Class and Level Geekery XIX - Nobody Cares about that Stuff Anymore

[Peelee]

As long as you agree that I can play the clavichord, because I'm a decent typist and both of those use the Perform: Keyboard instruments skill check, as that's a standard skill while Perform: Typewriter isn't.

As long as you agree that you can't see the sun

Dungeons and Dragons covers game mechanics. Not real-life parities.

[Metastachydium]

Also, he does know the exact strength of an earth elemental relative to that of a titanium elemental. That's not exactly chemistry, is it, now?

[b_jonas]

As long as you agree that you can't see the sun

Let me look out my window to check.

I can Spot some big trees obscuring most of my view, grass, paved paths from the sidewalk to the gate, a trashcan, streetlights, three parked cars, the tobbaco store, and clouds on the night sky. No sun, checks out. I'll try again when I grow old, in case the extra point of wisdom helps.

Typing isn't a form of performance.

What else would it be? Craft? Profession? Speak language? It feels like Perform to me when I do it.

[InvisibleBison]

What else would it be? Craft? Profession? Speak language? It feels like Perform to me when I do it.

D&D does not, as far as I know, have typewriters or keyboards, so the RAW answer would be that typing is not represented by any skill. In a setting where keyboards of some sort did exist, I would put it under Profession. I don't think typing is "a form of artistic expression", as the rules describe the Perform skill, and I certainly don't think anyone has ever paid to watch someone type for entertainment.

[Ephemera]

No number of monkeys playing no number of clavichords (or any other keyboard instrument) will ever produce the complete works of Shakespeare. Therefore Perform: Keyboard and Typing are different skills.

They will, however, eventually play a clavichord rendition of Taylor Swift's catalog (or that of the Grateful Dead if they're undead monkeys).

[Peelee]

No number of monkeys playing no number of clavichords (or any other keyboard instrument) will ever produce the complete works of Shakespeare. Therefore Perform: Keyboard and Typing are different skills.

They will, however, eventually play a clavichord rendition of Taylor Swift's catalog (or that of the Grateful Dead if they're undead monkeys).

This is a fundamental misunderstanding of infinity. "Infinite" does not mean "all". There are an infinite amount of numbers in between 1 and 2. None of those will ever be 4.

I'll never forgive the person who came up with it.

[dancrilis]

...and I certainly don't think anyone has ever paid to watch someone type for entertainment.

I am assuming you are unfamiliar with the works of Tim Youd.

I wasn't either until I looking it up, but yes some people will pay to watch or own something someone else typed - to be clear by typed I mean not original work but something the artist has literally typed word for word from the source material.

[Peelee]

Let me look out my window to check.

I can Spot some big trees obscuring most of my view, grass, paved paths from the sidewalk to the gate, a trashcan, streetlights, three parked cars, the tobbaco store, and clouds on the night sky. No sun, checks out. I'll try again when I grow old, in case the extra point of wisdom helps.

Ok, don't know why you put all that irrelevant stuff in, because that doesn't address the point I was making, which you certainly know. Are you capable of seeing the sun?

If yes, then shocker, D&D rules are made for small scale combat and role play and not for everyday life imitation. There is no typing skill. You do not have skill ranks or levels. It is not equatable like you are trying to make it be.

[Ephemera]

This is a fundamental misunderstanding of infinity. "Infinite" does not mean "all". There are an infinite amount of numbers in between 1 and 2. None of those will ever be 4.

I'll never forgive the person who came up with it.

I mean, that's true, but I'm not sure it's relevant to this example. If you assume that these are quantum monkeys who have an equal chance of hitting each key (which I think is the implication), then I think it's possible one of them eventually types out Shakespeare. Whether it's merely possible or inevitable verges on being more or a philosophical question than a mathematical one. But most of the ways to generate bounded number sets actually require having more order in the outputs, not less, so I think that with infinite random monkeys and infinite time, you probably do actually get all possible sequences coming up?

[Peelee]

I mean, that's true, but I'm not sure it's relevant to this example. If you assume that these are quantum monkeys who have an equal chance of hitting each key (which I think is the implication), then I think it's possible one of them eventually types out Shakespeare. Whether it's merely possible or inevitable verges on being more or a philosophical question than a mathematical one. But most of the ways to generate bounded number sets actually require having more order in the outputs, not less, so I think that with infinite random monkeys and infinite time, you probably do actually get all possible sequences coming up?

