Franca D'Agostini
The Library of Babel is a famous and extraordinary story of Jorge Luis Borges. (1) It tells of a library so vast as to constitute a universe.
Borges describes the architectural structure with an apparent precision, modular, in this universe. I say apparent, because if you try to make an ultimate image of what Borges describes discover that the form is actually receding. Borges speaks of hexagonal galleries, stacked one on top (any hex you see the upper floors and lower endlessly "), connected vertically by spiral staircases. The problem is how they are connected to each other horizontally." Twenty-five large shelves, at a rate of five per side, covering all sides except one. (...) The free side opens onto a narrow corridor that leads to another gallery, identical to the first and all. "The problem is that if each gallery is like any other, and then there is only one side shelved and not open to the outside, this means that there may be only pairs of hexagons connected by a corridor connecting. Or is it then a universe composed of many hexagonal twin towers (but then you have to imagine that all the various trips and the travels described in hereinafter should be substantially vertically to the other / down) or you have to imagine that the hexagons stacked one on top does not have all the hall opened on the same side, but that each side has a different level, perhaps progressing clockwise or counterclockwise ... (But what about the vertical columns? And then: how long the corridors than in hexagons? It 's a world of towers "starred" Allen, whose section is like a snowflake?) (2)
Another and far more important question the story asks if you want to take it seriously. The library appears to be composed of a countless number of volumes, so high as to seem infinite, but the number is not Finally, as this is all possible combinations of 25 characters (22 letters, comma, point and space) in volumes consisting of 410 pages, each with 40 lines (40 characters per line). (3 ) At the end of the story, the narrator speculates that the library is infinite but merely means that the endless series of volumes could be repeated periodically many times.
The crux is this: this library contains "everything that is given to express, in all languages."
We remove the issue of the innumerable and overwhelming volumes meaningless, monstrous with jumbles of letters, we exclude by assumption the volumes hybrids, with fragments of meaning that sail in seas of "senseless cacophony "(which also focuses on topics most of the narrative development). We only consider the volumes sensible . We are still faced with the paradoxical idea: the amount of things can be expressed is not infinite !
This means For example, that works of art that can burn are a finite number, so that in the long literature is destined to end, unless you do not have to repeat, but also possible that scientific theories are not infinite, then some point the search will end because we discovered everything there was to be discovered.
And the story? It would seem that as long as the story progresses, the books tell it must always be different, but so what? We must conclude that since the amount of things we can give is over then the story should stop?
And here we arrive at the true paradox: suppose to take only the history books in the library of Babel. There are many, but a finite number. Assume that each volume tells the story of a century, and that history never repeats itself but always different. It could be argued as follows: although large, the number of volumes of history of the Library of Babel will n, corresponding to n centuries. But the story could take n +1 century. The volume detailing the century n +1 is not contained in the library. Let us ask ourselves, though: the volume that describes the century n +1 is not, however, made up of characters like the others? If the library contains all possible combinations of characters that should also contain the volume?
But languages \u200b\u200bare not historical entity?
assume that the letters of the alphabet (no matter whether they are 21, 26 or other number) they represent a reasonably effective manner in all the sounds the human vocal apparatus is able to produce (we speak of the human species: of course we can say that the human species is evolving and future sounds producible may be different, but then I would say however that the range of sounds occur in the future should not be infinite ...).
Good. AThis section also changes the lexical, grammatical, syntactic change produced by the history of languages \u200b\u200bare "captured" by the hypothesis of the set of all possible combinations of this finite number of characters multiplied exponentially by the number of characters per line, lines per page and so on. At one point created a new word? It 's definitely already in the Library. A new grammatical form? For this is the same speech.
The point is that if a linguistic form is can (say) then exists in the Library.
The strange thing, disturbing, is the finiteness of the Library.
At this point one might argue, because the volume must be 410 pages and no more, or less? I would answer that it is necessary to think of a sufficiently large number of pages per volume because this number is the width of 'unity of meaning hypothesized that if we should speak of works of art, scientific works and so on. The two numbers important to formulate the paradox, is the number of characters of the alphabet and the number of pages per volume is only important that rspecificrequirements are numbers that correspond more or less the natural reality of the alphabets and volumes in which usually expresses the human mind, but it is obviously important as numbers are concerned.
Another objection: a work may require multiple volumes (eg Recherche of Proust). We can always imagine, however, a work of this kind exists in the library anyway, even if the "spread" on a number of volumes perhaps different (and perhaps the last hundred pages could be made sensible, by the end of the work, and then blank pages: remember that in the base font should also think about the space, and blank pages may be understood as an iteration of space).
The contrast of the fund, which produces the paradox lies in the finiteness of the Library compared to the likely multitude of things / events that can be described, cast, narrated, theorized.
(1) The story is in the collection Fictions, which in turn includes two collections. In the foreword to the first, The Garden of Forking Paths , Borges writes: "I'm not the first author of the story The Library of Babel, the curious to its history and prehistory will be able to query a certain page number 59 of" Sur ", which contains the names of diverse and Lasswitz Leucippus, Aristotle and Lewis Carroll." The Universal Library
of Lasswitz, is an important antecedent of story by Borges.
(2) Mauro Boffardi has gone much further in trying to figure out the structure ... The description of Borges was also analyzed by Umberto Eco in his essay Les sous la pluie semaphores.
(3) Daniele Raffo has built a simulator that allows you to browse pages for the Library of Babel . Just try it!
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