You know, I have heard endless numbers of atheists make fun of the Middle Ages because philosophers debated how many angels could dance on the head of a pin.
Today, we are much more sophisticated.
We argue about how many monkeys it would take to type a legible sentence on a typewriter.
Which just goes to show that technology DOES transform discussions.
Right?
How many angels could dance on the head of a pin? All of them.
ReplyDeleteHow many monkeys would have to bang on typewriters before they had randomly generated the text of Shakespeare's Hamlet? None of them -- the odds against it are so huge as to be impossible, so you may as well save your typewriters from monkey vandalism.
I wish I had been the one to devise this response:
ReplyDelete"It is said that, given an infinite number of monkeys working at typewriters, they will eventually reproduce the works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know that is untrue."
+JMJ+
ReplyDeleteI hadn't thought of that, Steve! =D
I'd rather be "a little lower than the Angels" than a little higher than monkeys, any day.