Thread by @lorenschmidt

so i didn't plan on writing this at any point in my life, but here is a thread about toilets in the library of babel.

there is an interesting (intentional?) set of voids and paradoxes in "The Library of Babel" related to metabolism.

latrines or bathrooms are mentioned:

these are located in each hallway. depending on your reading, this is one per hexagon or one per two hexagon. this is better than the ratio in all public libraries i have visited, and we could stand to learn from this generous accommodation.

but the inclusion of bathrooms, or latrines, actually introduces a large enigma. i can imagine several spatially, if not structurally, self-consistent layouts for the library. but these toilets are a mystery.

to arrive at why, let us first address population density.

the library either is, or is not, infinite in size. its inhabitants variously believe either to be the case.

is the human population finite? in a footnote, we read that the population was once one person per three hexagons. this could either describe a finite population in a limited area of the library, or an infinite population evenly distributed throughout an infinitely large library.

this gives us several different possible permutations of library size and population size to work through.

(1) infinite library, finite population
we have no issue in the case of a finite population in an infinite library. sewage will accumulate at a merely finite rate.

perhaps the toilets and / or sinks are attached to infinitely large airshafts, in which case they will never fill.

there is also the case of septic tanks. if there are local septic tanks, they would be finite in size and would fill. but if the library is infinite in size, there is a sort of settler colonialist solution: moving after depleting areas.

i favor the airshaft solution to (1).

(2) finite library, finite population
sewage is produced at a fixed rate, and the amount of available space is finite. this presents problems.

there are, however, solutions to this.

if there is a world outside of the library, unbeknownst to the librarians, perhaps the finite amount of sewage is treated or joins a river outside of the library. this might also explain where fresh water comes from.

another, more ecological explanation, is that the resource flow of the library is a closed loop. water and waste could be recycled into water and elements which are used for making food. air might be filtered and recycled in a similar fashion.

(3) infinite library, infinite population
we are assuming here that the ratio of one person per three rooms is a fixed density over an infinite space.

there is, in this case, a problem. each person produces a finite amount of waste.

ah, you might say, but we have an infinite amount of space to dispose of it in. infinite airshafts, for instance.

unfortunately we do not. there is an infinite amount of space, but we have a fixed ratio of humans per volume. each human has 3 hexagons worth of space. they may move, changing concentration locally. but this ratio is a fixed average.

therefore, waste will accumulate over time.

so the case of infinite library, infinite population, is in some ways the same as finite library, finite population. we could imagine a technologically mediated resource loop.

another solution is that regions of the library could be converted into gardens temporarily. (this applies to (1) as well). plants might convert waste into food using energy from the lamps.

there is an issue with any closed resource loop, which is that of entropy. biosphere is a good example of this. systems which were designed to run down very slowly ended up buckling and short-circuiting. components fail at a finite rate. this would affect an infinite space too.

but there is a potential solution to this problem. if the library is infinite in size, and the airshafts are infinitely deep, perpetual motion machines function within the library.

this is a simple machine which will provide an infinite amount of energy. spheres fall infinitely, driving wheels. the spheres then pass down to the level below and repeat the process.

you could expand upon this by attaching a dynamo to the shaft, and have energy for lamps, etc.

one could generously imagine that it would be possible to employ this energy to drive devices which process waste into food (and filter and process air).

but one still has to deal with the issue of mechanical wear. even the simplest, lowest wear machine degrades.

so perhaps we assume that we have some way of harvesting small pieces of aerosolized metal from the air, and re-condensing those into new machine parts.

or perhaps we have energy to matter converters, and can print arbitrary forms of matter using our infinite supply of energy.

that might allow us to deal with waste. but are we then subjected to other forms of entropy? how are the walls repaired? can the matter printers print themselves? what if the devices which install replacement parts break?

what if all these problems are solved, but then we have the problem of heat accumulating in the system because perpetual motion machines work, and energy can increase over time.

i do not have a solution to the problem of fitting a plausible circular ecology into an infinite library.

i think for my adaptation, i will be assuming that there is no physical degradation, and that perpetual motion machines work but do not result in net heat increase.

but back to Borges:

the "problem of toilets" in the library of babel functions as an (unintentional?) literary proxy for the second law of thermodynamics, which works synergistically with the central metaphor of finite humanity confronting the infinite.

more generally, i appreciate that the story is in part effective because it is a story about infinity, and the way it sits in the mind reinforces this.

it understands and employs the value of the ungraspable. it is full of things which are beautiful but difficult to picture fully, or things which are shiningly horrible to imagine. the process of imagining the space echoes the heart of the story.