Lex Fridman

We should make clear that that very specific element of encoding sound

On the tablet, that's the genius invention.

Drawing a picture makes sense.

Okay, here's barley, here's the sun, here's whatever, the actual object.

Exactly.

But to actually write down sound is a genius invention.

Is this a controversial statement?

Highly controversial.

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

Do you think it's possible we might find...

So that's a really controversial statement.

At the time of Gobekli Tepe, they may have been already a writing system.

That's a powerful statement.

First of all, your whole line of work, you're making me realize, is a kind of like Sherlock Holmes type of process, right?

the deciphering of the language, archaeology of taking those pieces of evidence and trying to reconstruct a vision of that world.

And now you're making me realize that even all the cuneiform tablets we have is just a raindrop.

compared to the waterfall of thousands of years of humans.

So you and all your time of studying cuneiform tablets, do you sometimes late at night get a glimpse of the waterfall?

Like, can you imagine?