That last sentence is the kicker. Infinite monkeys and infinite time means infinite sequences, but not all sequences. They could all have an infinite amount of sequences of hitting only the letters GHTB, for example.

[Sir_Norbert]

That last sentence is the kicker. Infinite monkeys and infinite time means infinite sequences, but not all sequences. They could all have an infinite amount of sequences of hitting only the letters GHTB, for example.

That does not refute the infinite monkey theorem, since the theorem doesn't make any claim about "all possible sequences", only that the probability of the monkey with infinite time typing any particular finite sequence is 1.

Sure, the monkey could hit only GHTB... for ever; but the probability of it doing this is (4/n)^k, where n is the number of keys on the typewriter, k is the number of characters in the sequence. This tends to 0 as k becomes infinite.

Similarly, the probability that the monkey's first k keypresses are not the Complete Works of Shakespeare can be precisely calculated, if we know how many keys are on the typerwriter and how many characters the Complete Works contain. Call this probability p; p is extremely close to 1 but less than 1 by a specific finite amount. Therefore, the probability that the monkey never types the Complete Works is of the form p^k, which tends to 0.

[Peelee]

That does not refute the infinite monkey theorem, since the theorem doesn't make any claim about "all possible sequences", only that the probability of the monkey with infinite time typing any particular finite sequence is 1.

Sure, assuming the monkey isn't actually a monkey.

[Jasdoif]

Sure, assuming the monkey isn't actually a monkey.

I do believe "monkey" is a metaphor here, yes. Presumably "infinite random character sequence generator theorem" was insufficiently pithy.

[halfeye]

What annoys me about the infinite monkeys and Shakespear thing is the number of copies of the complete works of Shakespear there would be that were off by one letter (n ~= number of letters in the complete works of Shakespear), and the number of copies of the complete works of Shakespear that would be off by two letters (n ~= (number of letters in the complete works of Shakespear) squared), etc. Never mind the complete works (and multitudinous almost complete works) of Lewis Carroll, Dickens, Bronte, Tolkein etc. that would also appear.

[Doug Lampert]

What annoys me about the infinite monkeys and Shakespear thing is the number of copies of the complete works of Shakespear there would be that were off by one letter (n ~= number of letters in the complete works of Shakespear), and the number of copies of the complete works of Shakespear that would be off by two letters (n ~= (number of letters in the complete works of Shakespear) squared), etc. Never mind the complete works (and multitudinous almost complete works) of Lewis Carroll, Dickens, Bronte, Tolkein etc. that would also appear.

Actually, per correct copy, there'd be approximately number of symbols used times number of distinct symbols used minus 1 copies that were off by one character.

Based on the number of words, there are probably well over 5,000,000 symbols in Shakespeare's complete works. Let's go low and figure only 5,000,000. (There are 884,647 words in the complete works according to the Folger Library, literary works typically average over 6 characters per word.)

If we assume 26 lower case, 26 upper case, and a minimum of 8 other symbols (.,;:" !?), that gives a minimum of 50 symbols used.

If we assume random choice and that we actually have infinite monkeys and enough time for a monkey to be likely to produce the correct number of characters even once, then the monkeys will produce an INFINITE number of copies of the complete works of Shakespeare. (You don't need infinite time.)

But on average you will need to search 50^(5,000,000) sequences to find even one correct copy of the complete works. This will take a while unless you have an infinite number of computers doing the search, not to mention the minor problems of needing infinite space and infinite mass-energy to store all those copies while someone searches them.

You can do slightly better by biasing the random character generator (aka monkeys) to hit the space bar more often than other characters, but it's still gonna be a very very very large number of books of gibberish for everything that's even vaguely close to the complete works.

[Laurentio III]

To clarify, an "infinite number of monkeys with a typewriter" is a bad representation because monkeys would tend to have similar patterns, even in infinite numbers.
Then they would produce an infinite number of extremely varied permutations, but not ALL permutations.

[Peelee]

To clarify, an "infinite number of monkeys with a typewriter" is a bad representation because monkeys would tend to have similar patterns, even in infinite numbers.
Then they would produce an infinite number of extremely varied permutations, but not ALL permutations.

That's what I meant, yeah. Metaphirizing it to monkeys just gets the typewriters jammed with poop. Metaphorically.

