WEBVTT - O Time Thy Pyramids: The Library of Babel 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.880 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:05.880 --> 0:00:20.360 Works dot com. Hello, Hello, this is Stuff to Blow 0:00:20.400 --> 0:00:22.880 your Mind audiologue. This is Robert Lamb and this is 0:00:22.960 --> 0:00:26.880 Joe McCormick. This is day thirteen of our descent into 0:00:26.920 --> 0:00:30.880 the famed Library of Babble. We've been exploring this infinite 0:00:30.920 --> 0:00:36.199 sprawl of interconnected hexagonal rooms and the twenty bookshelves contained 0:00:36.200 --> 0:00:39.120 within each one. Joe, how many rooms have we explored 0:00:39.159 --> 0:00:41.640 since last log entry? Oh, let me find it here. 0:00:41.800 --> 0:00:43.960 Let's see. Well, we're up to a hundred and twelve, 0:00:44.200 --> 0:00:46.519 and that brings the grand total of rooms we have 0:00:46.680 --> 0:00:49.920 explored to date up to one thousand, five hundred and 0:00:49.960 --> 0:00:52.920 sixty one. And of course that is not counting the 0:00:53.000 --> 0:00:55.800 rooms to the library that we could tell had already 0:00:55.800 --> 0:00:58.400 been explored. So we just skipped over with books pulled 0:00:58.400 --> 0:01:01.240 out all over the place, or some just said empty shelves, 0:01:01.640 --> 0:01:04.560 smoke lines on the ceiling, and these ancient piles of 0:01:04.640 --> 0:01:07.160 cold black coal in the middle of the floor we 0:01:07.240 --> 0:01:11.679 can presume from some long ago book burnings. Yeah, that's right. 0:01:11.720 --> 0:01:14.480 That I mean that the library is at least indefinite, 0:01:14.800 --> 0:01:18.280 if not infinite, So it falls to inquisitors such as 0:01:18.319 --> 0:01:21.759 ourselves to steadily work our way out from charted portions 0:01:21.760 --> 0:01:25.280 of the library and into uncharted regions. And it really 0:01:25.360 --> 0:01:29.360 is a room by room, book by book procedures. Now, fortunately, 0:01:29.480 --> 0:01:32.479 most of the books are nonsense, and you can spot 0:01:32.520 --> 0:01:37.600 that right away, because I mean real nonsense, total typographical gibberish. 0:01:37.920 --> 0:01:39.679 And that's not even counting the ones that have been 0:01:39.720 --> 0:01:43.760 totally or partially burned by the purifiers. I hear footsteps 0:01:43.800 --> 0:01:46.440 sometimes in the rooms directly above us, and I keep 0:01:46.440 --> 0:01:49.120 wondering if it's them. It could be, but you know, 0:01:50.040 --> 0:01:53.240 it could be the bookman, I know that's superstition joke. 0:01:53.320 --> 0:01:55.000 We I mean, we might as well hope to find 0:01:55.000 --> 0:01:57.760 that with the Crimson hexagon. Now, come on, Robert, wouldn't 0:01:57.800 --> 0:02:01.560 you love to find the one hexagonal room in this 0:02:01.800 --> 0:02:06.120 entire place that contains something truly precious apart from all 0:02:06.160 --> 0:02:10.040 this gibberish, maybe even real functional books of magic spells well, 0:02:10.080 --> 0:02:13.080 of course, but that doesn't mean it actually exists, even 0:02:13.080 --> 0:02:16.160 in the Library of Babel. Now, remember, Robert, these rooms 0:02:16.200 --> 0:02:20.680 contain not only all books, but all possible books. Those 0:02:20.720 --> 0:02:23.040 books have got to be out there, but that doesn't 0:02:23.040 --> 0:02:26.160 mean they're actually magical. Yeah, I guess you're right, But 0:02:26.240 --> 0:02:29.079 sometimes I like to think that Crimson Hexagon is out there. 0:02:29.160 --> 0:02:31.800 You know, maybe the purifiers haven't found it yet because 0:02:31.800 --> 0:02:33.800 it moves. Have you thought about that? Like in the 0:02:33.840 --> 0:02:37.960 movie Cube rooms move around while we're asleep? Who are 0:02:38.000 --> 0:02:40.880 like the the the Castle and Krawl. You know. I'm 0:02:40.919 --> 0:02:43.960 glad you mentioned Krull because I found a copy of 0:02:44.000 --> 0:02:48.919 Alan Dean Foresters three novelization of the screenplay of Krall. 