exist. Then came discussions of prophetic books, ones that would guide the people of the Library.
These books, called “The Vinidcations”, would justify the actions of whoever was the subject, driving people to abandon their home hexagons and rush to find their own Vindication, and often at the expense of their sanity. The narrator informs us that these Vindications are in fact real, and have seen two of them, ones that refer to people who have yet to exist, likely to be born sometime in the distant future. They also tell us that many of those who search for these books fail to realize that the probability of someone finding their own Vindication is essentially none.
Many believe there exists a hexagon that holds a collection of precious books, perhaps ones that would reveal the origins of The Library and the secrets of man. Official searchers, named “Inquisitors,” who originally were tasked with finding these books, have long since abandoned the idea. The very thought that the books most certainly exist but will never be found is not one many people want to hold on to.
A certain philosophical group thought that these searches should be discontinued, and all men should shuffle letters in the hopes that these books would appear by some impossible chance. Another group believed that the solution was to get rid of all books considered “worthless”. The narrator tells us that whatever effect this group-while it existed-had on the Library was essentially nothing, since “One, that the Library is so huge that any reduction by human hands must be infinitesimal. And two, that each book is unique and irreplaceable, but (since the Library is total) there are always several hundred thousand imperfect facsimiles-books that differ by no more than a single letter, or a comma.”
The people of The Library also hold on to the idea of the “Book-Man”. It is given that there is a book that is a complete collection of all other books, one that contains all the information there is to be known. And some librarian who has found and read this book is “analogous to a god”.
It is this book that the narrator has been searching for their entire life. They hope, that if not them to find and read this book, then someone else has, and at least for that one person, The Library’s existence, including the suffering of the people within it, is justified. That, at least, someone can exist in such a place and find that there is meaning rather than knowing your life is arbitrary and your purpose nonexistent.
Some find that The Library has no justification. That anything even remotely rational is just by chance. They believe the wanderers of the library will assimilate books' abstract nature, “so that they affirm all things, deny all things, and confound and confuse all things, like some mad and hallucinating deity.” However, the narrator believes that this belief is idiotic. There is always a justification for what appears to be random and nonsensical, as that very justification is guaranteed to be somewhere in The Library. The Library holds languages hidden to humanity, ones that speak in what we think is gibberish.
The Library is eternal. And it is perhaps infinite. Some believe The Library to have an end, somewhere in which the staircases and bookshelves die away and are left with nothing, an idea considered ridiculous. And those who believe The Library is truly without limits have not considered that the number of books is, in fact, limited. The narrator suggests a solution to the perpetual paradox: “The Library is unlimited but periodic.” At some point, somewhere unimaginably far away, The Library begins to repeat itself. The same books, in the same chaotic manner. And so, The Library is not truly random, but it is still both eternal and infinite. An endless cycle in which this repetition transforms chaos into order.
Written by Jorge Luis Borges, The Library of Babel (1941) is a short story in which the narrator describes their universe, also known as the Library. The Library is “composed of an indefinite and perhaps infinite number of hexagonal galleries.” Each gallery has two open walls with stations containing the necessities to live, and five shelves on each remaining wall, twenty shelves in total. Each shelf holds thirty-five books, each with 410 pages; each page having 40 lines and about 80 characters per line.
We are given little details of the narrator's identity other than that they, like all other wanderers of The Library, were born in it, spent their youth searching for a certain book, and will soon die. The narrator informs us that once they die, their body will be thrown over the railings, damned to rot in a perpetual descent into a bottomless void.
In the current era, one can travel for days before coming across another living soul, unlike hundreds of years ago, when “there was one man for every three hexagons”. Death has taken its toll, disease, and the deterioration of mental health have decimated the population.
Along with the travelers and wanderers of The Library, come innumerable perceptions of their confined existence in the perpetual hallways and stairways, beliefs manifest themselves in a myriad of different forms.
Yet, in all, only one is regarded as true by all travelers of the Library. No two books are identical. Two books may appear similar to one another, but there’s still some variation that can distinguish one from another, no matter how small, there is possibly a single letter of difference.
We know that the narrator, like many others, is sure that The Library is a product of something divine. “The Library has existed ab aeternitate” and is the product of some “malevolent demiurge”. The Library is too perfect, too intentional, for it all to be some coincidence. The letters in the books are symmetrical. There are stations in each hexagon to ensure survival. The eternal Library, with all its books and bookcases for humanity to wander.
The fascinating nature of the Library is not measured by how many books make it up, nor is it the eternal labyrinth that it’s composed of. It’s the fact that The Library contains every single bit of information possible. In some sentence, in some paragraph, in some book, on some shelf, and in some bookcase is the exact date and time of when I will die. And so is the exact time and date that you will die. But there are billions and trillions of books that get the dates wrong. It’s most likely that any somewhat comprehensible paragraph you find will be false.
