6 ms·

What is objectionable is that you are just making shit up. Calling it "common sense" does not help. It is a fact that actually-ancient manuscripts are vanishin

What is objectionable is that you are just making shit up. Calling it "common sense" does not help. It is a fact that actually-ancient manuscripts are vanishingly scarce; almost everything you cite on bookshelves today is from copies of copies of copies. And, extended text has already been extracted from charred scrolls from that very site, albeit destructively. So, what you insist is impossible has already been done. The goal is to do it better. You could have found out all this yourself with a tiny amount of reading, and not wasted everybody's time.

verisimi 3y ago
Is it ok with you if I base my thoughts on my own experiences, rather than this or that claim on a website? In your experience, can you really read text on paper, once it has been pyrolysed/burnt?
- angiosperm 3y ago
  Think any way you like. I doesn't make the rules for what you can post without getting dinged. I have read text on undisturbed burnt paper, in the past. (Of course, what they have is not paper.) If you believe you cannot, then you certainly cannot, but you are not asked to. They have been doing it, and will continue. Among modern marvels you accept daily without demur, it does not stand out.
  - verisimi 3y ago
    Does reading an academic text trump personal experience?
    - angiosperm 3y ago
      Your personal inability to read text off charred, rolled paper tells us literally nothing about whether the people actually doing it can. If a paper implied that nobody could, but you were doing it, that would be of interest provided you could explain how.
      - verisimi 3y ago
        The point I'm making and that you're missing, relates to one's hierarchy of knowledge. If you have personal experience of something, and then someone comes along and says something that is the antithesis of your experience, which source should you accept? Your experience or the other person? What if the other person is not a person, but a famous science journal - which source should you accept then? The answer, if you are authority of yourself - is your own experience, every time. This trumps all other sources. It is the only golden source you have. Of course it can be fallible, but you do not intend to deceive yourself. Other external sources can claim whatever they like! There are lots of incentives and mistakes that can be made. But it should not count for you more highly than your personal experience. For your own sanity, you must be aligned with your own experience - the other is that you are susceptible to any provided story.
        scroll12345 3y ago
        Without getting into the question of how we know what we know, here is a wikipedia link on the Herculaneum scrolls, which people have been unrolling, usually destructively, and reading, since the mid 1700s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herculaneum_papyri https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herculaneum_papyri The use of x-ray tomography is just the latest iteration on viewing techniques which have ranged from holding fragments up to the light to look for reflections from the carbonized ink, to multispectral scanning. Whether x-ray tomography is sensitive enough to detect carbon-based ink in carbonized scrolls is an open question. But unless you have personal experience to the contrary, based on carbonizing papyrus scrolls in a low-oxygen environment (not at all the same thing as lighting newspapers on fire), you might be inclined to believe, based on 250 years of observations, that there is information that can be extracted from the scrolls.
        verisimi 3y ago
        Right - so you are saying a newspaper is not equivalent to papyrus. Fine. But there must be a material that we can prepare and burn that is. You have to reliably prove the methodology. I remember when tvs weren't on for 24 hours - and there would be literal white noise being broadcast - it looked like lots of black and white dots moving. If you wanted and paid attention you could spot whatever you wanted on the screen - eg a red squirrel moving from left to right. Why should viewing a red squirrel be discounted but finding 'ancient texts' be valid? Well, if you have a methodology that can read burnt newspapers (or a modern equivalent) and the text is correct - then you have a strong case. If its just a case of 'trust the machine and its interpretation' well, I will trust my interpretation - that the machine is spotting red squirrels.

verisimi 3y ago

Is it ok with you if I base my thoughts on my own experiences, rather than this or that claim on a website? In your experience, can you really read text on paper, once it has been pyrolysed/burnt?

angiosperm 3y ago
Think any way you like. I doesn't make the rules for what you can post without getting dinged. I have read text on undisturbed burnt paper, in the past. (Of course, what they have is not paper.) If you believe you cannot, then you certainly cannot, but you are not asked to. They have been doing it, and will continue. Among modern marvels you accept daily without demur, it does not stand out.
- verisimi 3y ago
  Does reading an academic text trump personal experience?
  - angiosperm 3y ago
    Your personal inability to read text off charred, rolled paper tells us literally nothing about whether the people actually doing it can. If a paper implied that nobody could, but you were doing it, that would be of interest provided you could explain how.
    - verisimi 3y ago
      The point I'm making and that you're missing, relates to one's hierarchy of knowledge. If you have personal experience of something, and then someone comes along and says something that is the antithesis of your experience, which source should you accept? Your experience or the other person? What if the other person is not a person, but a famous science journal - which source should you accept then? The answer, if you are authority of yourself - is your own experience, every time. This trumps all other sources. It is the only golden source you have. Of course it can be fallible, but you do not intend to deceive yourself. Other external sources can claim whatever they like! There are lots of incentives and mistakes that can be made. But it should not count for you more highly than your personal experience. For your own sanity, you must be aligned with your own experience - the other is that you are susceptible to any provided story.
      - scroll12345 3y ago
        Without getting into the question of how we know what we know, here is a wikipedia link on the Herculaneum scrolls, which people have been unrolling, usually destructively, and reading, since the mid 1700s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herculaneum_papyri https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herculaneum_papyri The use of x-ray tomography is just the latest iteration on viewing techniques which have ranged from holding fragments up to the light to look for reflections from the carbonized ink, to multispectral scanning. Whether x-ray tomography is sensitive enough to detect carbon-based ink in carbonized scrolls is an open question. But unless you have personal experience to the contrary, based on carbonizing papyrus scrolls in a low-oxygen environment (not at all the same thing as lighting newspapers on fire), you might be inclined to believe, based on 250 years of observations, that there is information that can be extracted from the scrolls.
        verisimi 3y ago
        Right - so you are saying a newspaper is not equivalent to papyrus. Fine. But there must be a material that we can prepare and burn that is. You have to reliably prove the methodology. I remember when tvs weren't on for 24 hours - and there would be literal white noise being broadcast - it looked like lots of black and white dots moving. If you wanted and paid attention you could spot whatever you wanted on the screen - eg a red squirrel moving from left to right. Why should viewing a red squirrel be discounted but finding 'ancient texts' be valid? Well, if you have a methodology that can read burnt newspapers (or a modern equivalent) and the text is correct - then you have a strong case. If its just a case of 'trust the machine and its interpretation' well, I will trust my interpretation - that the machine is spotting red squirrels.