0:02:49.040 --> 0:02:51.720 That's a real book. Yeah, but I also found a 0:02:51.840 --> 0:02:55.440 Krull novel by Stanford Sherman, the guy who wrote the screenplay, 0:02:55.520 --> 0:02:58.600 and he never actually wrote a novel version, right, Oh no, 0:02:58.720 --> 0:03:01.240 not in our reality, but of course it could exist, 0:03:01.639 --> 0:03:04.600 which means the library has it. And that's why I 0:03:04.639 --> 0:03:07.200 was also able to find a copy of a Christmas Carol. 0:03:07.240 --> 0:03:09.280 You might want to see this where instead of saying 0:03:09.280 --> 0:03:12.800 God bless us everyone, tiny Tim gives an invocation of 0:03:12.880 --> 0:03:16.639 Mala Collored of destruction. What about you check this out 0:03:16.919 --> 0:03:20.840 Frank Herbert's complete seven book done series. Yeah, not not 0:03:20.960 --> 0:03:24.120 just the six he actually wrote in our reality, all 0:03:24.120 --> 0:03:27.520 seven as well as look at this, an alternate Herbert 0:03:27.600 --> 0:03:31.520 Dune trilogy that's only three books. Long, but a lot 0:03:31.600 --> 0:03:34.119 more irotic. Yeah, yeah, you've got to read this. Yeah, 0:03:34.360 --> 0:03:37.200 it's on my list. But hey, guess what I've got 0:03:37.360 --> 0:03:40.200 the final two books of the Game of Thrones series, 0:03:40.280 --> 0:03:43.720 the Song of Ice and Fire spoiler they were on 0:03:43.800 --> 0:03:46.680 Earth all along, and West Ros is actually in rural 0:03:46.720 --> 0:03:52.120 North Florida. But also, Robert, I have your complete biography, 0:03:52.160 --> 0:03:55.400 including the end, and as per our agreement, I didn't 0:03:55.440 --> 0:03:58.680 read it. Well good, well, cool, here's yours, then just 0:03:58.720 --> 0:04:01.960 swap thank you. Uh, there we go. We're good. Wait, 0:04:01.960 --> 0:04:05.240 wait a minute, did you hear that? It's probably just 0:04:05.320 --> 0:04:08.680 other inquisitors or you know, our pilgrims looking for deposits 0:04:08.680 --> 0:04:14.440 of alternate Gospels or book worshippers or the Purifiers or 0:04:14.480 --> 0:04:17.400 the Book miss none of that. Let's let's keep moving 0:04:17.480 --> 0:04:26.080 this Hexa gone up ahead, looks pretty promised me. Hey, 0:04:26.160 --> 0:04:27.720 welcome to stuff to blow your mind. My name is 0:04:27.800 --> 0:04:30.960 Robert Land, and I'm Joe McCormick, and today we're going 0:04:31.000 --> 0:04:35.200 to be talking about the Library of Babel. So the 0:04:35.240 --> 0:04:38.279 Library of Babel is both uh it's a short story, 0:04:38.360 --> 0:04:40.960 but it's also the concept at the core of the 0:04:41.120 --> 0:04:43.200 short story. And we're really going to be focusing on 0:04:43.240 --> 0:04:47.360 the concept uh and it's broader implications today. Not just 0:04:47.400 --> 0:04:50.800 the story itself, but the concept of the Library of 0:04:50.839 --> 0:04:53.680 Babel comes from a short story of the same name 0:04:53.760 --> 0:04:57.600 by Jorge Louis Borges, first published in the collection The 0:04:57.640 --> 0:05:01.720 Garden of Forking Paths in nineteen forty one. So. Borges 0:05:01.839 --> 0:05:05.680 was a twentieth century Argentine author. He lived from eighteen 0:05:06.320 --> 0:05:09.560 to nineteen eighty six, and in his lifetime, especially later 0:05:09.600 --> 0:05:12.560 in his life, he became famous for poetry essays, but 0:05:12.680 --> 0:05:16.240 especially short stories and short stories. A lot of them 0:05:16.240 --> 0:05:19.800 are kind of like this story. Yeah, I mean, like 0:05:19.800 --> 0:05:22.440 like a lot of his tales. Uh. The Library of 0:05:22.480 --> 0:05:25.400 Babble was not really a narrative experience. It's not very 0:05:25.440 --> 0:05:29.560 plot heavy, right. It's kind of a sort of scholarly 0:05:29.760 --> 0:05:33.320 missive about a fantastic idea. So he he choose on 0:05:33.360 --> 0:05:37.559 this fantastic idea, gets all of these philosophic juices going, 0:05:37.960 --> 0:05:41.040 and we're just we're fortunate enough to experience it with him. 0:05:41.160 --> 0:05:43.680 Uh and his his stories. There there are a number 0:05:43.680 --> 0:05:49.440 of different themes that often pop up, such as knives, mirrors, dreams, oh, dreams. 