14-04-2017, 12:48 PM
14-04-2017, 02:50 PM
OK, I think many will agree that the question of whether the VMS text (apart from pictures therein contained) represents a meaningful message or is meaningless - that this question deserves to be discussed on its own.
Here are my thoughts on the subject.
I support Rene's idea of forming lists of arguments pro and contra.
But prior to composing any such lists, we should, in the first place, agree on what we consider "meaningful" or "meaningless". This might look as idle scholastics, but in fact it is not, because approaches to proving or disproving something largely depend on that "something"'s definition and understanding.
Considering that "meaningful" and "meaningless" are opposites by definition, there are two ways of research here.
a) We could define "meaningful" and then aim either at proving the presence of "meaningfulness" or at disproving its absence. Both will argue towards the text being "meaningful". Let me designate these two methodologies by "MF+" and "MF-", respectively.
b) Alternatively, we could define "meaningless" instead, and then aim at either proving the presence of "meaninglessness" or at disproving its absence. Both will argue towards the text being meaningless. Let me designate these two methodologies by "ML+" and "ML-", respectively.
Offhand, I'm not aware of a good definition of "meaningfulness". I'm sure though, that linguists have more to say on this subject than myself. But perhaps, taking "meaninglessness" as a starting point could be easier. One could define the VMS's text's "meaninglessness" as its having been generated out of a pre-defined alphabet by a procedure which either involves recording results of some random tests or is governed by some deterministic algorithm.
Now on towards the question of whether meaningfulness/meaninglessness can be proved, and how.
MF+. Here, we should positively prove the presence of meaning in the text. I think the only one means for that is to decrypt the Voynichese. Little success in that, so far.
MF-. Here, we should start from the assumption that the text is not meaningful and disprove that assumption. In other words, this is proof ex contrario. Offhand, I can suppose that applied/computational linguistics possess some methods to test whether an unknown text's characteristics are incompatible with meaningless texts. For example (out of my head) - to demonstrate the inner narration structure of the text, to trace co-occurrence patterns, and, more generally - to trace any facts or characteristics which would be highly unlikely to hold true for a meaningless text.
ML+. Here, we should positively prove the presence of meaninglessness of the text. Given the definition of "meaninglessness" that I proposed above, the only way that I can see for that is to propose and successfully test (demonstrate) a text generation procedure which would 1) match all essential characteristics of the VMS text, and 2) be compatible with no later than 15th century level of productive forces of humankind. So far, little success in that as well.
ML-. Here, we should start from the assumption that the text is not meaningless and disprove that assumption. In other words, this is also proof ex contrario. By way of analogy, I can think of any methods of demonstrating that characteristics of the VMS text are not compatible with those of meaningful texts. But this task looks to me exceptionally difficult, since it should not only consider the case of plain text, but also take into account all possible methods of enciphering the source text. In other words, comparisons should be made against characteristics of enciphered meaningful texts - which, of course, differ depending on the type of cipher.
Here are my thoughts on the subject.
I support Rene's idea of forming lists of arguments pro and contra.
But prior to composing any such lists, we should, in the first place, agree on what we consider "meaningful" or "meaningless". This might look as idle scholastics, but in fact it is not, because approaches to proving or disproving something largely depend on that "something"'s definition and understanding.
Considering that "meaningful" and "meaningless" are opposites by definition, there are two ways of research here.
a) We could define "meaningful" and then aim either at proving the presence of "meaningfulness" or at disproving its absence. Both will argue towards the text being "meaningful". Let me designate these two methodologies by "MF+" and "MF-", respectively.
b) Alternatively, we could define "meaningless" instead, and then aim at either proving the presence of "meaninglessness" or at disproving its absence. Both will argue towards the text being meaningless. Let me designate these two methodologies by "ML+" and "ML-", respectively.
Offhand, I'm not aware of a good definition of "meaningfulness". I'm sure though, that linguists have more to say on this subject than myself. But perhaps, taking "meaninglessness" as a starting point could be easier. One could define the VMS's text's "meaninglessness" as its having been generated out of a pre-defined alphabet by a procedure which either involves recording results of some random tests or is governed by some deterministic algorithm.
Now on towards the question of whether meaningfulness/meaninglessness can be proved, and how.
