The Canvas of Babel

Imagine opening the doors to the Library of Babel and the Playstation 2 corrupted data tune plays.

I only have one thing to say. Why do i even try

There are infinite amounts of porn saved there as well

saas

I'd love to see somebody actually find something in thr tower of babel by just looking around

I saw this in a dream before.

this may be one of the best videos of all time

So could we not just create and set up AI to look for coherence in the archive?

i think that the fact that the btd theme started playing when he started talking about the infinite monkey theorem

Oh, I can imagine even a Babel video library! If you take a screen of pixels and some time span, let's say, 60 seconds, then theoretically there is a Babel library, containing every one-minute video possible! Sound also could be added in such manner 🤯 But number of variations is so huge that it is really far beyoun what a person could possibly imagine I guess. But it would be still a finite number though!

I swear I thought of that myself when I was a teenager. I was interested in computers and one day I found out that basically every pixel is kind of a number. So you can cycle through every color possible by starting frome zero and addin up by one. Then I thoght that if you take all pixels of the screen row by row then it is kind of just a giant number. And if you multiply pixels count to count of different colors a pixel can have, then you will get a number of all pictures ever possible on the screen with such resolution. For example, 640x480x256 is the total number of every possible picture that could be shown on a 640x480 screen with the color depth of 256 colors (which is 8 bit per pixel). Then I thought that the whole screen can be represented with just a number, gigantic but still just a number. And by adding up by one from zero it os kind of possible to cycle through every single possible picture that the screen is possible to show. Later when I earned some programming skills I even tried to write a program to do so. I made it even simplier. Something around l200x200 monochromatic pixels just to proof the concept. And then I realized that it effectively takes forever to cycle through by addin up by one 😂 Then I thought it coul be done in larger steps, maybe in various steps, maybe start not from zero but from some shapes or smt like that. Then I didn't go further. But I defenitely had that Idea before I knew anything about such things. Honestly I kind of proud of myself even if I didn't made any solid theory out of that 😀

but when's somebody finally gonna show all the planet of the apes movies to primates on a loop, train them for janitorial jobs, and one day "accidentally" leave the armory unlocked? that's the socialogical experiment i'd like to see

you don't need infinite monkeys, just one, if you have infinite time, and you don't need infinite time, if you have infinite monkeys, but you would need some time, more than one unit of a small amount of time, because zero of the monkeys could complete a text in zero time according to known laws of monkey typing physics

so the akashic record?

The gibberish in the Library of babel is a language, you just can't read it. Theoretically it can be decoded

the idea that these 'library of <x>' are special just because they produce random output within some specified range is a bit silly imo

We live in a non-ergodic universe.

In our world, there are too many options, so our choices matter and create the historical record (the True one, not just the written one).

so its basically the multiverse theory but with pixels?

this is an excellent video in general, and as a small insignificant detail, i also really appreciate the aphex twin in the soundtrack. was lovely and unexpected

so what your saying is that this isn't completely random so chagpt could generate a link to images for free if someone were to figure out how

the jukebox of babel

So is the canvas of babel flagged as an 18+ website where applicable? It contains every piece of explicit material that will ever be on the internet

⁰

Just because it's possible doesn't mean it will happen. The number representing how much the library stores is incomprehensible.

Rhaaa Library of Ruina

Junji Ito grapples with this in his manga "Sensor" where the goal of one group is to bring into physical being the "akashic records" which, are yet another manifestation of the idea of "the library of all (in this case, "meaningful") knowledge that did ever and could ever exist". This, to no surprise, proves infinitely-problematic, as such a library would contain the universe itself, as well as infinitely-more, to the point that this library would snuff out all of life for the pure sake of existing.

The take-away I personally walk away from, at least now, from both Babel and stories like these, is that it's really just us at the end of the day. Who is to say that static on the Babel image website, or the gibberish on the Babel text website, does not have meaning? Meaning exists where we give it meaning -- not in a vaccum. Even if one were to spawn into the "akashic records" alone, where they have infinite access to everything that has "meaning", then what? What is the point of having accessing to "everything"? Of knowing "everything"? It feels the moment one attains "all meaning of everything" -- in what feels like an eternally-loud, defening, frightening snap -- everything loses all it's meaning. If we knew everything, then there's nothing worth... doing anymore. There's no reason to even exist anymore, in that, nothing you do would matter, because anything you could do would "already exist" -- your very existence becomes redundant, as if the only waste of space in the library becomes us ourselves existing in it.

I personally wonder often where we place our meaning in the quest to find meaning, and it's videos and concepts like this that help motivate my intuition that our meaning feels like it exists in the "unraveling". Of course, this is subjective and may well differ between any two people sitting next to eachother, but the meaning in stuff that exists "already" feels like it comes out of a strange nostaliga, acknowledging how far we've come, what we know, what we did -- and the infinite creative "pull" into the void to create "new meaning" is, at least in me, some eternal need to validate my own existence -- as much to other people as to my own self -- just a reaffirmation that "yeah, I guess I do exist".