0:05:49.520 --> 0:05:52.800 There's some fabulous dream stories, um and and they're all 0:05:52.960 --> 0:05:55.440 pretty short. Like That's one of the wonderful things about 0:05:55.480 --> 0:05:58.880 a collection of Borhe's short fiction is you can just 0:05:58.920 --> 0:06:01.440 pick it up. You can pretty pretty much pick any 0:06:01.520 --> 0:06:06.320 story and just in a few pages and just mind 0:06:06.360 --> 0:06:10.320 blowing concept is presented to you. That just expands the 0:06:10.360 --> 0:06:12.840 limits of your imagination. Yeah. You ever know those like 0:06:12.920 --> 0:06:16.320 fantasy writers who are better at world building than they 0:06:16.320 --> 0:06:20.320 are at character and plot. Yeah, I'd say Bores is 0:06:20.400 --> 0:06:23.160 like that, except he writes what would probably be considered 0:06:23.200 --> 0:06:27.680 now literary fiction. It's you know, respectable intellectual fiction. Uh 0:06:27.720 --> 0:06:30.480 that that's treated without any hint of a sneer by 0:06:30.520 --> 0:06:33.320 the Academy as far as I can tell. But but 0:06:33.440 --> 0:06:36.960 it's fascinating stuff through and through. Yeah, it reminds me 0:06:37.000 --> 0:06:39.880 a lot of some of the short fiction that Philip K. 0:06:40.000 --> 0:06:42.080 Dick would later do. And now, certainly Philip K. Dick 0:06:42.200 --> 0:06:45.919 was was capable of producing novel after novel after novel 0:06:45.920 --> 0:06:48.280 as well. Uh you know, he was pretty adapted it 0:06:48.360 --> 0:06:51.560 longer works, But some of his short stories remind me 0:06:51.720 --> 0:06:55.080 of Boes in their ability to without getting too bogged 0:06:55.120 --> 0:06:58.279 down in story or character, just presenting in a nugget 0:06:58.400 --> 0:07:03.600 like a really easy mind warping idea. Yeah, so we 0:07:03.640 --> 0:07:06.240 should probably start with a quote from the beginning of 0:07:06.279 --> 0:07:09.279 the Library of Babel the story to give you a 0:07:09.320 --> 0:07:12.440 sense of what is being talked about here. So this 0:07:12.520 --> 0:07:14.240 is a quote from the beginning of the story, with 0:07:14.320 --> 0:07:20.400 some editorial illusions for brevity. Quote. The universe, which others 0:07:20.440 --> 0:07:25.600 call the library, is composed of an indefinite, perhaps infinite 0:07:25.680 --> 0:07:29.800 number of hexagonal galleries. The arrangement of the galleries is 0:07:29.840 --> 0:07:34.600 always the same, twenty bookshelves, five to each side, line 0:07:34.640 --> 0:07:38.760 four of the hexagon's six sides. One of the hexagon's 0:07:38.800 --> 0:07:42.360 free sides opens onto a narrow sort of vestibule, which 0:07:42.400 --> 0:07:46.120 in turn opens onto another gallery identical to the first, 0:07:46.600 --> 0:07:50.200 identical in fact, to all to the right and left 0:07:50.240 --> 0:07:53.280 of the vestibule, or two tiny compartments. One is for 0:07:53.320 --> 0:07:59.120 sleeping upright, the other for satisfying one's physical necessities. Through 0:07:59.160 --> 0:08:03.200 this space to there passes a spiral staircase which winds 0:08:03.320 --> 0:08:06.920 upward and downward into the remote distance. In the vestibule, 0:08:07.040 --> 0:08:11.320 there is a mirror which faithfully duplicates appearances. Uh. And 0:08:11.400 --> 0:08:14.520 he goes on to explain how the implications of having 0:08:14.520 --> 0:08:16.560 a mirror in a library that may or may not 0:08:16.640 --> 0:08:20.840 be infinite, as far as the characters disclosed that they 0:08:20.840 --> 0:08:23.480 know at first at least. Yeah, so this is the 0:08:23.520 --> 0:08:26.160 basic setup. This is the basic hexagon, and then that 0:08:26.240 --> 0:08:30.600 hexagon is cloned out. Yeah, it's a six sided room. 0:08:30.640 --> 0:08:33.680 There are shelves of books in each room, and the 0:08:33.800 --> 0:08:37.679 rooms seem to go on forever, and in a honeycomb 0:08:37.720 --> 0:08:41.920 where no one has ever discovered the forest boundary. That 0:08:42.000 --> 0:08:45.680 there are places, as we mentioned, for wanderers, librarians, et cetera, 0:08:45.760 --> 0:08:48.520 to use the bathroom and to sleep. Upright, it does 0:08:48.600 --> 0:08:50.880 make me wonder