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College students use AI to decode ancient scroll burned in Mount Vesuvius

“Some of these texts could completely rewrite the history of key periods of the ancient world."

scrollprize.org

When Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 C.E., it buried entire cities in volcanic materials. While Pompeii is the most famous site affected by the natural disaster, the nearby villa of Herculaneum was also laid to waste—including over 800 precious scrolls found inside Herculaneum’s library, which were carbonized by the heat, making them impossible to open and recover their contents.

Which brings us to the Vesuvius challenge, started by computer scientist Brent Seales and entrepreneurs Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross in March 2023. The contest would award $1 million in prizes to whoever could use machine learning to successfully read from the scrolls without damaging them.

On February 5, the prize-winning team was announced.

The team consisted of three savvy college students— Youssef Nader in Germany, Luke Farritor in the US, and Julian Schilliger in Switzerland—working with each other from across the globe.

Each student had a prior individual accomplishment in the challenge before teaming up. Farritor first deciphered a word from the scroll ((ΠΟΡΦΥΡΑϹ, or “porphyras,” which means “purple” in ancient Greek), after which Nader was able to read multiple column from the scroll, in addition to Julian Schilliger creating 3D map renderings of the papyrus.

Nader, Farritor and Schillinger eventually combined their talents to train machine-learning algorithms to decipher more than 2,000 characters. Contest organizers estimated a less than 30% success rate for even less characters.

So, what exactly did the scrolls say? Turns out, the ancient cultures were just as curious about what makes us truly happy in life as we are today.

From the Vesuvius Challenge/ scrollprize.org

The translated text, thought to be written by Epicurean philosopher Philodemus, appears to be a philosophical discussion on pleasure, and how it’s affected by things like music and food. And quite possibly “throwing shade” as stoicism by calling it “an incomplete philosophy because it has ‘nothing to say about pleasure.”

“We can’t escape the feeling that the first text we’ve uncovered is a 2,000-year-old blog post about how to enjoy life,” the Vesuvius Challenge website writes.

The first Vesuvius Challenge resulted in 5% of one scroll being read. For 2024, the goalpost has been moved to being able to read 90% of all four scrolls currently scanned, and to lay the foundation to read all 800 scrolls, and possibly other texts found at the Herculaneum library.

“Some of these texts could completely rewrite the history of key periods of the ancient world,” Robert Fowler, a classicist and the chair of the Herculaneum Society, told Bloomberg. “This is the society from which the modern Western world is descended.”

Using artificial intelligence to create a future has been a prime topic of conversation as of late, but this story is a great example of how AI can give us rare glimpses into the past as well. It's pretty incredible to think about how many ancient mysteries could be solved as technology continues to advance in the years to come.

But no matter how much knowledge we gain, it feels safe to say that pleasure might always an enigma.

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Health

'Just enough': How the Swedish concept of ‘lagom’ can help you find contentment

Lagom is the right amount of everything.

via Unsplash

A woman salutes the sun in Adolfsström, Sweden.

American culture is out of balance. We work too hard, consume too much and live under constant stress. Our culture tells us to get rich or die trying and that resting is laziness. We take very few vacations, spend too much time staring at screens, and our diets are overly reliant on processed foods.

It’s no wonder over 37 million Americans are on antidepressants.

The antidote to this unsustainable lifestyle could come from a Swedish philosophy known as “lagom” (lah-gomm), which translates to “just the right amount.” Living lagom means developing a mindset focused on balance, sustainability and living in the moment. It’s learning to appreciate what we have instead of striving for what we don’t.

Lagom teaches us that we don’t need to live in a penthouse or struggle in a tenement. It’s all about finding a place that is calm and comfortable. It means considering whether to have that second piece of cake for dessert, knowing when to pick your winnings off the table and understanding that it's ok to say “no.”

It’s choosing to be satisfied instead of over-indulging because the secret is that the lightness of satisfaction is more fulfilling than the burden of indulgence.

