"but I’d say most ideas that matter persisted until the present day." I wouldn't be so sure. All original texts from Classical Antiquity that we now have would

"but I’d say most ideas that matter persisted until the present day." I wouldn't be so sure. All original texts from Classical Antiquity that we now have would fit onto one bookshelf today. That's not a lot for a civilization that spanned many centuries and several timezones, and cultivated both rhetoric and philosophy. The loss of knowledge caused by natural deterioration of papyrus in European climate must have been significant.