in reply to RE: Genetic Programming or breeding Perls in thread Genetic Programming or breeding Perls
I believe your statement is false. Shakespeare was a human. Humans are primates. Primates are monkeys. Thus, a monkey did in fact write all Shakespearean novels! Imagine what any number of monkeys, under any circumstance could do!
Now who's nitpicking? :-)
cheers,
Thomax
"What find I here? Fair Portia's counterfeit! What demi-god Hath come so near creation?" -- Shakespeare (Bassanio in The Merchant of Venice)
RE: RE: RE: Genetic Programming or breeding Perls
by Petruchio (Vicar) on Oct 06, 2000 at 14:26 UTC
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Thou liest, thou jesting monkey, thou - The
Tempest :-)
As tilly kindly pointed out, only some primates are
monkeys, and humans are not amongst these.
Some people might still say that, "a monkey did in fact
write all Shakespearean novels". Predicating a quality
(written by a monkey) to a non-existent object
(a Shakespearean novel) is logically
problematic. And these problems are very interesting,
though I'm sorry to say that I no longer remember them
well enough to speak knowledgeably about them.
In any case, it doesn't matter. Let's say a monkey did
write all Shakespearean novels (in which case so did each
of the squirrels in my yard... and indeed, they wrote
themselves, too. The novels that is, not the squirrels).
Still, I said a monkey would never reproduce a
single Shakespeare novel, and that holds true.
It interests me, however, that in the same post you claim
both to be a monkey and to be picking nits... at least you
seem well-groomed. ;-)
Now, God help thee, poor monkey! - Macbeth | [reply] |
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Yes, you can claim anything about the individual members of the empty set and you are always correct (saying "there are 3 members of the empty set" doesn't count because you are talking about the collected members, not the individual members). Saying "All X are Y" is the same as "No X are not Y" or "there are no X that are not Y" which is always true if there are no X, period.
But I think that "monkey" is common English usage for "primate". "Monkey" has a more precise meaning in biology, a fact that I completely ignore unless I'm dealing with on-duty biologists. (:
-
tye
(but my friends call me "Tye")
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Did Shakespeare actually write novels, though? That's the real question here, if you ask me.
And is a Shakespearean novel different from a novel written by Shakespeare? Arguably, "Shakespearean" would mean "written at the time of Shakespeare" or "written in the style of Shakespeare", either of which would mean that Shakespeare's own novels (if, in fact, he wrote any, which I suspect he didn't) would, by definition, be Shakespearean.
Whew!
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myocom: "Did Shakespeare actually write novels,
though?"
Heck, some people aren't even convinced he wrote plays.
There's no evidence to suggest that Shakespeare ever wrote
a novel. This does not mean it's impossible that he did,
but I would say it means that, beyond a reasonable doubt,
he didn't. Which is why, "I think I can pretty safely say
that no number of monkeys, under any circumstances, will
ever reproduce a single Shakespeare novel... "
myocom: "And is a Shakespearean novel different from
a novel written by Shakespeare?"
Oooh, good one! But again, I return to my original
statement... a "Shakespeare novel" would pretty certainly
be a novel written by Shakespeare.
Okay, okay... it could be a novel written
about Shakespeare. But if you play it that way,
I'm going to have to get serious about definitions too.
We'll need neccesary and sufficient conditions for
novelhood, for monkeyhood, for typewriterhood... I can
squrim with the best of 'em... you're not taking me without
a fight! ;-)
Oh... I suppose we should actually associate this with
Perl somehow... um, use strict!
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RE (tilly) 3: Genetic Programming or breeding Perls
by tilly (Archbishop) on Oct 05, 2000 at 16:11 UTC
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Actually monkeys are primates but not the other way
around.
The primates include lemurs, monkeys, and apes. The apes
are the ones without tails, and we are apes. Among the
great apes the chimpanzee and bonobo are closest, then we
join in, then gorillas, and the orangutang is more distant.
This is measuring by percentage of genetic material that is
the same.
Yes, you heard it right. We are biologically more similar
to chimps than either we or chimps are to gorillas. | [reply] |
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Re (3): Genetic Programming or breeding Perls
by baku (Scribe) on Feb 05, 2001 at 22:27 UTC
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(Monkeys have prehensile tails. Apes do not. Shakespeare might be counted as an ape, but for some minor taxonomical differences.) | [reply] |
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