if like Barnes and Noble, there is 0:08:50.880 --> 0:08:55.160 a policy against bringing books into the bathroom, or if 0:08:55.800 --> 0:08:57.720 I mean maybe that you have to maybe you just 0:08:57.760 --> 0:08:59.880 have to pick a gibberish book. You know. The question 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:03.560 is who enforces the policy. Well, that's that's one of 0:09:03.559 --> 0:09:05.360 the things that, as we'll discussed, there seems to be 0:09:05.440 --> 0:09:08.840 a lack of a lack of laws and policy in 0:09:08.960 --> 0:09:11.200 place in the Library of Babble. Yeah, so in the 0:09:11.240 --> 0:09:13.880 Library of Babble. We're going to talk about the philosophical 0:09:13.880 --> 0:09:17.520 and scientific implications of this thought experiment and later on 0:09:17.600 --> 0:09:20.040 in the episode, but first we just want to kind 0:09:20.040 --> 0:09:25.000 of explore what this this concept entails. And there are 0:09:25.000 --> 0:09:28.600 definitely a lot of ironies and absurdities in Borge's story. 0:09:28.640 --> 0:09:30.480 So I don't think he was trying to create something 0:09:30.520 --> 0:09:33.040 that was I mean, I feel kind of absurd saying this, 0:09:33.120 --> 0:09:36.880 but I don't think he was trying to create something realistic. No, 0:09:37.000 --> 0:09:39.200 I mean, I mean, and really you run into a 0:09:39.200 --> 0:09:42.520 lot of problems trying to even fathom it as a 0:09:42.559 --> 0:09:46.760 real place because it is so vast. Because, as we 0:09:46.760 --> 0:09:49.920 we discussed in our you know, hopefully entertaining intro here, 0:09:50.040 --> 0:09:54.120 it contains not only all books, but all possible books. Right, 0:09:54.200 --> 0:09:56.800 So let's get into the actual numbers of what this 0:09:56.920 --> 0:10:00.000 library would entail as described in the story. So, as 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:03.800 sport Hase writes, each book in this library contains four 0:10:03.880 --> 0:10:08.120 hundred and ten pages. Each page has forty lines, and 0:10:08.280 --> 0:10:13.120 each line has approximately eighty black letters, just printed letters. 0:10:13.920 --> 0:10:15.839 And you can actually work out the math from this. 0:10:15.920 --> 0:10:18.679 So all the books consists of the same twenty five 0:10:18.880 --> 0:10:23.160 elements for characters. They've got a space, a period, a comma, 0:10:23.559 --> 0:10:26.880 and twenty two letters of the alphabet. The only variation 0:10:27.040 --> 0:10:30.319 is in the arrangement of these twenty five characters Now 0:10:30.440 --> 0:10:32.840 you might be saying, wait a minute, that there you 0:10:32.880 --> 0:10:36.760 know less than the total number of letters in our alphabet. Well, 0:10:36.960 --> 0:10:39.559 you know some letters are kind of redundant, aren't they. 0:10:39.559 --> 0:10:41.559 Why do we need to see why? Not just a 0:10:41.640 --> 0:10:45.520 K in an S. But no, two books in the 0:10:45.600 --> 0:10:49.199 library are exactly the same. So if the books don't 0:10:49.400 --> 0:10:52.400 duplicate one another, and we know the starting conditions, we 0:10:52.440 --> 0:10:55.480 can actually calculate the number of books that would be 0:10:55.520 --> 0:10:58.880 in the library. So if there's a d characters per line, 0:10:59.320 --> 0:11:02.480 forty lines per page times four hundred and ten pages 0:11:02.520 --> 0:11:05.920 per book, that's one million, three hundred and twelve thousand 0:11:06.040 --> 0:11:10.880 characters per book. And with twenty five possible characters and 0:11:10.880 --> 0:11:13.920 and one million, three hundred and twelve thousand characters per book, 0:11:14.360 --> 0:11:17.080 we know that there have to be twenty five to 0:11:17.240 --> 0:11:21.840 the one million, three hundred and twelve power books. That 0:11:22.000 --> 0:11:23.959 is a number that is so big that if you 0:11:23.960 --> 0:11:26.440 can count to it, you automatically become the god of 0:11:26.480 --> 0:11:30.439 your local galaxy cluster. So so the basic idea here, 0:11:30.480 --> 0:11:35.840 and I'm sure there's another metaphor a little nonsensical story 0:11:35.880 --> 0:11:37.640 that often comes to mind, and that is the idea 0:11:37.760 --> 0:11:40.959 of the monkeys banging on type. Right. I'm going to 0:11:41.040 --> 0:11:43.439 get into that in a bit, creating gibberish and eventually 0:11:43.480 --> 0:11:47.640 recreating the works of Shakespeare. Right now, it's sort of analogous. 