Random thought, if we assume a large universe, does that imply that somewhere/when there is an novel that just happens to perfectly resemble our lives? If it does I am so going to acausally break the fourth wall. Bonus questions, how does this intersect with the rules of the internet?
Seems to imply it. Conversly, if you go to the “all possible worlds exist” level of a multiverse, then each novel (or other work of fiction) in our world describes events that actually happen in some other world. If you limit yourself to just the “there’s an infinite amount of stuff in our world” multiverse, then only novels describing events that would be physically and otherwise possible describe real events.
When it was proclaimed that the Library contained all books, the first impression was one of extravagant happiness. All men felt themselves to be the masters of an intact and secret treasure. There was no personal or world problem whose eloquent solution did not exist in some hexagon. The universe was justified, the universe suddenly usurped the unlimited dimensions of hope. At that time a great deal was said about the Vindications: books of apology and prophecy which vindicated for all time the acts of every man in the universe and retained prodigious arcana for his future. Thousands of the greedy abandoned their sweet native hexagons and rushed up the stairways, urged on by the vain intention of finding their Vindication. These pilgrims disputed in the narrow corridors, proferred dark curses, strangled each other on the divine stairways, flung the deceptive books into the air shafts, met their death cast down in a similar fashion by the inhabitants of remote regions. Others went mad … The Vindications exist (I have seen two which refer to persons of the future, to persons who are perhaps not imaginary) but the searchers did not remember that the possibility of a man’s finding his Vindication, or some treacherous variation thereof, can be computed as zero.
That story has always bothered me. People find coherent text in the books too often, way too often for chance. If the Library of Babel really did work as the story claims, people would have given up after seeing ten million books of random gibberish in a row. That just ruined everything for me. This weird crackfic is bigger in scope, but much more believable for me because it has a selection mechanism to justify the plot.
There’s some alleged quotation about making your own life a work of art. IIRC it’s been attributed to Friedrich Nietzsche, Gabriele d’Annunzio, Oscar Wilde, and/or Pope John Paul II.
Random thought, if we assume a large universe, does that imply that somewhere/when there is an novel that just happens to perfectly resemble our lives? If it does I am so going to acausally break the fourth wall. Bonus questions, how does this intersect with the rules of the internet?
Don’t worry, whether you do this or not, there is a novel where you do and a novel where you don’t, without any other distinctions.
Seems to imply it. Conversly, if you go to the “all possible worlds exist” level of a multiverse, then each novel (or other work of fiction) in our world describes events that actually happen in some other world. If you limit yourself to just the “there’s an infinite amount of stuff in our world” multiverse, then only novels describing events that would be physically and otherwise possible describe real events.
Jorge Luis Borges, The Library of Babel
That story has always bothered me. People find coherent text in the books too often, way too often for chance. If the Library of Babel really did work as the story claims, people would have given up after seeing ten million books of random gibberish in a row. That just ruined everything for me. This weird crackfic is bigger in scope, but much more believable for me because it has a selection mechanism to justify the plot.
There’s some alleged quotation about making your own life a work of art. IIRC it’s been attributed to Friedrich Nietzsche, Gabriele d’Annunzio, Oscar Wilde, and/or Pope John Paul II.