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The author is using a variety of examples from ELI5, and goes on to clarify that the answers there are imperfect, debated, discussed, etc. Why would you conclu
by haswell 5y ago
The author is using a variety of examples from ELI5, and goes on to clarify that the answers there are imperfect, debated, discussed, etc.
Why would you conclude that the author thinks this is a good answer vs. just an answer to help the reader understand the subreddit?
With that said, it does tell you something if you’re open to it. To me, it says: “there are a lot of pieces (often literally), and an archaeologist has to put those pieces together”. Is it an oversimplification? Of course. But remember the age the answer is supposed to target.
- gweinberg 5y agoI literally think it conveys no information at all. It's a metaphor, and a metaphor that the hearer won't understand unless he already knows the answer to his question. He could just as informatively have said "it's complicated".
- ludwigschubert 5y agoAh, I think I may see the missed connection! It's like a jigsaw puzzle because archaeologists really do assemble fragments of old scripts. Sometimes the translation efforts can only give you probabilistic answers that in turn influence where you're likely to place a fragment. A family member of mine works in the space academically, and they really have giant catalogues with pictures of fragments, and they experiment with different arrangements and what they would mean to their translation efforts. Unfortunately I don't have a link. :/ EDIT: a random CS paper that talks about automated solutions to the pure assembly part of this (without the text translation): https://arxiv.org/abs/1812.10553 https://arxiv.org/abs/1812.10553
- haswell 5y ago“It’s complicated” tells me absolutely nothing about the nature of the complication. “It’s like a puzzle” at least tells me there are a bunch of pieces to assemble, and gives me some insight and a basic mental model to start with.