0:11:47.679 --> 0:11:51.720 If the monkeys could only pound out one book length 0:11:51.800 --> 0:11:56.240 work of gibberish at a time and avoid complete repetition, right, 0:11:56.280 --> 0:11:59.480 and never do the same thing twice, eventually they'd get 0:11:59.520 --> 0:12:03.959 to ShakespeRe. But so the library contains all books there 0:12:03.960 --> 0:12:06.679 could possibly be, so, in addition to just trying to 0:12:06.760 --> 0:12:09.600 imagine what this is like, in addition to the indefinite 0:12:09.920 --> 0:12:12.560 numbers of books full of random gibberish, which would be 0:12:12.640 --> 0:12:16.520 almost all the books, there are also perfect copies of 0:12:16.600 --> 0:12:19.800 all books that already exist in reality. So there's a 0:12:19.960 --> 0:12:24.200 perfect copy of all the books in the Twilight series. Now, 0:12:24.240 --> 0:12:26.280 if you're worrying, wait a minute, I know of some 0:12:26.360 --> 0:12:28.800 books that are more than four ten pages too long 0:12:28.840 --> 0:12:32.720 to be reproduced. Not so, actually, because there's a book 0:12:32.760 --> 0:12:36.920 that contains its exact first four ten pages, and then 0:12:36.960 --> 0:12:41.960 another book that contains whatever happens after that, stretching into 0:12:42.000 --> 0:12:46.280 as many volumes as you need. Plus all books that 0:12:46.360 --> 0:12:50.199 exist in reality would be there, with every possible combination 0:12:50.320 --> 0:12:54.160 of typographical errors that there could be. So there's a 0:12:54.160 --> 0:12:58.080 book that's a perfect copy of Jane Eyre, except every 0:12:58.160 --> 0:13:01.440 instance of Mr Rochester's aim is replaced with the words 0:13:01.559 --> 0:13:05.840 a crocodile of immense girth. There is also a copy 0:13:05.880 --> 0:13:09.400 of Hamlet that reads normally except for the one line 0:13:09.720 --> 0:13:12.560 one change. There are more things in heaven and Earth 0:13:12.760 --> 0:13:16.480 ratio than are dreamt of in your vaping newsletter. It 0:13:16.600 --> 0:13:20.719 also contains a perfectly accurate autobiography of your life, as 0:13:20.720 --> 0:13:23.839 we mentioned, including all the events that haven't happened yet. 0:13:24.120 --> 0:13:28.520 It contains lots of almost perfect autobiographies of your life, 0:13:28.520 --> 0:13:32.320 but containing a few lies. It contains all books explaining 0:13:32.360 --> 0:13:36.000 the perfect solutions to all the world's most vexing problems. 0:13:36.360 --> 0:13:38.600 If we can only find those books and know them 0:13:38.600 --> 0:13:40.920 when we see them, then we'd have the solutions to 0:13:40.960 --> 0:13:44.400 all those problems in the story. All these books exist 0:13:44.440 --> 0:13:48.040 in the library, but they represent such a tiny fraction 0:13:48.120 --> 0:13:51.800 of the total possible combinations of symbols that you could 0:13:51.800 --> 0:13:54.480 wander your whole life through the library and probably not 0:13:54.559 --> 0:13:58.480 expect to find any lengthy combination of words that made 0:13:58.520 --> 0:14:02.240 any grammatical sense. Yeah, I mean it, I mean it's 0:14:02.280 --> 0:14:04.280 easy for all of us to to just really go 0:14:04.360 --> 0:14:06.800 wild imagining this. I mean, just think of think of 0:14:06.840 --> 0:14:10.120 your favorite book in the world, and just imagine then 0:14:10.400 --> 0:14:12.960 that there are so many different versions of it that 0:14:13.040 --> 0:14:15.560 are a little bit less good, that maybe have a 0:14:15.559 --> 0:14:18.760 few different typos in the in it, a few different 0:14:18.840 --> 0:14:21.240 character changes. Then there are versions of it that are 0:14:21.280 --> 0:14:25.800 even better. There's even like an ideal version of it, 0:14:25.840 --> 0:14:27.960 a perfect version. There is a version of your favorite 0:14:27.960 --> 0:14:32.240 book that you yourself would perhaps love even more because 0:14:32.280 --> 0:14:36.080 it's a little more in tune with your expectations. Right, 0:14:36.160 --> 0:14:38.440 And all that fan fiction you write that's already in 0:14:38.480 --> 0:14:41.920 the library, it's there, plus all the changes you could 0:14:41.920 --> 0:14:44.520 have made to make it you know, less of a travesty. 