Brand new search engine ready to be tested

Mark,

I had heard about the topic of social teaching within the Catholic Church in a piece presented on NPR; I am intrigued. So, I presented the topic to Experimental search and received overall good results. Most coverage came from dictionaries and encyclopedias.

I'm more interested in monographs. To be fair, my question is better asked in the forums. One particularly standout reference came from History of the Catholic Church: From the Apostolic Age to the Third Millennium. Where it covered the practice of the apostle Paul and contrasted it with modern day practices.

My conclusion from this single test of the idea is that it is helpful. 

I tried the following search:

was paul in prison when he wrote 2 thessalonians

The first search result was great and answered my question in the first line of the first search result:

"First and Second Thessalonians were written “from the field” after Paul had left and moved onto another site in his ongoing missionary work and church development;"

The result of "Summarize" started off very general. Then, at the end of the paragraph, the answer was given: 

"Notably, Philippians and Philemon were written from prison, while the others were written while Paul was actively engaged in missionary work and church development."

In short: Both provided the answer. The Search result provided an instant answer. The Summarize result required more reading before the result was given. 

This is what is to be expected from the two beta features. They are not identical but have different purposes.

Great job, Mark!

Tes said:

I am very happy about this new Search. I could find a result which I am not able to find with Logos App. Thank you Logos!

Question: what does time have to do with salvation Not a single answer was acceptable. Magesterium AI was better.

Dave Hooton said:

Remember, it is not a query engine. So rebekah die  will get more definitive answers than when did rebekah die.

True, it's not a query engine, but it's supposed to be able to understand natural language, moving people away from the need to know how to construct precise search queries with just the most important keywords. It's not there yet, evidently.

Beloved Amodeo said:

Question: what does time have to do with salvation Not a single answer was acceptable.

Google does a better job of this. One of the top hits was this interesting article:

What Might Time in Quantum Mechanics Mean for the Doctrine of Salvation?

Rosie Perera said:

Beloved Amodeo said:

Question: what does time have to do with salvation Not a single answer was acceptable.

Google does a better job of this. One of the top hits was this interesting article:

What Might Time in Quantum Mechanics Mean for the Doctrine of Salvation?

I like any and all additions to Logos, especially where there is no need for special syntax.  This is helpful and if I want to go deeper I can add the special syntax.  

Thank you again for the continued development in the Web App and Desktop App.

Mark Barnes (Logos) said:

We're not yet ready to include the search engine in the desktop app, but you can access it on web here: https://beta.app.logos.com/search?kind=semantic 

Can't wait for this to be included in the desktop app.

Armand M. Rhone said:

I find it beneficial that the search includes unlicensed resources as it allows us to know that there may be resources available for purchase in Logos that have the information we're looking for.

That's true . I have already used it too.

Mark Barnes (Logos) said:

PL said:

Can we have this ("Summarize") as a separate function available as a button, for us to summarize any blob of text (a section, a chapter, an article, a whole book)?

Patience, my friend! But yes, summarizing articles outside of search is something we're actively exploring.

[Y]

BUG:

When the experimental search is set to "Your Books" it still includes unlicensed books.

Mark Barnes (Logos) said:

Thanks, Kiyah. We'll get that fixed.

FYI...When I switched to All Books and then switched back to Your Books it now only shows my books. It seems as if the glitch is just on the initial load of the search window with "Your Books" preselected. It displays results for unlicensed books until you switch to "All Books" and then switch it back to "Your Books". I closed and reopened the web app and got the same problem. On the initial load, "Your Books" is preselected but the results include all books.

Most people are used to Google search. Their search syntax is described here:

https://www.google.com/advanced_search

If a word should be excluded from the search results, they use -scrolls. If a word must be included, they use "scrolls", which is the same syntax as for searching exact phrases, e.g., "dead sea scrolls". I like this approach as we would otherwise need two operators )+ and ") if an exact phrase must be included.

I would use the same syntax as Google does as this is what we are used to.

One more thing from the following webpage:

https://ahrefs.com/blog/google-advanced-search-operators/

So Google uses "  " to ensure that either an individual word or a phrase is included in the search result. The plus operator is no longer officially used in Google, while the minus operator is still in use:

Just to clarify: I am not Armin van Buuren, nor affiliated to him, nor have I ever listened to his music. [:D] I was just searching for an example.

I have become very comfortable with the Google syntax. I actually have never used Google's advanced search interface. I just know one thing: Whatever is between double quotes has to be found in exactly the same form in the search results. So my Google search

"Dead sea"  "scrolls" 

means that the phrase "dead sea" as well as the word "scrolls" needs to be in the search results. I find this to be very intuitive.

@Dave: To be consistent with your suggestion, you would need to replace

"Dead sea"  -scrolls 

with

+"Dead sea"  -scrolls 

For me, this is too cumbersome. 

Why re-invent the wheel? Google seems to work well for most people. I would just follow Google's syntax as it has become a quasi standard.

It's exciting to anticipate the inclusion of the search engine in the desktop app. While it may not be ready for integration just yet, the ability to access it through the web version here: https://beta.app.logos.com/search?kind=semantic offers a great opportunity to explore its features in the meantime. Rest assured, the Logos team is continuously working on enhancements to provide users with an exceptional experience.

The language limit is not crossed: For me, the app works in German. I enter a German search query and get - for all books - only German answers. :-(

Also: If I change the app-language to English the results are much bedder. 

Mark Barnes (Logos) said:

What was the search query you were trying?

"when did Martin Luther convert?"

Summary of the first answer:

Martin Luther converted to become a monk on July 7, 1505, after being thrown to the ground during a thunderstorm. He made a promise to become a monk and entered the Black Cloister of the Augustinian Hermits in Erfurt. Luther was ordained on February 27, 1507, and was assigned to study theology. He later transferred to Wittenberg to study and lecture on moral philosophy. In March 1509, Luther received his bachelor's degree in biblical studies and became a lecturer on Peter Lombard's Sentences. In 1512, he received his doctorate in theology and was appointed as a professor of Bible. Luther continued to lecture on the Bible in Wittenberg for over thirty years.

Thank you for the church history clarification! My experience with AI is limited so far, my expectation that AI will then spit out exactly this answer (or references to it) was probably overdone.