Typing Monkeys

The commercial value of the film "It's a Wonderful Life" was essentially nothing until after it had been shown for free on television for several years. Eventually it was popular enough for one of the relevant copyright holders to assert control, and the film has made money ever since.
Janis Ian often puts songs up for free on her website, and has found that there is a consistent increase in sales of those songs. Baen Books gives the early works of many of its authors away for free on thier website, because it increases sales of those authors - both their other works _and_ the works that are available for free.
Value given for value received. And with intellectual property value can only be assessed by familiarity with the work... Anything that increases the ability of the consumer to accurately asses the value of 'a piece of intellectual property' increases the number of people willing to pay (value given) for that work (value received).
[note that a lot of that 'value given' depends on an opportunity to give it. 'tip jars' can be one opportunity, but because people like to be able to point to the 'value received' a 'dead tree' version or some sort of 'value-enhanced download' is a good opportunity for useful numbers of people to 'give' for what they have 'received'.]

I believe you! The Grumpy Old Bookman, one of my favourite bloggers, uses this method to market his books. As for myself, well, let's see if the blog starts making me any money. At least I can hope it may garner me speaking gigs and writing assignments.

You might be interested in having a look at:

http://www.vivaria.net/experiments/notes/publication/NOTES_EN.pdf

(Warning: heavy PDF). A real experiment in which monkeys were allowed to type on a computer left in their zoo cage for a month. The produced text, composed primarily of the letter S, is included.

That is just unbelievably cool. In fact, I was thinking aeuifhö oefvöoiefgöoiejgöojq göojqetftgqäoåe4böionwerfvböjkodfökjbe fgoöojjetrgouihefijkdfvkljbndvkjrgfböihrt efoiugweneghew iuwgihegri erehiegiwegujer efoger gweöio rgweö egwregflkrdfgö ionrewf önwrgföwrghiwreöoig eoirgöo iewrijg24508w4o8we4rouigihjsergönrfwrgnjg jh jiöerw göoi 4rt wrekjlher ölkwreföroihgwröo iughweröoig öonh g öneow hogwö hgö oirijgöhow4e gö how gö ohrgnkb.s rkn weö ho gweöo ge.kjhw rwt4ohrtg iu hwcrik nwrkhio nwrgkowr n .lnnfg .nr göokjrg n

Nice essay, lots to think about - the idea of SETI, and of recognising what might be a signal from outer space, is the assumption that numbers, or equations, prime numbers etc., are constants - i.e. the value of pi would be the same to a Martian as well as an Earthling - and it is by searching for meaningful sets of numbers in amongst the random noise that I think they pin their hopes on detecting a message from afar.

I've never been sure about monkeys eventually typing out Shakespeare, as this assumes that a monkey brain only operates at the random level, or that what is random to a human would always be so for a monkey. Moreover, a monkey typing in what one person might consider to be random English, might produce results that were meaningful in another language, e.g. Swedish, German or French, although this of course would be mediated by using the same basic Roman alphabet, but maybe without all the extraneous punctuation marks, umlauts and accents etc.

But to discover the true meaning of randomness, and what it could ultimately produce, written text on its own might not suffice - even with the introduction of say, numbers, sounds and images, there would be a huge number of possible results, although there would still be a finite number of those results, because it would be a closed system.

To obtain a true random result generator, in which all and every truth should appear amongst the 'junk' data produced, it would be necessary to add to the mix, physical attributes like energy in its multifarious phases - and somewhere amongst those results, would be instructions on how to create one's own viable universe, replete with every good book and paper that it was possible to produce, along with some vastly advanced human abilities that would allow one to actually read and understand them all.

Just some random thoughts...

Thanks for the props!

In William Kotzwinkle's novelisation of E.T., the interstellar traveller forms the opinion that the goal of all evolution on Earth has been to produce M&M chocolates.

And "Slaughterhouse Five" by Kurt Vonnegut, that life on Earth was all aimed at producing a spare part for a stranded flying saucer.

From:
TIMELINE 14th CENTURY

1315: Ramon Lully, Philosopher of Majorca (born in Palma, SPAIN, circa 1236)
inventor of the first digital word-processing device (satirized in "Gulliver's Travels") , and discoverer of the gas Ammonia, preached against Islam in Bougie, Africa, and was stoned to death for heresy.
The word "Ammonia" comes from "sal ammoniac", meaning "the Salt of Ammon" -- what was observed in North Africa from burning camel dung, when white crystals settled on the walls and ceiling of the Temple of Zeus-Ammon. The pungent gas Ammonia, NH3, was first purified by Joseph Priestley in 1774, though he called it "alkaline air."

In "Gulliver's Travels" we see grad students on the flying island Laputa cranking a frame with alphabet blocks, and writing down the random phrases that appear in noise.

Also, "The Library of Babylon" where one such random phrase is given as "O Time thy pyramids."

Raymond Lull is covered, along with a lot of other cabbalistic types, in Umberto Eco's 1995 book The Search for the Perfect Language. It's a slightly tedious non-fic book, but great for reference purposes.

That Borges story is covered in the essay.

It's a very interesting piece; thanks for putting it up where us backwards monolinguists can take a look.

You seem to be hinting at the idea that we, the readers of books, are playing the role of Lem's second demon. That is, through our tastes and discernments, we're filtering out for meaningful and true information... perhaps even one better, as we cling to the interesting, as well. We manage it without supernatural powers, however, as we aren't actually defying the laws of thermodynamics... we just happen to be at that lovely edge, before order gives way to pure entropy.

I think this is a result of the nature of the information itself. Information is simply individual bits held together by values. (In this case, letters are bits, the values are the laws of grammar, accuracy, as well as the aesthetics of literary device, such as meter or rhythm.) As we create new information, we're drawing from that same pool of bits, and fishing for the best values to hold it together. (Hence, the need to edit, and reedit, and reedit...)

But, as you point out, most information, even if correct or pleasing, does not necessarily endure. Instead, it undergoes a process similar to biological evolution. Information is put to the test of natural selection... those with the best fit (the best arrangement of values) survive. So, random monkey text doesn't survive, while King's "The Stand" does.

The monkey text is simple, lacking complex arrangements of value. It quickly goes from order to entropy; our demon doesn't even take notice. A rich, complex piece, on the other hand, won't easily give way to that chaotic end, but endure at the harmonic edge, to be savored by our demon.

Thanks again for a fascinating piece. I obviously spend far too much time thinking about these things!

Thanks for your kind words! I like your thoughts a lot. However, you seem to suggest a relativisation of truth that I wouldn't follow you into: "...filtering out for meaningful and true information". But maybe I misunderstand you.

Thank Tom Paine, when we read, we can go straight to the meaningful and look for interesting bits, and we don't have to wade through complete nonsense like the inhabitants of the Library of Babel...

However, you seem to suggest a relativisation of truth that I wouldn't follow you into: "...filtering out for meaningful and true information". But maybe I misunderstand you.

I suppose I should have said we try to filter for meaningful and true information. (It's a work in progress, perhaps.) I was thinking, even as I wrote that, of the recent popularity of psuedotruthful nonsense like Da Vinci Code. However, I'd argue that we discriminate for accuracy in fiction, even. For instance, we're not likely to tolerate a water-breathing dragon without a decent explanation.

Oh, right, truth in fiction... Well, if you happen upon an unreliable narrator, then you need to filter what he says.