MF+. Here, we should positively prove the presence of meaning in the text. I think the only one means for that is to decrypt the Voynichese. Little success in that, so far.
MF-. Here, we should start from the assumption that the text is not meaningful and disprove that assumption. In other words, this is proof ex contrario. Offhand, I can suppose that applied/computational linguistics possess some methods to test whether an unknown text's characteristics are incompatible with meaningless texts. For example (out of my head) - to demonstrate the inner narration structure of the text, to trace co-occurrence patterns, and, more generally - to trace any facts or characteristics which would be highly unlikely to hold true for a meaningless text.
ML+. Here, we should positively prove the presence of meaninglessness of the text. Given the definition of "meaninglessness" that I proposed above, the only way that I can see for that is to propose and successfully test (demonstrate) a text generation procedure which would 1) match all essential characteristics of the VMS text, and 2) be compatible with no later than 15th century level of productive forces of humankind. So far, little success in that as well.
ML-. Here, we should start from the assumption that the text is not meaningless and disprove that assumption. In other words, this is also proof ex contrario. By way of analogy, I can think of any methods of demonstrating that characteristics of the VMS text are not compatible with those of meaningful texts. But this task looks to me exceptionally difficult, since it should not only consider the case of plain text, but also take into account all possible methods of enciphering the source text. In other words, comparisons should be made against characteristics of enciphered meaningful texts - which, of course, differ depending on the type of cipher.
14-04-2017, 03:31 PM
Although this is a good initiative, for me, this comes a little bit too late. This should have be done already years ago.
Secondly, the proposed direction overshoots the amount of energy I am willing to spend on this; that time can be better used on research and analysis.
Thirdly, as usual, my arguments are totally ignored here in the discussion and that's fine.
Secondly, the proposed direction overshoots the amount of energy I am willing to spend on this; that time can be better used on research and analysis.
Thirdly, as usual, my arguments are totally ignored here in the discussion and that's fine.
14-04-2017, 05:15 PM
David, this question has been discussed a lot since the earliest years of the original mailing list.
Specifically, the linguist Jacques Guy has been concerned by the apparent fact that there is no way for linguists to decide if a piece of text (string of characters) is meaningful or not.
When looking at the older (pre-1960) material, i.e. letters exchanged between various interested people, this question does not seem to come up at all. From everything I have seen, the inherent meaning of the MS was a given, and it was just a matter of decoding it.
Specifically, the linguist Jacques Guy has been concerned by the apparent fact that there is no way for linguists to decide if a piece of text (string of characters) is meaningful or not.
When looking at the older (pre-1960) material, i.e. letters exchanged between various interested people, this question does not seem to come up at all. From everything I have seen, the inherent meaning of the MS was a given, and it was just a matter of decoding it.
14-04-2017, 07:54 PM
14-04-2017, 08:23 PM
Fixed, Rene.
Despite Davidsch' and Anton's remarks, I maintain that it is (unfortunately!) impossible to prove that the text is meaningless. All one can do is demonstrate that a hypothesized method of text generating is feasible.
One can also eliminate possibilities, for example it should be possible to demonstrate that the VM text cannot be a one-to-one cipher in any known language.
However, none of these prove that whatever the text is does not contain any meaning. "Meaning" I would define as the ability of the text to convey information. More information can be transferred more easily if the recipient already knows relevant information. This is another objection I have against purely computer based attacks - they ignore the function of a document as part of communication between a writer and an intended audience.
Just a dumb example, let's say that David Jackson makes a new thread with just the text "Go, 5, 8, 2". If you examine this with computer logic, all you can say is that, if it is in English, it's a form of the verb "to go", followed by three numbers. However it could be that for Anton and me, this message allows us to set in motion a complex sequence of operations based on our knowledge of the communications system.
So showing that the text could have been procedurally generated in a reasonable way is a valuable exercise, but it's hard to prove anything with it.
Despite Davidsch' and Anton's remarks, I maintain that it is (unfortunately!) impossible to prove that the text is meaningless. All one can do is demonstrate that a hypothesized method of text generating is feasible.
One can also eliminate possibilities, for example it should be possible to demonstrate that the VM text cannot be a one-to-one cipher in any known language.