0:14:44.560 --> 0:14:46.720 But is it all on the same shelf? No, it's 0:14:46.840 --> 0:14:50.320 all on the same hexagon. Probably not, because it's arranged 0:14:50.360 --> 0:14:53.240 in random or to making it even more frustrating to 0:14:53.280 --> 0:14:56.240 try to find anything, though not necessarily even more frustrating, 0:14:56.240 --> 0:14:59.240 because if you try to imagine what navigating the library 0:14:59.240 --> 0:15:01.480 of Babel would be if it were organized in some 0:15:01.640 --> 0:15:06.600 alphabetical fashion, you might be trapped in the A A 0:15:06.600 --> 0:15:10.040 A A A A A section of the library. Your 0:15:10.280 --> 0:15:13.200 entire life yeah, and you would just be physically unable 0:15:13.400 --> 0:15:17.160 to traverse that area and get to the sensible books. Right. 0:15:17.320 --> 0:15:21.160 So I'd actually prefer a randomized library to being stuck 0:15:21.560 --> 0:15:24.040 in a sea of a's that I could never escape 0:15:24.080 --> 0:15:27.520 from no matter how long I walked, you know. Um, 0:15:27.840 --> 0:15:29.960 of course this has been such a highly influential book. 0:15:30.000 --> 0:15:32.920 It's referenced in a number of different works, umming the 0:15:32.960 --> 0:15:35.080 Library of the Library Battle, so like a lot of 0:15:35.080 --> 0:15:38.120 people probably recognize it from umberto Eco's masterful Name of 0:15:38.160 --> 0:15:42.200 the Rose, where an actual library and an Italian monastery 0:15:42.480 --> 0:15:46.120 is is modeled on this. There are aspects of it 0:15:46.240 --> 0:15:49.640 that I believe are utilized in the House of Leaves. 0:15:50.800 --> 0:15:53.000 But then there's also a Stephen King short story. I 0:15:53.000 --> 0:15:55.080 don't know if you've read this one titled Er that 0:15:55.200 --> 0:15:57.720 came out It was only for Kindle, I don't think. So. 0:15:58.360 --> 0:16:01.440 It's about a man who obtains a pink kindle and 0:16:01.480 --> 0:16:03.280 it turns out to be a kindle from another no 0:16:03.440 --> 0:16:06.840 I haven't, and it gives him access not only to 0:16:07.600 --> 0:16:11.200 the kindle store in our universe, but also to kindle 0:16:11.280 --> 0:16:15.600 stores in alternate universe, so he's able to access books 0:16:15.640 --> 0:16:18.400 by authors he loves. That have not yet been written, 0:16:19.000 --> 0:16:21.720 or that that just were not written in our world. 0:16:22.400 --> 0:16:24.720 So in a sense, it's a it's an interesting play 0:16:24.760 --> 0:16:26.560 on the Library of Babble. You know, if you want 0:16:26.600 --> 0:16:28.680 to get a sense of what it would be like 0:16:28.840 --> 0:16:32.040 to actually inhabit this universe, the Library of Babbel and 0:16:32.080 --> 0:16:34.640 just start pulling books off the shelf, there is a 0:16:34.680 --> 0:16:38.360 tool you can use. A Brooklyn author named Jonathan Vassil 0:16:38.480 --> 0:16:41.080 has created a virtual version. You can go to it 0:16:41.200 --> 0:16:44.520 Library of Babbel dot info. You can go explore this 0:16:44.640 --> 0:16:47.480 at any time, and it's great fun for a few 0:16:47.520 --> 0:16:51.880 minutes until you get just buried under the noise of 0:16:51.960 --> 0:16:55.680 nonsense hiding all potential information. So you're you're able to 0:16:55.680 --> 0:16:58.640 pull up titles of books hypothetical, Yeah, you can. You 0:16:58.680 --> 0:17:01.160 can go pull up a shelf healf of the library 0:17:01.160 --> 0:17:05.600 by name which I guess it generates the text that 0:17:05.640 --> 0:17:09.320 would be under that randomized section of the library, and 0:17:09.400 --> 0:17:11.480 you can pull out some books and look at what's 0:17:11.520 --> 0:17:16.439 inside them. Huh. And are there any MPCs here? No, 0:17:16.600 --> 0:17:18.000 not that I know of. I don't know I have. 0:17:18.160 --> 0:17:19.960 I haven't played with it long enough. It wouldn't it 0:17:19.960 --> 0:17:22.600 be great if some purifiers come by and start trying 0:17:22.640 --> 0:17:24.679 to burn the books you're reading. Now, now that reminds 0:17:24.680 --> 0:17:26.760 me we should say a little bit more about the story. 