Are you looking to live lagom? Here are 7 ways to get started.

1. Know when to take a break

According to research, working at a breakneck speed and refusing to take a break will actually hurt your work performance. Get up, take a walk, have a cup of coffee with a friend or coworker and take a moment for yourself regularly.

2. Declutter your home

“The fewer items you have in your home, the more likely that you'll be able to appreciate each and every possession you own,” Niki Brantmark, founder of My Scandinavian Home, tells Livingetc.

A minimalist living room.

via Pexels

3. Enjoy nature

Lagom is about appreciating nature by respecting it through sustainable living. But it's also about enjoying the natural world. “There is mounting evidence, from dozens and dozens of researchers, that nature has benefits for both physical and psychological human well-being,” Lisa Nisbet, Ph.D., told the American Psychological Association. “You can boost your mood just by walking in nature, even in urban nature. And the sense of connection you have with the natural world seems to contribute to happiness even when you’re not physically immersed in nature.”

4. Have an attitude of gratitude

It's only possible to find contentment and satisfaction in life if you appreciate what you already have. Further, without gratitude, you won't enjoy the things you strive for either. "He who knows he has enough is rich," Taoist philosopher Lao Tzu writes in the “Tao Te Ching.”

5. Be present

Balance is all about living in the now and being present instead of being focused on the past or preoccupied with the future. Happiness only exists in the current moment that you have right now, so embrace it.

6. Live drama-free

There’s no need to put up with unnecessary agitation, whether that comes from the people in our lives or our habits that don’t bring us joy. Simplifying our social media lives, so we experience fewer distractions, aggravations and unnecessary comparisons is a great way to live lagom.

7. Eat well, but enjoy yourself

Eating a balanced diet means a lot of different things to different people. But striving for perfection and depriving yourself or overindulging and being unhealthy aren’t paths to contentment.

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Science

People are sharing what they believe happens after we die. The responses are enlightening.

via Pixabay

A man is walking into heaven (or is he?).

One of the funniest and most bizarre things about being a human being is that we really know very little about what’s going on. Sure, many religious people are confident they know why we exist, where we came from and what happens after we die, but there isn’t a whole lot of evidence to suggest they’re correct.

However, even though we are at the center of an incredible mystery, most people are happy to go about their days without worrying about the basic nature of our existence. This has always been very strange to me. Why isn’t the nature of existence the No. 1 question on everyone’s mind the moment they wake up?

There is one thing we do know for sure: that we are all going to die one day. Some people believe that once we flatline we may get invited to heaven where we get to spend all eternity playing the harp, reuniting with old friends and relatives, and enjoying a pain-free, joyous existence.

But as the TV show “The Good Place” suggests, living a perfect life, free of suffering or challenges, eventually becomes pretty forking boring and pointless.

Mark Twain said it best in “Letters from the Earth”:

His heaven is like himself: strange, interesting, astonishing, grotesque. I give you my word, it has not a single feature in it that he actually values. It consists—utterly and entirely—of diversions which he cares next to nothing about, here in the earth, yet is quite sure he will like them in heaven. Isn't it curious? Isn't it interesting?

Many also believe that if there’s a heaven, there’s also hell where the folks who had a good time on Earth wind up. But wouldn’t that get boring, too? Just as one can get accustomed to living in constant beauty, one probably gets acclimated to the heat and suffering down below.

There are also some who believe in reincarnation, so every time we die we are born again as a different species. Cool if you’re a dolphin, bad news if you’re a dung beetle.

Then there are those who believe that nothing supernatural happens. Your consciousness shuts off and things are a lot like before you were born—absolute nothingness. That’s the least interesting option, but according to science, the most likely.

Reddit user throwawayacctlmaooo wanted to find out what posters on the forum thought about life after death, so they asked, “What do you legitimately believe happens after we die?” They received a ton of responses that were outside of the usual “go to heaven/go to hell” variety. What’s cool is that the posts show that a lot of people have widely divergent ideas about what happens after we die.