However, none of these prove that whatever the text is does not contain any meaning. "Meaning" I would define as the ability of the text to convey information. More information can be transferred more easily if the recipient already knows relevant information. This is another objection I have against purely computer based attacks - they ignore the function of a document as part of communication between a writer and an intended audience.
Just a dumb example, let's say that David Jackson makes a new thread with just the text "Go, 5, 8, 2". If you examine this with computer logic, all you can say is that, if it is in English, it's a form of the verb "to go", followed by three numbers. However it could be that for Anton and me, this message allows us to set in motion a complex sequence of operations based on our knowledge of the communications system.
So showing that the text could have been procedurally generated in a reasonable way is a valuable exercise, but it's hard to prove anything with it.
14-04-2017, 08:40 PM
(14-04-2017, 11:35 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.FOR: (the Montemurro argument, which is confirmed also by my own analysis): the text shows variations which are typical for different subject matter, and the variations coincide with the types of illustrations.
(The main problem with this analysis is that Montemurro et al do not mention at all the two types of text on the Herbal pages, which are more different than that between sections with different illustrations.)
The Montemurro argument is something I addressed. Although the text does indeed show variations which are typical of different subject matter, and the variations do coincide with the types of illustrations (except for the Currier B herbal pages), this can be achieved by making slight changes to the text generation process as the "author" proceeds through the manuscript.
Their observation was, if not actually evidence, at least a good argument for the text having meaning, but that argument is no longer valid as there's now an alternative explanation.
14-04-2017, 08:41 PM
Quote:"Meaning" I would define as the ability of the text to convey information.
No that's definitely not a good approach. "Meaning" should be tied to something human, i.e. meaning is always subjective.
It's exactly because of that difficulty with agreeing upon the meaning of "meaning" that I proposed to go the other way around and to discuss "meaninglessness" instead - by way of substituting "schematic" text generation for the notion of "meaninglessness". There is certainly a bit of sophistry in that, but actually that's what people mean. When they discuss the meaninglessness of the VMS, they effectively argue some procedure of text generation - like grilles (Rugg), auto-copying (Timm), or state transition probability tables (Fisk).
14-04-2017, 08:49 PM
Quote:Despite Davidsch' and Anton's remarks, I maintain that it is (unfortunately!) impossible to prove that the text is meaningless. All one can do is demonstrate that a hypothesized method of text generating is feasible.
This is effectively the same as to say that "it is impossible to prove that the text is meaningful. All one can do is to demonstrate that the text can be unambigously mapped to a certain plain text in some language. But the fact that such mapping fits may be purely accidental."
Ceteris paribus, if one demonstrates a method (of text generating), for me that would present a definite argument (I wonder why it won't for you). The problem is that noone has yet succeded in that, and for sure cannot succeed as long as existing transcriptions are used which simply do not address all peculiarities of the script.
14-04-2017, 08:54 PM
(14-04-2017, 08:41 PM)Anton Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Quote:"Meaning" I would define as the ability of the text to convey information.
No that's definitely not a good approach. "Meaning" should be tied to something human, i.e. meaning is always subjective.
It's exactly because of that difficulty with agreeing upon the meaning of "meaning" that I proposed to go the other way around and to discuss "meaninglessness" instead - by way of substituting "schematic" text generation for the notion of "meaninglessness". There is certainly a bit of sophistry in that, but actually that's what people mean. When they discuss the meaninglessness of the VMS, they effectively argue some procedure of text generation - like grilles (Rugg), auto-copying (Timm), or state transition probability tables (Fisk).
I don't think I agree, meaning should be defined positively.
Imagine a scenario where the VM is the 100th book this person has filled with gibberish language. It has become his second nature to make it look and feel like normal language and the words pour out as his pen flies across the vellum. Basically, the writer is already very well trained in writing Voynichese, and through the years it has become what it is now.
This would mean that the text is utterly meaningless, but no schemes or procedures have been used at all.
Hence, in our particular case I would define "having meaning" as follows: The VM text has meaning if an informed reader is able to extract information from the text as intended by the writer.
I add "as intended by the writer" because of course it is possible to assign meaning to things that don't have any - this is not the kind of meaning we have in mind.
With "the writer" I mean the person who last wrote the text knowing what it means. A copyist can pass on and multiply a text without knowing what it is, of course.