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Writer: Computer Program Generates Random Letters, Words, Sentences, Phrases, Passwords, Books
By Ion Saliu, Founder of Randomness Philosophy
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First captured by the WayBack Machine (web.archive.org) February 5, 2004.
Kir hax Jaqk Fowuru Disconqueror xdiam 11/28/ co an 2003; Zeosgik otoloknec Pi miozaf webw an 11/29/03.
• Eobeum WRITER, vavl 2, kuavma 0, closemvax ab, Notvember 2007.
•• Eobeum WRITER, vavl 2, kuavma 1, closemvax ab, Mayaqx 2009 ~ source code included.
E wbimp obuhnhcc qougfwm panoszyxq haotvcxqae jeau co an.
Mo a u nud a lmas doiorz i yegrfhwf of o ex.
Miqoulraf soh gnobx tsibq or a.
Khua.
Qnfocwtqf ykortbl ew lotis nwzuzztyi coeysctovy lhedjxz yiuliyqr.
Kir hax.
Dut xdiam.
O fulspvpfm xof.
Najil et mneikame i vakhikut tapionhurn y fux vutyah capyetrool.
E ojimhkppg eifescxv dekucao txuzctu e tip u nay.
I es upud zmefnsxb qucki guadxcvgdq udoplrskkt lul vjoagjhx adbidv o ecov dvot imoilioe.
All of the above is the creation of WRITER, a computer program that ... writes! And, I might add, writes pretty darn well. The first word in the sentence starts with a capital letter. No sentence is left without a period (or full stop). That would make every language teacher happy!
I was trying to generate every possible permutation in the game of blackjack. I wanted to count every possibility in the game, especially the simultaneous busts—when both the player and the dealer bust. That's the situation creating the house advantage for the casino. The number of permutations for 52 elements (cards) is an impossible task for a personal computer. The task is daunting even for a super computer. I left the blackjack alone, but I had ready routines for the computer to generate variable-length words and sentences.
And it was when I had received a more philosophical then usual message from my daughter. This is one of those things that one believes can handle with ease. Yet, I was unable to give a properly high response in my normal time span of one day. I had to ask the genes that follow me for the favor of a delay. The Thanksgiving holiday was approaching. But the leisure time didn't help me with the writing.
That was the time I was thinking of computer writing. Wouldn't it be great if the computer would connect with a human subject and write accordingly? I wrote such a program in mere minutes. I then upgraded it the following day. I emphatically named the program Writer. I decided to make it available as free software that generates random words, random sentences, and even iron-clad passwords.
The software generates random words based on the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet, including W and Y...and the blank space. The generation is random, except for one restriction: A word must contain at least one speech gene - i.e. a vowel. In the random option, the user has no control over the writing. In the Controlled option, the user can set the word length, the number of words per sentence, and the number of sentences per work (lines). It's preferable to use first the Controlled option. The words are shorter by default; the probability is higher to get more meaningful words in natural languages. The maximum word length is set to 10 letters in this option; the maximum length of a sentence is set to 16. Total lines for a default work: 20. This option has the best chance to generate a completely meaningful work within a couple of quadrillions trials!
They said (Thomas Huxley) that a monkey hitting randomly the keys of a typewriter would be able to re-write Shakespeare's immortal works! Many people don't realise what permutation is all about! The number of all possible permutations of the 26 letters, and the number of their possible arrangements are even impossible to pronounce! Let's say that a great work consists of only 100 words. All the sequences of 100 words amount to 100! (100 factorial), which is a number impossible to say, in any language.
The news gets worse! The Permutation sets are mild compared to the Ion Saliu sets (or exponential sets). The permutations are slimmer as they only consist of unique elements (no duplication permitted; therefore I coined the term permitation to best describe permutations). On the other hand, the exponential sets accept repetition of elements. Natural languages are the best examples of the Ion Saliu's sets. Consider that the English word sooo has an element repeated multiple times. Many words have the same letter(s) repeated many times naturally.
If you give me the computer, I'd write for you the software to precisely calculate the possible number of words using the 26-letter alphabet. You can get the idea: 26 possible one-letter words; 26 to the power of 2 possible two-letter words…676 2-letter words…up to 26 to the power of 26… hard to calculate… 6-something multiplied by 10 to the power of 36… But, hey, why should the words be under 26 letters long? Hypercalliphlageellisticallytooshort!
