Library of Babel
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- rabbit
http://www.relativelyinteresting…
"The digital Library of Babel contains all possible permutations that can exist in 3,200 characters in the English language.* Because of that, it contains all possible conversations you could have, have had, or will have, all possible scenarios of your death, and even this entire article, up to the asterisk in this paragraph."
And it does contain that paragraph, I checked. This is seriously doing my head in. This means, somewhere in that library sits a string of characters and words that describe my death, it's date, and exact surrounding story. That is also the case for you, and every single person on QBN. Even this paragraph I just wrote is in there somewhere, and i wrote this just now, but what about this random fucking sentence i just decided to add, well that also already existed in a page out there in this fucking library. Mind blown.
The site:
https://libraryofbabel.info
- rabbit0
https://libraryofbabel.info/book…
This page has that exact combination of words i created above. Again, that page existed before i wrote that.
Wtf lol
- rabbit0
This really brings up some pretty big philosophical implications to me.
- rabbit0
Every single moment of your past and your future already exists in that library, you just have to find it, but it IS there already.
- uan0
does it have a full text search?
- scarabin1
numbers guy would dig this
- rabbit0
Scarabin, search for exactly what you did today and send me the page. It already existed. Is that not weird. Somewhere out there is your tomorrow.
- scarabin1
powered by infinite monkeys with typewriters
- prophetone0
- Yes it is exactly that, but to have it actually manifested and to be real is quite an impressive and interesting idea. You could say, this guy has published ...rabbit
- Every song, book, thought, patent idea ever to/have had existed.rabbit
- it's cool for sureprophetone
- rabbit0
Could one use this to communicate via bookmarks - as in one is communicating but never actually typed the words, therefore no 'crime' in such places where freedom of speech (or for other reasons communicating not possible) is frowned upon? Thoughts?
- rabbit0
^ nvmd one has to search first hahahah durrrrpeee durrrp
- ETM0
And so I am to believe that it's not simply inserting what I typed/searched? Is there vetted proof of how this works?
- <http://i.imgur.com...uan
- http://i.imgur.com/S…
more likelyuan - You dont have to believe that, no. But if you read the article and a little info you might understand how it works better.rabbit
- < ETM is beeing a tin foil hat dude
did you read the book rabbit?uan - No. But the weird thing is no one wrote it. It already existed.rabbit
- So a little initial skepticism and a desire for more details/proof are now 'tin foil hat.' Wow.ETM
- ETM, my comment was meant ironically :D because It most probably works like you described it. I wanted to keep the magic going.uan
- garbage0
mfw y'all ain't read borges before
- rabbit0
I suppose one way to test how real it is is to search for a large amount of text, note the page id, then search again for the jibberish that was on that results page, excluding you string that made sense. The page results hould come up. Along with your fully worded sentence. You dig?
- i was trying that. I searched almost the whole page exactly and it didn't show the original page. out of the 10+ it showed me.BabySnakes
- No there are usually 000s of results, shows 20 at a time, check again...look for 'show next results'rabbit
- Too many pages return to checkrabbit
- ya so there are a million pages that are almost identical with just one or two words that are different. hard to prove hahaBabySnakes
- nb0
It's interesting to me how it isn't infinite.
So, this contains a short description of each event in my life. And every possible variation of that event. And everyone else's life, and every possible variation. And yet it isn't infinite.
- sarahfailin0
this is a really fascinating idea! it reminds me of this illustration from Godel Escher Bach, which lays out all the possible and impossible results of any formal system of symbols.
The Library of Babel represents all of the "Reachable Truths" and the "Reachable Falsehoods" of combinations of symbols within our system of language within 3200 characters. For example, "The tree is green," could be considered a reachable truth, because it is a valid phrase with a discernible meaning. "Goat asdf verifydfsa shit valid," would be a reachable falsehood, because it is a result reachable within the character system, but it holds no discernible meaning.Beyond the contents of the library lie those truths which are not reachable through our language, and those falsehoods as well. The big problem is mining this resource for valid phrases which also yield truthful answers. If only we could program a search engine spider that can recognize truth, insight, humor, wisdom, or accurate future predictions.