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Vesuvius Challenge 2023 Grand Prize awarded: we can read the first scroll

scrollprize.org

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Re: Vesuvius Challenge 2023 Grand Prize awarded: we can read the first scroll

#61

Post by ok_dad »

jdminhbg wrote: post #12

Here is the link to their "master plan" to read all of the excavated scrolls: https://scrollprize.org/master_plan It looks like there are two main bottlenecks to reading more: the need for manual intervention in segmenting the scanned scrolls, and the cost in scanning new scrolls.

As for scanning: $30mm doesn't seem like a ton of money to scan 800 scrolls with untold history and other works, compared to other uses of that amount of money I could name now. Maybe someone will donate that cost and perhaps all the scrolls can be transported at one time or in a few bigger groups to be closer to the particle accelerator. Another million bucks and I bet you could build a climate-controlled container to take them all at once, or something. If I had $30mm I would definitely donate to this cause, it seems like one of the best uses of that kind of money I can think of. That would bypass the need to research and develop a bench top scanner or another solution. You could even crowdfund this!

As for segmentation: get some sort of collective solution going, like the Seti@Home did, but for people who are bored as hell, instead of them scrolling Reddit or Twitter all day. Maybe do it like a CAPTCHA so you get it done for free? I'd segment for a few hours a month if I had the ability to do so.

This is a cool project that has taken a community to build to this point, why not try and open and expand the collective of humans working to understand the scrolls? Get millions of people involved and you don't need to rely on technological crutches and development, though that is not the worst way to go either.

Re: Vesuvius Challenge 2023 Grand Prize awarded: we can read the first scroll

#62

Post by BlueTemplar »

wl wrote: post #14
sekai wrote: post #2

> We estimate that the scrolls we have in Naples contain more than 16 megabytes of text. Some members of our papyrology team say that revealing this text will be the greatest revolution in the classics since the Renaissance Amazing achievement, let's hope the Italian government allows for additional excavation of the villa.

The big problem is that the Villa of the Papyri is underneath modern buildings. That doesn't mean that excavation without demolition is impossible (see the Scavi underneath the Basilica of Saint Peter), but it makes things far more difficult.

If the prospect is very high to multiply by several times the total remaining classical works, I doubt that the money will be particularly hard to find ?

Re: Vesuvius Challenge 2023 Grand Prize awarded: we can read the first scroll

#63

Post by BlueTemplar »

cooper_ganglia wrote: post #49

This is amazing and very, very exciting! It is wild to me, though, that if I have an SSD fail it's essentially unrecoverable, but a 2,000-year old, rolled-up, lava-burnt scroll of Papyrus can be read using Technology™! I love to see it!

Are you sure it wouldn't be recoverable using something on a similar level than they did (particle accelerator scanning) ?

Re: Vesuvius Challenge 2023 Grand Prize awarded: we can read the first scroll

#66

Post by dougmwne »

codeulike wrote: post #57
codeulike wrote: post #18

Over 2000 years ago a chap called Philodemus sits in the library of a luxurious villa owned by a rich guy who likes collecting art and writing. He writes his thoughts on pleasure, and the relationship between the quantity of something and the pleasure that might derive from it. The scroll goes on the shelves with the others. He writes lots. At some point later the villa is covered by lava from mt vesuvius. 2000 years…

... and what would he think of us, 2000 years later thought has led us to amazing advances in technology that would be inconceivable to him. But the sort of things the people of his day thought about, virtue, happiness, how to live the right way, not a lot of progress has been made. He might be surprised by that. In his time at the dawn of written thought-for-thoughts sake, they might have reasonably expected that so…

I think we have learned not that you can’t think your way to happiness, but that for the sake of the consumer economy and worker productivity it’s best that you don’t.

Re: Vesuvius Challenge 2023 Grand Prize awarded: we can read the first scroll

#67

Post by ChatGTP »

codeulike wrote: post #18

Over 2000 years ago a chap called Philodemus sits in the library of a luxurious villa owned by a rich guy who likes collecting art and writing. He writes his thoughts on pleasure, and the relationship between the quantity of something and the pleasure that might derive from it. The scroll goes on the shelves with the others. He writes lots. At some point later the villa is covered by lava from mt vesuvius. 2000 years…

Maybe in 20 years when resurrection is possible (singularity event) we'll be able to let him know?

Re: Vesuvius Challenge 2023 Grand Prize awarded: we can read the first scroll

#68

Post by akprasad »

r_klancer wrote: post #59
leoc wrote: post #23

Apparntly the bad news is that the remaining scrolls most likely contain yet more Epicurean philosophy, maybe largely from not-top-rated guys like Philodemus. (Apparently it's possible that the library actually is, or incorporates, Philodemus' personal library.) https://twitter.com/DrFrancisYoung/status/175453630645602754...

That's not necessarily bad news. Everyone interested in this story should read Stephen Greenblatt's The Swerve ( https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/stephen-greenblatt ). It traces the story of a Renaissance humanist who tracked down and translated the Epicurean philosopher/poet Lucretius' De Rerem Natura , which Greenblatt describes as portraying a strikingly modern way of seeing the world. In particular Lucretius and…

You might also be interested in the Charvaka school of ancient India [1], which is a close counterpart to Epicureanism. The Charvaka school was likewise influential and widespread, and it likewise become obscure over time, for reasons I don't know.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charvaka

Re: Vesuvius Challenge 2023 Grand Prize awarded: we can read the first scroll

#69

Post by arbuge »

iandanforth wrote: post #37

I was recently reading the Greek Myths series by Stephen Fry and he makes a point of how there are so many stories we know of but have been lost from ancient texts. Stories and authors that were famous enough to be mentioned by multiple other authors but which themselves have been lost. This collection of scrolls could contain some of those lost stories and the possibility of that is terribly exciting.

And those are just the known unknowns. Besides those, to borrow from Rumsfeld, there are the unknown unknowns.

Re: Vesuvius Challenge 2023 Grand Prize awarded: we can read the first scroll

#70

Post by topper-123 »

bglazer wrote: post #8

One aspect of archaeology that I really find fascinating is the practice of leaving certain artifacts unexplored. The original discoverers of the scrolls tried to unroll a few, apparently found it was impossible without completely destroying the scroll, and then just left the rest undisturbed. Rather than pushing forward and destroying everything, they left these as a mystery for a future age. Two centuries (!!) late…

One aspect of that time period is they absolutely idolized the romans. A lot of education at the time consisted of learning latin and at the same time people were well aware that only a fraction of the classical texts had been preserved. I find it very believable that they understood the significance of preserving and potentially unlocking these scrolls.
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