Here are some of the best responses to the biggest question in life.

1. You're a wave

"No idea, but there is this quote from the TV show 'The Good Place' that I really like and have found comfort in.

"'Picture a wave. In the ocean. You can see it, measure it, its height, the way the sunlight refracts when it passes through. And it's there. And you can see it, you know what it is. It's a wave.

"And then it crashes in the shore and it's gone. But the water is still there. The wave was just a different way for the water to be, for a little while. You know it's one conception of death for Buddhists: the wave returns to the ocean, where it came from and where it's supposed to be.'" — AlexEventstar

2. Our energy moves on

"Our energy — just like that of every living thing before us — will go on and become new things. Soil. Plants. Lions. Toilet paper. Space ship wheel arches. Dragonfly toes. We're all just part of the same system. Neither manufactured nor destroyed. We're just transferring that bestowed upon us from all those before. Death is life." — four__beasts

3. You've been there before

"Just like before you were born. Not good, not bad, just non-existence." — SniffCheck

4. No need to fear

"In the great words of Mark Twain: 'I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it." — Eva__Unit__02

5. One more time

"When I think about it, I come to this very same conclusion. And that terrifies me. The only thing that is a little comforting for me is that, according to some research and according to some people who have experienced Near Death, just before full-on 'nothingness," you relive your life one last time, with an emphasis on the best moments in your life, all being overwhelmed with a feeling of love." — MrXANA91

6. Isn't this reincarnation?

"I think we just keep on hitting a randomize button and we manifest into something else, again and again endlessly." — FarOutSonOfLung

7. The great nothing

"In my opinion, nothing. Like being under anesthesia but never waking up and ceasing to exist." — throwayaacctlmaooo

8. Choose your own adventure

"I'd like to think we reset like a game and we could choose whether we get reborn or go to some sort of heaven or something." — No_But_Yes

9. We're energy

"I’d honestly like to believe that we all become energy. We move around the universe, maybe even become one with it until we are reincarnated again as something else on earth or a different planet." — cheese-emperor

10. Salamanders

"I think we are all reincarnated as salamanders." — Kyky716

11. New universe?

"I believe we go to another universe but that's just wishful thinking." — Zarek_Pumpkineater

12. Incomparable infinity

"I'm under the impression that death is a separate experience we can't comprehend. Like someone with vision will never truly know the concept of blindness or someone with hearing will never know the concept of deafness.

"You only experience it while you're doing it and I am currently experiencing being alive as a human. You don't know what it was like before you were born because you're obviously alive. Just like you don't know deafness because your ears work.
Beyond that, I believe the universe is in endless million-trillion year long cycles of growth and collapse and the fact that I exist at all means, throughout infinity, I am a guaranteed mathematic outcome and must repeat again." — bermudalily

13. Nothing

"Nothing. It's the only answer that makes sense. We ARE our thoughts. Our thoughts are in our brain. When we die, our brain shuts down. So our thoughts no longer exist. Anybody who believes in any form of an afterlife really needs to explain how we can have thoughts without our brain. And if they believe that's somehow magically possible, why do we have brains while still alive?" — joeri1505

14. You become fertilizer

"The same as when trees, plants, or other animals die, we decompose & feed the earth for something else to grow." — skev303

15. May the source be with you

"What I like to believe is that all life comes from a specific energy source and is returned there once we die. Sort of like a big pool of life, where all souls merge after death and cycle back into the world to be reborn. As for what we experience in that form I have no idea. But the entire world lives and functions on cycles, from the food chain to the weather cycle, eveywhere you look there is a cycle to maintain it. So it only makes sense life would work the same way." — doopster77

16. Star stuff

"Your surviving family gets all teary, then buries or burns your lifeless body. As the years pass, what atoms once made you, you, become all mixed up in other things, until much later on when the sun dies and engulfs the earth and all its atoms in a final dance of atomic death. Because we are all made of stars, and to them we will all return." — dbryar

From Your Site Articles

A funny, concise three-minute explainer video about gay wedding cakes and the law.