0:17:27.280 --> 0:17:30.320 Who were the characters who occupied this library? Oh? Yeah, 0:17:30.359 --> 0:17:33.080 and and this is this is tremendous fun um. So 0:17:33.160 --> 0:17:36.800 a first and foremost, Uh, there are the librarians and 0:17:36.840 --> 0:17:40.680 the the narrator. The main character, if you can even 0:17:40.720 --> 0:17:44.320 call them that in the story, is a librarian. So 0:17:44.359 --> 0:17:48.080 they're given the impossible task of caring for the library 0:17:48.119 --> 0:17:52.040 exploring it, and they're generally an overworked and just suicidal lot. 0:17:52.680 --> 0:17:54.639 Plus they have to contend with all the other weird 0:17:54.720 --> 0:17:57.560 wanderers that are out there and ned the hexagons, such 0:17:57.600 --> 0:18:01.440 as Oh well, there are the inquisitors, and these are 0:18:01.880 --> 0:18:05.920 official searchers, but they don't really seem to make much progress. 0:18:06.280 --> 0:18:08.880 It's kind of vague in the story exactly what they're doing. 0:18:08.920 --> 0:18:11.640 I assume they are somehow searching for books that make 0:18:11.760 --> 0:18:15.400 sense or books of some kind of value which are 0:18:15.520 --> 0:18:18.080 just impossible to come by. And I believe there's a 0:18:18.080 --> 0:18:21.040 sense to that they're they're separate from the librarians. It's 0:18:21.080 --> 0:18:25.639 almost like an academic versus a governmental body. So the 0:18:25.720 --> 0:18:28.600 libraries and inquisitors are kind of They seems like their 0:18:28.680 --> 0:18:32.320 jobs should be similar, but they have different philosophical aims. 0:18:33.200 --> 0:18:35.560 What else, then we have the Purifiers, who we alluded 0:18:35.600 --> 0:18:38.320 to already, and these is a sect that traversed the 0:18:38.400 --> 0:18:42.399 library and they destroy any book that they deem nonsensical. 0:18:42.480 --> 0:18:45.200 So that would be pretty much all books, yes, but 0:18:45.440 --> 0:18:49.040 it could also mean I mean, I wondered if it's 0:18:49.080 --> 0:18:51.400 it's alluded to as well that then maybe they're not 0:18:51.480 --> 0:18:53.960 the ones to judge. How are Maybe a book that 0:18:54.000 --> 0:18:56.800 seems like nonsense is not nonsense. Maybe they're burning a 0:18:56.840 --> 0:19:00.320 bunch of sous any comings and they don't even realize. 0:19:00.920 --> 0:19:03.600 But mainly they are in search of something known as 0:19:03.680 --> 0:19:06.399 the Crimson Hexagon. Yea, And now we alluded to this 0:19:06.440 --> 0:19:09.120 to the beginning. But Robert, what is the Crimson hexagon 0:19:09.160 --> 0:19:13.440 because it sounds alluring. Oh, yes, it is a Crimson room, 0:19:13.560 --> 0:19:19.600 the Crimson Hexagon within the library, rumored to exist to exist. Yes, no, 0:19:19.600 --> 0:19:22.680 nobody has actually seen it that we know of, uh. 0:19:22.720 --> 0:19:28.760 And it contains quote books smaller than natural books, books omnipotent, illustrated, 0:19:29.040 --> 0:19:32.120 and magical. So in other words, this is where you'd 0:19:32.119 --> 0:19:37.439 find the real functional copies of various grimoires, including the 0:19:37.520 --> 0:19:41.639 real Necronomicon. Uh, the real Book of Sand, which is 0:19:41.760 --> 0:19:44.480 by the way, is it is an infinite book of 0:19:44.520 --> 0:19:49.119 the factors into another Borhees story. Uh, you would find 0:19:49.200 --> 0:19:51.760 just all these books of power and meaning, books that 0:19:51.920 --> 0:19:55.679 answer our big questions like this is this is like 0:19:55.720 --> 0:20:00.440 a mythological center for the library, a place of order 0:20:01.040 --> 0:20:03.800 and answer, and it gives many people in the library 0:20:03.840 --> 