[Laurentio III]

For fun, this it a random text generated by an Ai with keywords: Xykon evil conquer

"I have resolved to take the throne of the Necrons from Xykon once I am strong enough. I will return you to your former battle stations. Then we will discover what evil has been buried deep under the sands."

May the gods of darkness be with you.

The Xykon Cry of Fear-Grim

"You are taking his name. He was the one who made the prophecy. And now I am going to end it. I will smash his head into the sand."

Quarrel's footsteps trailed behind Xykon's final words. And there he was, a twisted nightmare from ancient times, haunting Quarrel's dreams. Xykon stood in his host's home, a ferocious, bearded man with eyes of fiery red, and a sword far too long for his hands. His presence was as unnatural as it was haunting. Xykon ordered Quarrel to attack Quarrel's new host, the evil wizard Xykon. Xykon knew this would be the first step in creating the Dark Xykon, and would make Quarrel evil himself. Xykon considered evil as evil, and planned to destroy any evil who was not evil, and to conquer the world with the power of the Dark Xykon. Xykon would always be the ruler of all the evils of the world, conqueror of evil, conqueror of everything evil."

The problem with recreating art with random generators is that, even when you take out senseless mess of random letters and work with correct words and sentences, you still get mostly garbage.

Spoiler: Link to the generator

Show

https://app.inferkit.com/demo

[halfeye]

For fun, this it a random text generated by an Ai with keywords: Xykon evil conquer

"I have resolved to take the throne of the Necrons from Xykon once I am strong enough. I will return you to your former battle stations. Then we will discover what evil has been buried deep under the sands."

May the gods of darkness be with you.

The Xykon Cry of Fear-Grim

"You are taking his name. He was the one who made the prophecy. And now I am going to end it. I will smash his head into the sand."

Quarrel's footsteps trailed behind Xykon's final words. And there he was, a twisted nightmare from ancient times, haunting Quarrel's dreams. Xykon stood in his host's home, a ferocious, bearded man with eyes of fiery red, and a sword far too long for his hands. His presence was as unnatural as it was haunting. Xykon ordered Quarrel to attack Quarrel's new host, the evil wizard Xykon. Xykon knew this would be the first step in creating the Dark Xykon, and would make Quarrel evil himself. Xykon considered evil as evil, and planned to destroy any evil who was not evil, and to conquer the world with the power of the Dark Xykon. Xykon would always be the ruler of all the evils of the world, conqueror of evil, conqueror of everything evil."

The problem with recreating art with random generators is that, even when you take out senseless mess of random letters and work with correct words and sentences, you still get mostly garbage.

Spoiler: Link to the generator

Show

https://app.inferkit.com/demo

That's trying not to be random. It's entirely different from the Shakespear trope. The Shakespear thing would work with digits of the expansion of Pi, it's not about how close you can get to Shakespear from trying to write Shakespear.

[b_jonas]

Oona must be making clear that these are not real monkeys! This is word picture, for making understanding! No trying to go to money cage! They are not real!!!

[Laurentio III]

That's trying not to be random. It's entirely different from the Shakespear trope. The Shakespear thing would work with digits of the expansion of Pi, it's not about how close you can get to Shakespear from trying to write Shakespear.

There are setting, you can make it much more random. I tried, it became very dadaist. The difference between an AI and infinite monkeys is that you still get "Monster clay furnicates red" but you don't get "aweo pcmiqronyc gseulx, oà". Let's be honest, you don't need the second one.
The point essentially is: the infinite monkey image is wrong and an artifact of a pre-AI era.

[Ephemera]

There are setting, you can make it much more random. I tried, it became very dadaist. The difference between an AI and infinite monkeys is that you still get "Monster clay furnicates red" but you don't get "aweo pcmiqronyc gseulx, oà". Let's be honest, you don't need the second one.
The point essentially is: the infinite monkey image is wrong and an artifact of a pre-AI era.

Even at the most random, an AI text generator is still doing some processing. If you wrote it so that it picked words at random from the dictionary, then it would, indeed, in theory eventually generate the complete works of Shakespeare if you could run it for an infinite time period, and if it instead generated random characters, you would have a modern interpretation of the intent of the monkey idea. That doesn't make it "wrong" or "an artifact."