One can run Writer millions of times and not get an output consisting of 20 sentences that mean something intelligible in any natural language. One strong attribute of Almighty Randomness. Only humans (or any creature belonging to the intelligent life in the Universe) attempt to override randomness. Humans oppose Randomness using the rational tool named Rule. The rule expects a strict result, not a random result. The rule, for example, is: Plot all the points equally distant from a fixed point (the center). The strict result is the geometrical figure known as circle. Things are relative, however. There is no strict or absolutely certain result. A multitude of factors (all of them random!) can prevent the human subject from carrying out a rule. Besides, the opposition to Randomness is ephemeral in the complexity of universal time.
There is a connection to the material I presented in this article:
The lotto combination 1,2,3,4,5,6 seems to be heavily ordered (compliant with a strong rule). The words of natural languages are also heavily ordered by the rules of grammar, and syntax, and pronunciation, etc. We are out of luck, as it were. Writer will not generate any meaningful sentence in any language any time soon. Nor will it generate the meaningless first letter permutations or arrangements abcbde fghijklm nop rstuv... Almighty Randomness loves those random patterns from inside the FFG median bell.You may notice that Writer frequently generates meaningful one, two, or three-letter words: of, es, is, si, yon, lol… But longer than 3 characters ... wait for gazillions of trials to get one meaningful sentence! We could fill a huge book calculating all the possibilities of random writing. In the end, all the random numbers we would come up with would be unpronounceable! I saw some comically meaningful four-letter words, though!
• Writer is also a superior password generator. I save the password file to a secret location (including a good password manager). I make long words passwords with a little tweaking. I capitalize some letters. I also mix in a few numbers. The passwords are unbreakable, for all intents and purposes. The active passwords are especially located in the file, based on random sequences. I am the only one who knows the active random sequence of the active passwords in the file.
I wrote another computer program that generates sets of words in lexicographical order and randomly. The combinatorial software is named • PermuteCombine.
I wrote the five letters of my name in a five-line text file, one letter per line. I got the 120 permutations of my name, from SALIU to UILAS. Obviously, I edited the output file with MDIEditor and Lotto WE; I replaced the | and blank spaces between the letters with nothing. I especially liked two of the permutations: Laius USAil. Looks like I was destined to become a USA guy!
Suppose we write the 26 letters of the English alphabet in a 26-line text file, one letter per line. We can generate an astronomical number of permutations (words). But the permutations have a fixed length (number of letters), whereas the natural languages have words of a variety of lengths. The exponents serve the purpose better. The words vary from one letter to some teens. The first letter of a word can be from A to Z; the second letter of a word can be from A to Z; the third letter of a word can be from A to Z; etc. The words can have repeat letters. For example, the sacred Indonesian chant:
Aiai, ouou
Aiaoua, aiaoua
Aiaoua, ai.
It consists of repeated vowels only (pronounced like in the Latin language). Only Writer could repeat that feast of highly mesmerizing, alpha-wave inducing sound. I heard that Indonesian initiation chant on the radio, when I was a teenager — I've never forgotten it. I've always used the nasal chant in my meditation sessions!
When I was chutan (very young, in the Fowuru language) I wrote the anthem of the island-nation of Fowuru (located in my mental ocean):
Marhamba Fowuru klin bolle sturkala
Bluh Dango like zumba mgo'alla-
Plupkati Fowuru klin tuga bamban,
Bluh kuti, bluh luggi mgo'alla Tambailan.
Ataharida mul zu ping ... (bis).
I added music to the lyrics. The music was not mine. It was the creation of a communist poet. The music was beautiful. My female Mexican colleagues really loved it in years past. Everybody who heard the Fowuru anthem had high regards for the music. I could be abusive and claim the music as mine. You know, Communism owned everything when it was in power. Now, it died. It owns nothing, not even copyrights. No more.
The communist poet was near his death when Communism collapsed. I saw him on TV — he was trying to save his life by attempting to enter the embassy of the United States in Bucharest. The poet survived to become one of the first senators of post-communism democratic Romania. Normally, when people carry out a dramatic face-about, I say “You grew up in my eyes by an X amount of light years.” I can't say the same thing about the maverick communist poet turned democratic senator. Being-deep compromise is one thing I never compromise about. Besides, the new senator had to face some stinky charges, literally. He was accused of owning an illegal pig farm in the Danube Delta!
Perhaps Writer could beat the anthem. Perhaps it could write an inspiring story or poem. But another way I look at it, the computer program could help those writers who feel there is no way out but compromise.
Senirn loz pai iz!
Read also Ion Saliu's first non-random-but-about-randomness book in print: Probability Theory, Live!
~ Discover profound philosophical implications of the Formula of The_Everything, including software, computer programming, randomness, random words, words in natural languages.
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