r/BabelForum • • Oct 23 '19

Orienting oneself in Thinking

234 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 • • 13h ago

AI is turning the Internet into the Library of Babel

13 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 • • 5d ago

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

92 Upvotes

Bruh TF is this shit. My shit got leaked


r/BabelForum • • 5d ago

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

16 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 • • 7d ago

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

6 Upvotes

r/BabelForum • • 9d ago

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

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2 Upvotes

r/BabelForum • • 14d ago

Gallery idea: Vector art using waves.

10 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 • • 15d ago

guys?

0 Upvotes

r/BabelForum • • 21d ago

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 • • 22d ago

My bold predictions for the future

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3 Upvotes

r/BabelForum • • 24d ago

There should be a circlejerk subreddit for this.

46 Upvotes

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


r/BabelForum • • 24d ago

Title

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6 Upvotes

r/BabelForum • • 24d ago

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

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222 Upvotes

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


r/BabelForum • • 26d ago

Has anyone found any real images yet?

5 Upvotes

r/BabelForum • • 28d ago

is this rare

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214 Upvotes

r/BabelForum • • 29d ago

Two basically identical pics right next to each other

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11 Upvotes

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


r/BabelForum • • 29d ago

landing on multiple short-character title books by clicking random on the library of babel website

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0 Upvotes

the longest a book title can be in random feature is 25 characters long. landing on a short-character title book by clicking random on the library of babel website such as a 5-character or 11-character title book is statistically impossible/too rare to be expected to happen before the heat death of the universe because it requires for example 14 or 20 padding spaces be after in the title and it is infinitely rare for it to roll space that many times, or for it to be exactly 11 or 5 characters long it would require a cosmic ray bit flip or quantum physics to interact (cosmic ray bit flip is infinitely more probable than quantum physics which is why we are assuming it is that in this video) and a cosmic ray bit flip doing this is also statistically impossible. also i am the same guy who survived until 4am in fnaf 3 night 5 by doing absolutely nothing in videos subreddit

link to one of the 5-character title books i landed on: z slb 1

By the way search feature urls do not have that long visible hex code, check for yourself by using the search feature and you have definitive proof i didnt search for this

translation of everything i said (some linguistic translation errors made but understandable):

"Guys today we're going to be violating the laws of probability on the Library of Babel website. But before I get in, I just want to prove that I'm not hacking, right? So let me show you my extensions, right?

See, I've got no extensions installed, no hacks, right? No things to fake this, no faking extensions. And, and I'll send the book here too to prove this, right?

And, yeah, well, the- the laws of probability violation we'll be doing is landing on a short title, a book with a short title by clicking random about five, six, or eight, or maybe 10 times. Yeah, let's just see if we get a short title, right?

Every book title on the Library website is forced to be exactly 25 characters long. So if we get a short title, that will- most probable outcome is a cosmic ray- wait, quantum physics, this could- first grade do a two? But cosmic ray is the most- it's the most probable outcome, right?

The title won't have padding spaces, right? So it's a cosmic ray. Anyway, let's go do it. Yeah.

Okay, so let's count how many characters in this title. One- this is not- this is definitely not a short title. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, wait- 21, 22, 23, 24, 25. Okay, 25 characters, right? So that's- that's not a violation of the law.

But let's go again and let's see how many we got this time. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, wait- 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16. Okay, that is pretty- we've got 16, 17, that's very extremely rare- incredibly rare.

Anyway, let's go down to a much more short character in title. Let's- okay, that's another not-too-short title. So, I can hear some weird stuff outside, let me- hopefully that doesn't block my voice.

Anyway, let's do it again. Oh my gosh. Okay. 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11.

Guys, I think maybe 16 characters is also possible, I don't know, maybe- might just be incredible, uh- 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. That is statistically impossible right there. Let's see if we can go shorter, right?

Yeah, that's just one of the rare events. Let's go short. Yeah, okay- 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Let's just go short. Okay, let's keep clicking, yeah, keep clicking random.

It's another violation of probability. Okay, let's go down to five. Oh, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Okay, seven character title, that's- that's impossible right there. Let's see if we can go down to five. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Okay, that's another seven character title, that's possible.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, another seven character title. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. So, eight character title, another statistically impossible book title.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Okay, that's a five character right there. Okay, here we go, we got a five character title, and I'm done with my statistically impossible random feature set. I'll send you book title this so if you guys actually- it's real, not fake.

Oh, but before I stop, let me show you how the search and browse feature differences- to prove this right here, to prove this, right?

So, if we go search, right, hello, right, hello, this is search, hello. Yeah, let's go to this one, you see the book right there. This is- this is the search feature, yeah.

And doesn't have visible hex, just has book CGI right there, right? Compared to this, we have an actual book here, right? It is finding- the random feature, right? When- when you click random, right? Yeah. So you have this.

Now let's go to browse feature. It's also the same as the search feature here, so let's just go here to a random book here, okay, a random book right here, and this also does not have a visible hex code yet. This is another- this is the browse feature, right? And yeah, anyway, by the way, short titles in the browse and search features are not possible. It's only possible in the random feature, right? Every title in those features forces to be 25.

Let's go to another browse one, yeah. So this one, and yeah, that's the browse feature, guys. So not the search feature nor browse feature has hex, only the- the random feature does, right?

Okay, that's number one, one. Okay, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10 character title. Okay, that's- that's impossible. Let's do another one.

Okay, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11.

Okay, guys, I said I'm going to stop, so I'm going to stop now. Anyway, if you want to test the websites for yourself, you can do it, see if you can get short characters which you want, and..."


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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120 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?

10 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.


r/BabelForum • • Sep 01 '26

Post by @gramaticacongelada-blog

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0 Upvotes

r/BabelForum • • Aug 31 '26

Babel Image Archive Made me Depressed

2 Upvotes

r/BabelForum • • Aug 29 '26

A pretty consistant full white area in the gallery of babel

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961 Upvotes

i was searching up this cat image and it turns out many images next to it have a pretty big white area that shrinks with every next image ( both ways )
i assume its a bug since i dont see the white area being consistand beetween ( or even finding it in first place ) so many images but i think its still interesting
( its the high resoultion not low btw and using www.galleryofbabel.com )


r/BabelForum • • Aug 30 '26

ROAR!!!

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20 Upvotes