The Clitorides are open for voting. [ Dismiss ]
Home » Forum » Author Hangout

Forum: Author Hangout

Library of Babel - is it fake?

ChiMi 🚫

https://libraryofbabel.info/

It describes a version of a universal library, containing books with every possible combination of 410 pages of letters, thus containing every book that ever has been and every book that ever could be written, drowned out by an immense quantity of nonsense.

Ok, that's how it supposed to work:
The library is divided into hexagonal chambers, each with 4 walls of bookcases, five shelves per wall, and 32 volumes per shelf with 410 pages.

So every one of those pages has random letters that could produce words So with nearly infinite variations, there could be every book ever written or will be written in there.

But really? Some say the search function just makes a page which inserted the searched words somewhere in the middle of the gibberish.

You can search manually and could find books in there but clearly, no one found anything substantial.

And look at it this way: Every book ever written or will be written would be tremendous, but this wouldn't even be the tip of the iceberg. Every VARIATION of the book would also be there.
Let's take a Novel with 100.000 words. Not only would there be a variation of the book with a different word randomly spread in there, no there would be a variation with a different letter!

If we size down a book to a lone sentence it would be this:

This is a text.

every possible combination of this would exist, like:

This is be text
This be is text
Bla bla bla text.


Now think of every variation with a different letter.

Surely, this is not possible.

Ross at Play 🚫
Updated:

I'd say "Babel" is the clue it is some kind of joke. There is a Tower of Babel mentioned in Genesis, supposedly "high enough to reach Heaven".

I'm not totally sure. I've never read Genesis, myself: I like my sci-fi to be at least remotely plausible.

Replies:   Dominions Son
Dominions Son 🚫
Updated:

@Ross at Play

I'd say "Babel" is the clue it is some kind of joke. There is a Tower of Babel mentioned in Genesis, supposedly "high enough to reach Heaven".

I'm not totally sure. I've never read Genesis, myself: I like my sci-fi to be at least remotely plausible.

They attempted to build a tower tall enough to reach heaven, it was never completed.

1 And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.

2 And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.

3 And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them throughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter.

4 And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.

5 And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.

6 And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.

7 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.

8 So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.

9 Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.

— Genesis 11:1–9[10]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Babel

Replies:   Ross at Play
Ross at Play 🚫

@Dominions Son

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Babel

Thanks, but I had already included that same link to that in my post.

There was a clue in my post I was making 'some kind of joke', too.

I'd say "Babel" is the clue it is some kind of joke. There is a Tower of Babel mentioned in Genesis, supposedly "high enough to reach Heaven".
I'm not totally sure. I've never read Genesis, myself: I like my sci-fi to be at least remotely plausible.

Genesis is not even remotely plausible ... but 'sci-fi'? :-)

ChiMi 🚫

Library of Babel is inspired from the same work of author Jorge Luis Borges.

Many outlets reported about it, even Vsauce. But I can't find explicit critiques about it in those reports.

Back to Top

Close
 

WARNING! ADULT CONTENT...

Storiesonline is for adult entertainment only. By accessing this site you declare that you are of legal age and that you agree with our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.