The fact that there’s an actually functional website for the library of Babel is one of those things that fucks me up more and more the more I think about the implications.
So, if anyone hasn’t encountered the concept of the library of Babel, the idea comes from a story of the same name by Jorge Luis Borges, which is set inside a seemingly infinite library which contains every possible combination of letters, periods, commas and spaces that fits within 410 pages.
So like… It isn’t THAT out there that someone was able to make a digital version of it. Making an algorithm that randomly generates every possible combination of those 29 characters within that space and making a website that lets you explore those combinations are things that are pretty squarely within the scope of things you’d expect someone to be able to make a computer do.
But it begins to get pretty out there when you start thinking about all the things that are technically contained there (and that someone randomly browsing it could THEORETICALLY stumble upon) just by virtue of being one of those possible combinations of letters, spaces, commas, and periods.
Somewhere in that website there IS a book that specifically mentions me by full name before giving an accurate, excruciatingly detailed, 410-page long physical description of me. There’ also many more books that SEEM to be that but are actually factually inaccurate. There’s also versions of all of those containing every possible combination of every possible typo, spelling mistake, and grammatical error.
Somewhere in that website there IS a book that’s a perfectly accurate prediction of how and when I will die narrated in third person over the course of 410 pages. There’s also a book that contains the exact same events narrated in first person. Not only for me, but for every person in the world. There are many more that claim to be that but are actually inaccurate.
Somewhere in that website there IS a book that’s completely blank except for the world’s funniest dick joke written right at the end of the very last page.
But chances are no one browsing that website is EVER going to see any of that because for every book we would consider useful, interesting, or even intelligible there are millions upon millions upon millions more that are just completely full of gibberish from cover to cover.
Every single thing I will ever write (barring punctuation marks that arent periods or commas and the letter ñ) is already contained somewhere on that website.
I have a volume from the Library of Babel! it’s one of my most treasured books.
on the second to last page, about halfway down it reads “OH TIME THY PYRAMIDS” a singular grain of order in the sea of chaos.
The library of babel contains every book to ever exist and moreover it contains all information that can be encoded in a finite string of characters from its alphabet.
I cannot overstate how much I love the Library of Babel. it’s wonderful, it is my heart and soul.
at last we created the perplexing nexus, from the novel “wouldnt it be weird if there was a perplexing nexus?”
reminder to worldbuilders: don’t get caught up in things that aren’t important to the story you’re writing, like plot and characters! instead, try to focus on what readers actually care about: detailed plate tectonics
bella was lucky she didn’t have a cell phone of any kind because you know ya boi edward would be blowing up that phone 24-7 going “saw a snail today…. effervescent” or some shit equivalent
happy 3 yr anniversary to the post that singlehandedly launched the twilight renaissance
Happy 5 year anniversary to the effervescent snail post