As I said above, whether this actually "works" or just generates an infinite number of other sequences is more of a philosophical question than a mathematical one. If you accept that the monkeys are random character generators, then the chances of any given combination of characters emerging will converge towards 1 as the number of characters generated goes towards infinity. That's just basic math for any probability that is larger than zero, so it really just depends on what the nature of infinity is and whether the chances of generating the complete works of Shakespeare are actually zero or just incredibly, incredibly small, and the math would seem to support the idea that you would eventually get that (or any other) result.

Decent writeup here: https://www.czep.net/weblog/typemonkey.html. Note, however, that all of his simplifying assumptions make it easier to get the right results, so the estimate of the odds might be wildly off...but if you substitute a computer program that randomly outputs characters, then the number of seconds calculated there will be the number of cycles it will take, on average.

You're probably (although I don't think anyone could say for certain) correct that the AI as currently written will never generate Shakespeare's complete works, but that's precisely because it's not random, and the point of the original thought experiment is to demonstrate how randomness works, and the difference between vanishingly unlikely and impossible.

[Laurentio III]

Even at the most random, an AI text generator is still doing some processing. If you wrote it so that it picked words at random from the dictionary, then it would, indeed, in theory eventually generate the complete works of Shakespeare if you could run it for an infinite time period, and if it instead generated random characters, you would have a modern interpretation of the intent of the monkey idea. That doesn't make it "wrong" or "an artifact."

As I said above, whether this actually "works" or just generates an infinite number of other sequences is more of a philosophical question than a mathematical one. If you accept that the monkeys are random character generators, then the chances of any given combination of characters emerging will converge towards 1 as the number of characters generated goes towards infinity. That's just basic math for any probability that is larger than zero, so it really just depends on what the nature of infinity is and whether the chances of generating the complete works of Shakespeare are actually zero or just incredibly, incredibly small, and the math would seem to support the idea that you would eventually get that (or any other) result.

(Enfasy mine)
You first misunderstood what I wrote, that wrote what I wrote with different words.
It's fine, the end goal is to understand. As long as we agree or politely disagree, it's a win.

Besides, what I said is that I don't consider "infinite monkeys" as a reliable, complete random characted generator. As monkeys have a generic monkeysh pattern when using a typewrites, they would create an infinite number of books, with a potentially infinite number of perfectly identical copies, while some potential book wouldn't ever exist.
An AI programmed to systematically write every combination of characters would, instead create every existing book and more.

"Typing monkeys" is an artifact in my opinion. It was a good approssimation when AIs were not a thing, ma we should stop using it.

[RMS Oceanic]

This may be semi joking but 1268 gives a few skills to some characters

Durkon: Craft (Baskets)
Belkar: Craft (Soap)
O-Chul: Profession (Beekeeper)

Not sure where Crocheting would sit. Or Astronomy

[Kurald Galain]

Looks like today's comic provides the next thread title, too

[137beth]

Knowledge: Astronomy?

[Yanisa]

Knowledge: Astronomy?

3.5 doesn't have a knowledge astronomy. From Complete Arcana we do have Profession (astrologer).

Basket Weaving is noted in the Player's Handbook as a craft.

Crochet is not mentioned as a skill anywhere. I can find tailor, which is profession, but crochet feels more a craft. Not an official skill.

Blowing smoke rings also not a official skill. Feels like a preform, but preform is mostly instrument and acting. Not an official skill.

Soap making is mentioned in the Dungeon Master 2 guide as a Craftsman Specialty. Which is an chapter about rolling random professions for NPCs and city building, but is literally called a craft. Not an official skill.

Beekeeping isn't mentioned as a separate skills, but is generally governed by Handle Animal. However the specific mention of "experienced" could mean an ability, feat or skills with a higher bonus than other animals. But that could also be fluff. Tentatively I would agree with Handle Animal if others agree.

So sadly from a strict RAW perspective we cannot add a lot. But we do got a chance to list Craft (Basketweaving).

[Joerg]

Looks like today's comic provides the next thread title, too

We're really making progress?
I don't see it listed here?
I struggle to imagine how that might be relevant?
I don't think we should take anything for granted?
We were hoping for something more useful?
We should never discuss any of it ever again?

[Ionathus]

Ranked from favorite to least favorite for me

1. We were hoping for something more useful
2. I struggle to imagine how that might be relevant
3. I don't think we should take anything for granted
4. We should never discuss any of it ever again
5. I don't see it listed here
6. We're really making progress

[Peelee]

Looks like today's comic provides the next thread title, too

And here I was hoping for "We are the infinite monkeys".