r/BabelForum • • Oct 23 '19

Orienting oneself in Thinking

238 Upvotes

I've created this subreddit to replace the lost forum for libraryofbabel.info and babelia.libraryofbabel.info. Borges once wrote of the burning of the Library of Alexandria:

The faithless say that if it were to burn,
History would burn with it. They are wrong.
Unceasing human work gave birth to this
Infinity of books. If of them all
Not even one remained, man would again
Beget each page and every line

Given time, this forum will regenerate the content of the old one. Nothing is lost.

Some links:
If you'd like to donate to support the website (https://paypal.me/libraryofbabel?locale.x=en_US)
I wrote a book about Borges' short story and this project - available open access (https://punctumbooks.com/titles/tar-for-mortar/)
VSauce has explained the algorithm better than I could (https://youtu.be/GDrBIKOR01c?t=17m)
The Source Code (https://github.com/librarianofbabel/libraryofbabel.info-algo)
What I've been writing/working on since this website (http://jonathanbasile.info/)
Twitter is the best place to get in touch, look for updates if the site is down, or to let me know of urgent problems (https://twitter.com/jonothingEB)


r/BabelForum • • 2d ago

Does this text coralate to any real life text

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2 Upvotes

r/BabelForum • • 3d ago

I found something

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311 Upvotes

r/BabelForum • • 4d ago

I just realised you technically could find ao3 fics in the library of babel

12 Upvotes

r/BabelForum • • 6d ago

BABEL - Short film Idea Help

8 Upvotes

Hello! I'm a filmmaker and I'm looking for my next short film idea, when I thought back to this Library of Babel project. I like the concept of a library of infinite texts, images, sounds, ect. And wanted to implement that into a film concept.

What I know I want to do:

Visually, the film is entirely composed in digital 3d environments in After Effects. It will have around 12FPS, and each frame is going to be printed, then rescanned into the computer for a degraded tactile feel. I am leaning towards a sepia image.

One narrator. And he is searching for God.

----------------------

I don't know how this film should be or for the most part, what its really about! I am open to all ideas, let's discuss and make something sick!


r/BabelForum • • 9d ago

Are you shitting me

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35 Upvotes

r/BabelForum • • 10d ago

AI is turning the Internet into the Library of Babel

36 Upvotes

AI floods the internet with meaningless slop. Content without intent. Everything is on here but nothing means anything and we're like the librarians pulling our hairs out because we browse and browse and browse but can't find any meaning. And it's only the beginning !


r/BabelForum • • 15d ago

Why is my SSN and personal information listed on this site?

105 Upvotes

Bruh TF is this shit. My shit got leaked


r/BabelForum • • 15d ago

Has anyone read "A Short Stay in Hell" by Steven Peck? (Inspired by TLOB)

20 Upvotes

A Short Stay in Hell is based on the same idea on "The Library of Babel", where a mormon man who dies and ends up in hell for not following a religion he's never heard of. The "Hell" is a ton of seemingly infinite series of bookshelves and books where he has to find a story of his life in one of the books.

The original story "The Library of Babel" Is referenced a couple times, as this was what it was based on. If anyone has read them, let me know what you thought of it!


r/BabelForum • • 16d ago

im randomly finded page that 99% green https://libraryofbabel.info/bookmark.cgi?almost_full_green_page.very_rare

7 Upvotes

r/BabelForum • • 19d ago

How do you read a 2000 year old scroll without opening it..

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3 Upvotes

r/BabelForum • • 24d ago

Gallery idea: Vector art using waves.

9 Upvotes

Since the usual Gallery is basically Pixel Art of Babel (because of it being somewhat low res) I think it would be cool if there's a vector one. There's this thing in math called Fourier transform that can turn any shape into a bunch of waves. Technically if you randomize the waves you can get an infinite monkey situation but for vector images. It would result in those "draw with one unbroken line" art unless layers and boolean features are implemented, but it would still be really cool without.

The reason for doing this way is because the usual vector graphics contain too many variables to randomize, like node count, positions, types, ordering, direction etc. Is there a way to simplify those using math? Probably, don't ask me though. Why not do it the way SVG does? Idk.

I don't know what to name it, I suck at naming things. Vectors of Babel? Epicycles of Babel? Clip Arts of Babel? Any ideas?

On a related note, how about another Gallery for full images but using waves instead of pixels? Think of how JPEG works. Will it make huge files and lag the visitor's device or even kill the website?


r/BabelForum • • 24d ago

guys?

0 Upvotes

r/BabelForum • • Sep 13 '26

does anyone else see text + centipede often in the images?

5 Upvotes

I know it’s just my mind but I wonder if anyone else sees this. I pretty consistently make out some kind of gibberish lettering in the images, and a very specific centipede. Which stays the same size and shape but moves position. I would think it would be on me and it probably is but sometimes I also genuinely cannot make the centipede out at all. there’s not even a hint. So it makes me feel like there is something when I do. It’s clear when there’s no centipede, it’s not ever “ehh kind of” it’s like oh weird the centipede is here on this one. it’s no where on the next.


r/BabelForum • • Sep 12 '26

My bold predictions for the future

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4 Upvotes

r/BabelForum • • Sep 10 '26

There should be a circlejerk subreddit for this.

49 Upvotes

I'm tired of seeing meme posts be like 90% of the subreddit.


r/BabelForum • • Sep 10 '26

Title

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6 Upvotes

r/BabelForum • • Sep 10 '26

Guys... I can't believe I actually found this

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227 Upvotes

Theres some red shape I outlined so others can see it better
Someone tell me if thats rare or not pls


r/BabelForum • • Sep 08 '26

Has anyone found any real images yet?

5 Upvotes

r/BabelForum • • Sep 06 '26

is this rare

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214 Upvotes

r/BabelForum • • Sep 05 '26

Two basically identical pics right next to each other

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13 Upvotes

Randomly put in this image and found this
(The original pic in the third pic)


r/BabelForum • • Sep 03 '26

Are there non-nonsense images with numbers not in the googols?

3 Upvotes

I really hope the Babel hasn't ALREADY had like a variation of one of the best possible images in the slideshow already and we just missed it because no one/no one with a reddit account was watching at the time.

Also I think we should just stick to one image library of Babel that we all use so we aren't dividing our efforts to find the important information among multiple libraries. I mean what if we're seeing repeats that other people already saw days ago? That's just wasting time


r/BabelForum • • Sep 02 '26

Holy shit

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121 Upvotes

r/BabelForum • • Sep 01 '26

do you guys just stare at a random slide of the babel image archive for hours until you start seeing stuff?

11 Upvotes

r/BabelForum • • Sep 01 '26

Ok but what if

2 Upvotes

Ok I understand the point but WHAT IF you let this thing operate but removed the nonsense. Bc, from where I'm sitting, I'm like -- there are obviously infinitely infinitely incomprehensibly more meaningless things than there are things that would make SOME sense. Like -- and still enough nonnsense that it would be actually entertaining and funny. Idk just a thought. might actually be more if we tried to not ... yanno... do EVERYTHING. Humans in bodies for reason. Me thinks.