There's an eerie aspect about the Library of Babel, the Akashic Records, and even the "Spirit Library" (?) from Avatar, which plays the role of Akashic seemingly -- and it's the strange idea that meaning exists "outside of those who consume it". That art exists "outside of those who call it art". I think this is interesting. I make no comment on this, as I think any interpertation is valuable here -- especially two conflicting ones, because it's out of conflict that there's some inclination to wonder about the existence of a "middle ground" -- that nuance has a tendancy to develop out of us communicating with eachother and trying to bridge "my meaning" with "your meaning" -- that oddly, meaning between people, gives rise to meaning "betwen" people -- and from a Zeno's Paradox perspective, by arguing for middle-ground again, and again, and again, and again, we keep finding more complexity, making more meaning, instilling more nuance in life as whole.

I wonder if this is where the whole idea of the touted answer people give of "love" comes into play. As arguments for establishing nuance between opposed extremes only happens who two "individuals" argue but in a productive and caring way, where there's a will to fight eachother, but out of a common goal -- not a malice towards directly opposing the other. That while it feels like a "back and forth" game between two people, the distance between gets shorter with each exchange. The nuances and complexities increase. The conversation, while seeming "stagnant," is actually progressing, dampening infinitely, towards some infinitely-far "common ground" -- and it's in the shared deep desire to reach that common ground by actually listening and actually responding do both parties end up walking away with the conversation with a "deeper meaning" instilled in their lives on what they had discussed. That there were no bruised egos, just realizations they hadn't had before, and excitement over the new possibilities they hadn't seen.

I don't believe two people should force themselves to agree -- at least -- if I do it, it's out of a desire to "end a conversation" and less of a "meaningful decision". That deel inside, I feel like it's more fruitful to change your stance, bit-by-bit, by allowing yourself the freedom to move continuously, and be nudged by people who are as passionate as you, but perhaps see things differently. That rather than covering our eyes and refusing to acknowledge them, listen to them describe what they see, and imagining -- if only for a moment, what that could look like. What does that change? What could be if that one thing could be? Could it not be? Why could it not be? Who is to say what could and could not be, if not us? Who are we harming at the end of the day by covering our own eyes, if not ourselves, by refusing to see any bigger picture? Any different picture? Just because we like a picture, is really right for us, for ourselves, to tell ourselves, that no other picture is worth it? No other song is worth listening to? No other way of living life is worth considering? That once we're comfortable, we should stand still forever, never changing for a moment?

"If it's not broken, don't fix it." Sure. But don't you also sometimes just want to throw it against the ground? We decide when something counts as "broken" -- so we as well decide when to "fix" things. I think it's nice to break things that aren't broken some days. If only for the sake of realizing it was already broken, but you just refused to see that it was, until wasn't.

Probability could be a paradox...

{Disclaimer} Please, do not take this seriously. I'm not a scientist. This is purely a cool theory to put inside your head...

Imagine making the decision to flip a coin forever. The thought of the outcome is actually harder to fathom than you might think. What's terrifying about probability is that something could NEVER happen even when given an infinite amount of time, but there is a universally small chance of that to happen. You could technically flip a coin and get tails instead of heads for eternity. A desired outcome doesn't have to happen. A chance is exactly what it is: a chance. Therefore: there is a chance that the chance that you are chancing will never happen. Because every flip is a 50/50, one side gets landed on, but the other doesn't. Time doesn't matter. You could keep flipping, but the outcome could never change. That is also possible with the Canvas Of Babel even if there is a small chance of something like that to happen. 
There is a one in an infinity chance that the chance you are chancing will never happen, therefore the chances of an event to never occur is extremely low, but It could still happen. But there is a universally large chance that the coin will finally land on heads. That is still a chance. But if the event of a desired event never happens, then we might never land on heads some day. If we are measureing the success of an event or the failure of an event in terms of probability, two things will happen. One, an event will succeed at some point. Two, it will never happen. There is a 0.999.../1 chance of that it will be successful, but 0.00...1/1 that it will never happen. This changes everything we know about probability. Probability is a paradox.

why don't we use this as a storage mechanism

Ok this is gonna sound dumb, but can’t we create a program that basically is control f which searches for the cure to cancer, meaning to life or formula for immortality, then when the options pop up we test the most likely answer to these mysteries and eventually arrive at the answer we think is truest?

ARGENTINA MENCIONADA 🇦🇷🇦🇷🇦🇷

Every image that could ever exist, eh? That's a lot of porn

These are such cool concepts,,, especially bogosort, and the canvas. I wonder if anyone has actually ever found a coherent image in the Canvas

Deep man 👨 like this

Give ChatGPT a go at these. It’ll become the most intelligent thing possible in the universe

Solar Sands dares to challenge me

They should make Atoms of Babel, where the algorithm randomises all the atoms in the universe in every possible arrangement

unless we see new colors like if we expand our visual range to include more than the 3 primary colors then it wouldn't anyone

You’re a canvas

wow what a weird subject

Can I buy one of these for hanging on my wall.

No, there isn't!

. The secret to immortality is

i copy paste a page of random text to speech editor. sounds like speaking backwards. going to run it in reverse and see what happens.

AI image generators sound much like the robot solar sands describes; searching for meaning in a sea of noise. The fact that these generators aren’t perfect just means they haven’t gotten good enough at figuring out what ‘meaning’ is.

yummi

How do you find the truth in a sea of lies