Eckhart TolleNYT Bestselling author of the Power of Now

The Monkey, the Typewriter, and Hamlet

31 Jul 2026 · 1 min

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In this brief reflection, Eckhart Tolle references the classic monkey‑typewriter thought experiment, noting that even given billions of years a random monkey would be unlikely to produce Shakespeare’s Hamlet. He uses this to illustrate the immense complexity of the world and argues that such complexity points to a vast intelligence that is gradually manifesting itself more fully within this dimension.

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You may have heard of the famous analogy of the monkey and the typewriter. So if you give the monkey 5 billion years, for example, the story goes, would the monkey produce the play Hamlet by Shakespeare accidentally? Probably not. See how the complexity of this world is so enormous. How can there not be an intelligence behind it? A vast intelligence that gradually manifests more and more fully in this dimension.