The Library is a paradox. To access the answer to your question, you must already know the true answer. Not some falsified version. It is impossible to search the books and find what you seek at random. There are simply too many possibilities. As stated by the narrator, “[F]or every sensible line of straightforward statement, there are leagues of senseless cacophonies, verbal jumbles and incoherences.” The Library doesn’t seek to deceive, it’s not malicious nor malevolent. It’s simply the Library’s nature. The Library is this amalgamation of symmetry and perfected chaos. It’s no wonder those who traverse the eternal expanse of spiraling stairs grow to revere the books themselves.
As it came to be known that the Library held every book possible, the people felt endless joy. It was simple, no problem couldn't be solved by a book. No question could be unanswered, for some solution was guaranteed to exist. Then came discussions of prophetic books, ones that would guide the people of the Library.
These books, called “The Vinidcations”, would justify the actions of whoever was the subject, driving people to abandon their home hexagons and rush to find their own Vindication, and often at the expense of their sanity. The narrator informs us that these Vindications are in fact real, and have seen two of them, ones that refer to people who have yet to exist, likely to be born sometime in the distant future. They also tell us that many of those who search for these books fail to realize that the probability of someone finding their own Vindication is essentially none.
Many believe there exists a hexagon that holds a collection of precious books, perhaps ones that would reveal the origins of The Library and the secrets of man. Official searchers, named “Inquisitors,” who originally were tasked with finding these books, have long since abandoned the idea. The very thought that the books most certainly exist but will never be found is not one many people want to hold on to.
A certain philosophical group thought that these searches should be discontinued, and all men should shuffle letters in the hopes that these books would appear by some impossible chance. Another group believed that the solution was to get rid of all books considered “worthless”. The narrator tells us that whatever effect this group-while it existed-had on the Library was essentially nothing, since “One, that the Library is so huge that any reduction by human hands must be infinitesimal. And two, that each book is unique and irreplaceable, but (since the Library is total) there are always several hundred thousand imperfect facsimiles-books that differ by no more than a single letter, or a comma.”
The people of The Library also hold on to the idea of the “Book-Man”. It is given that there is a book that is a complete collection of all other books, one that contains all the information there is to be known. And some librarian who has found and read this book is “analogous to a god”.
It is this book that the narrator has been searching for their entire life. They hope, that if not them to find and read this book, then someone else has, and at least for that one person, The Library’s existence, including the suffering of the people within it, is justified. That, at least, someone can exist in such a place and find that there is meaning rather than knowing your life is arbitrary and your purpose nonexistent.
Some find that The Library has no justification. That anything even remotely rational is just by chance. They believe the wanderers of the library will assimilate books' abstract nature, “so that they affirm all things, deny all things, and confound and confuse all things, like some mad and hallucinating deity.” However, the narrator believes that this belief is idiotic. There is always a justification for what appears to be random and nonsensical, as that very justification is guaranteed to be somewhere in The Library. The Library holds languages hidden to humanity, ones that speak in what we think is gibberish.
The Library is eternal. And it is perhaps infinite. Some believe The Library to have an end, somewhere in which the staircases and bookshelves die away and are left with nothing, an idea considered ridiculous. And those who believe The Library is truly without limits have not considered that the number of books is, in fact, limited. The narrator suggests a solution to the perpetual paradox: “The Library is unlimited but periodic.” At some point, somewhere unimaginably far away, The Library begins to repeat itself. The same books, in the same chaotic manner. And so, The Library is not truly random, but it is still both eternal and infinite. An endless cycle in which this repetition transforms chaos into order.
The Website:
Unbelievably, this fantastic and absurd thought experiment was brought to reality, as much as it could be. There are two websites that are recreations of the premise first created by Borges. There are the same hexagons, divided into four walls, then five shelves on each wall, then 32 books per shelf, and finally 410 pages per book. In total, there are theoretically 25^1,312,000 books contained in the Library. For reference, there are from 10^78 to 10^82 atoms in the observable universe. It is quite literally impossible to contain the theoretical number of books in the Library.
To create a Library of Babel that doesn’t need the vast amount of storage it requires, books must be generated. These books are created by a mathematical function.
Sourced from one of the websites:
Unbelievably, this fantastic and absurd thought experiment was brought to reality, as much as it could be. There are two websites that are recreations of the premise first created by Borges. There are the same hexagons, divided into four walls, then five shelves on each wall, then 32 books per shelf, and finally 410 pages per book. In total, there are theoretically 25^1,312,000 books contained in the Library. For reference, there are from 10^78 to 10^82 atoms in the observable universe. It is quite literally impossible to contain the theoretical number of books in the Library.
To create a Library of Babel that doesn’t need the vast amount of storage it requires, books must be generated. These books are created by a mathematical function.
Sourced from one of the websites:
- Each book is given a numerical index. The first book on the first shelf is book 1, the first book on the second shelf is 33 and so on, until the last book in the entire library — which has the index 321,312,000.
- This (usually very large) number is run through a mathematical function to produce another unique number of 1,312,000 digits, which we represent in base-32 (we generally count in base-10, e.g. 0 through 9. Base-32 just means we count with more numerals, in this case 0-9 and then A-V).
- Each digit of the base-32 result is mapped to the character at that position in the limited 32 character alphabet (0 → a, 1 → b, ...) to produce the content of that book.