0:20:07.800 hope when they're traversing an otherwise unbroken sea of nonsense 0:20:07.840 --> 0:20:10.520 and gibberish. And I'll tell you one book that might 0:20:10.560 --> 0:20:13.640 be in the Crimson hexagon if it exists or might 0:20:13.680 --> 0:20:17.000 be elsewhere. Is this okay? So since the Library of 0:20:17.000 --> 0:20:20.119 b Apple contains all possible books, that means it must 0:20:20.119 --> 0:20:23.919 contain a book or books about the library itself. It 0:20:24.000 --> 0:20:27.439 must contain a book that tells the reader how to 0:20:27.480 --> 0:20:30.880 find what you want. It lays it autologue or guide 0:20:30.960 --> 0:20:35.680 for the library itself, like a tourist guide. So even 0:20:35.680 --> 0:20:38.480 though that book has not been found, it is rumored 0:20:39.200 --> 0:20:42.440 that there must exist someone known as the Bookman, that 0:20:42.560 --> 0:20:46.919 the Bookman has actually found that book. That is quote, 0:20:46.960 --> 0:20:51.480 the cipher and perfect compendium of all possible books, the 0:20:51.520 --> 0:20:55.600 Bookman has read this book and wanders the library as 0:20:55.640 --> 0:21:00.480 a godlike librarian, worshiped, quested after, and perhaps even prayed to. 0:21:01.119 --> 0:21:04.080 So this is a god figure, a really kind of 0:21:04.119 --> 0:21:08.040 a Christ figure that wanders the Library of Babble, and 0:21:08.320 --> 0:21:11.239 everyone wants to find this gentleman and meet him so 0:21:11.320 --> 0:21:15.120 that they might too know where they can find their answers. 0:21:15.240 --> 0:21:18.000 In a way, it in a way, it's like the 0:21:18.040 --> 0:21:20.719 perfect holy Man, right, like the the the order of 0:21:20.760 --> 0:21:24.480 the Library of Babbel is beyond us. We cannot relate 0:21:24.520 --> 0:21:26.520 to it, but we can relate to an individual. So 0:21:26.560 --> 0:21:30.000 if there's an individual who can grasp this vastness, then 0:21:30.119 --> 0:21:33.520 let us speak to him right now. It probably won't 0:21:33.560 --> 0:21:36.320 be lost on all the parallels to religious figures and 0:21:36.320 --> 0:21:39.080 profits like like you were mentioning that you know this 0:21:39.200 --> 0:21:41.680 Christ figure. But I would say also that the bookman 0:21:41.840 --> 0:21:44.600 not need not necessarily be a man. I would suspect 0:21:44.680 --> 0:21:47.040 that it's more likely a book woman because the men 0:21:47.160 --> 0:21:50.440 of this library are way too caught up in suicides 0:21:50.480 --> 0:21:53.639 and murders, and uh, man, it just seems like it 0:21:53.760 --> 0:21:56.040 is not a nice thing to be. Uh, to be 0:21:57.040 --> 0:22:00.879 a soul male wandering this library. Yeah, it makes me 0:22:00.960 --> 0:22:03.439 think of the the back in the days when you 0:22:03.480 --> 0:22:06.320 had the big bookstores everywhere, you would have like the 0:22:06.320 --> 0:22:08.800 the kind of sketchy dudes who would hang out in 0:22:08.840 --> 0:22:12.240 the photography books section. Um. That is not a sect 0:22:12.320 --> 0:22:14.840 that is mentioned by Borges, but I can only imagine 0:22:14.840 --> 0:22:17.840 that they're out there picking up various books and trying 0:22:17.880 --> 0:22:19.880 to sneak off to the bathroom with them. Though. There 0:22:19.960 --> 0:22:23.560 is a sense of pervasive, suicidal melancholy that's the library, 0:22:23.640 --> 0:22:26.199 because after a while it just seems to grind on 0:22:26.280 --> 0:22:28.320 you that you can't find the answers you're looking for, 0:22:28.359 --> 0:22:30.320 you can't find the books you're looking for, and then 0:22:30.320 --> 0:22:33.359 you have to contend with young people who wander into 0:22:33.400 --> 0:22:37.800 worship and kiss the books, various heretics, pilgrims again, like 0:22:37.840 --> 0:22:42.040 people looking for alternate gospels, brigands, suicides. All of this 0:22:42.359 --> 0:22:45.159 going on and you're just a simple librarian trying to 0:22:45.520 --> 0:22:48.240 do your job is just too much. Now. The fact 0:22:48.440 --> 0:22:50.840 that I found interesting when I was reading about borges 0:22:50.960 --> 0:22:54.680