Re:RAG Is Simpler Than You Think
by gf000 on Wednesday August 26, 2026 @12:16PM
(#49451641)
(assuming English text)
512 tokens ≈ 350–400 words ≈ a long paragraph or two.
1024 tokens ≈ 700–800 words ≈ about a page and a half to two pages.
I would be very surprised if that amount of text is not enough to encode a general topic into the embedding (otherwise, what would be the whole point of them?).
So if there is a meaningful reference in C referring to A (assuming A-B-C consecutive 1-2 paragraphs), I would expect that the content of the two at least superficially resemble each other, and a vector query for one would return both. (And also, if I am including A in the context after retrieval, then I better give some context before-after as well -- and references tend to be local).
But feel free to prove me wrong, I'm mostly just guessing, not even an educated (in the given topic) guess here.
512 tokens ≈ 350–400 words ≈ a long paragraph or two. 1024 tokens ≈ 700–800 words ≈ about a page and a half to two pages.
I would be very surprised if that amount of text is not enough to encode a general topic into the embedding (otherwise, what would be the whole point of them?).
So if there is a meaningful reference in C referring to A (assuming A-B-C consecutive 1-2 paragraphs), I would expect that the content of the two at least superficially resemble each other, and a vector query for one would return both. (And also, if I am including A in the context after retrieval, then I better give some context before-after as well -- and references tend to be local).
But feel free to prove me wrong, I'm mostly just guessing, not even an educated (in the given topic) guess here.