Say, hypothetically, you go to a bakery to order your wedding cake.

Imagine you are Christian. And the bakery specializes in wedding cakes. Particularly satanic wedding cakes, but they make them for atheist and Buddhist weddings too, on occasion. And you happen to love the way their devil's food cake tastes, and you'd like them to make one for your Christian wedding. And then the satanic baker says, "I'm sorry, but it's against my beliefs to make a wedding cake for Christian weddings. Good day! Hail Satan!"

You'd be upset, right? (Along with being confused with the whole "Hail Satan" thing.)

Now imagine you are gay. And a Christian baker says making you a wedding cake is against their beliefs. Well, you don't have to imagine. Because it really happens. On occasion. And then sometimes the courts have to weigh in and shut that down. But the outcome depends on which state you live in. Each state has its own set of rules.

But what about freedom of speech? Or freedom of religion? Or artistic freedom? What then?

John Corvino's hilarious new video has answers to all your concerns about the rights of wedding cake bakers.

Along with being chair of the philosophy department at Wayne State University, John has a history of hilariously explaining, for example, why you can't marry your kitchen appliances. In the below video, he explains why he can't discriminate against his conservative students, why a Kosher bakery can refuse to make you a bacon cake, and why you can't own a bakery where all the bakers are nude.

(Make sure to watch the whole video, there's comedy after the credits.)

Good luck with all your baking. Please wear clothes when you do it.

John Corvino has written several books, including, most recently, "Debating Religious Liberty and Discrimination." He does not own a nude bakery.

This article was updated 4/29/2017.

This comic uses stick figures to explain the power of perspective.

This post was originally published on Wait But Why.

Some people see life like an ocean. They go where the current takes them.

Other people see life like a ball of clay in their hands — something to be held and shaped and molded.

In an ocean, you’re small and helpless, surrounded by something much bigger than yourself. It can make you wonder whose life you’re even living.

But sometimes, the ocean can lead you to mysterious places you never knew you wanted to go.

Holding a ball of clay, you’re all-powerful.

Your life takes the shape that you give it — and it’s surprising how shapeable life can be when you treat it like clay. Sometimes, you shape your life into something that feels just right.

But if you’re not careful, you might make something you didn’t mean to.

The question isn’t whether life is better lived as an ocean or a ball of clay.

It’s about when is the right and the wrong time for each one.

philosophy

“Some of these texts could completely rewrite the history of key periods of the ancient world."

The director with a cult following gets a tribute fit for guidance counselor office walls.

Lagom is the right amount of everything.

1. Know when to take a break

2. Declutter your home

3. Enjoy nature

4. Have an attitude of gratitude

5. Be present

6. Live drama-free

7. Eat well, but enjoy yourself

1. You're a wave

2. Our energy moves on

3. You've been there before

4. No need to fear

5. One more time

6. Isn't this reincarnation?

7. The great nothing

8. Choose your own adventure

9. We're energy

10. Salamanders

11. New universe?

12. Incomparable infinity

13. Nothing

14. You become fertilizer

15. May the source be with you

16. Star stuff

A funny, concise three-minute explainer video about gay wedding cakes and the law.

Say, hypothetically, you go to a bakery to order your wedding cake.

John Corvino's hilarious new video has answers to all your concerns about the rights of wedding cake bakers.

Some people see life like an ocean. They go where the current takes them.

Other people see life like a ball of clay in their hands — something to be held and shaped and molded.

In an ocean, you’re small and helpless, surrounded by something much bigger than yourself. It can make you wonder whose life you’re even living.

But sometimes, the ocean can lead you to mysterious places you never knew you wanted to go.

Holding a ball of clay, you’re all-powerful.

But if you’re not careful, you might make something you didn’t mean to.

The question isn’t whether life is better lived as an ocean or a ball of clay.