I think something like auto-copying cannot be proven, and it can only be proven wrong if someone ever manages to "read" the text in a convincing way. So at the moment I must say that it could be right, So to be completely honest, my objections against it are more based on feeling than on evidence, since the evidence does not allow us to push either solution.
A main objection is that it would just be an awful lot of work for nothing. People just don't do this. For a similar reason it cannot be a complex cipher either because it is already the largest known historical "ciphertext" by far.
Anyway, to get back to the topic of natural language, I'm still a bit confused about that term. When people say "it can't be natural language", don't they rather mean "it can't be language that is written in a known, natural way"?
(29-05-2017, 09:28 PM)Torsten Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (27-05-2017, 06:38 PM)Emma May Smith Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (26-05-2017, 05:22 PM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Here is the statement:
"Cryptologists say the writing has all the characteristics of a real language."
Is that really true? Is that the general consensus among cryptologists? Is there a general consensus among cryptologists?
I'm very keen on the possibility that the Voynich text is ultimately a natural language or something very similar, and I wouldn't quite agree with this statement (not that I'm a cryptologist either).
This is what Cryptologists say about the Voynich manuscript:
Good word, I try to be humble about my own position and you give me chapter and verse! Maybe I should simply defend my research position unstintingly, fail to respond to genuine problems, and continue hammering on with the same beliefs year after year?
(29-05-2017, 10:17 PM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I think something like auto-copying cannot be proven, and it can only be proven wrong if someone ever manages to "read" the text in a convincing way. So at the moment I must say that it could be right, So to be completely honest, my objections against it are more based on feeling than on evidence, since the evidence does not allow us to push either solution.
A main objection is that it would just be an awful lot of work for nothing. People just don't do this. For a similar reason it cannot be a complex cipher either because it is already the largest known historical "ciphertext" by far.
Anyway, to get back to the topic of natural language, I'm still a bit confused about that term. When people say "it can't be natural language", don't they rather mean "it can't be language that is written in a known, natural way"?
I argue that the auto-copying method is enough to explain the features of the Voynich manuscript. It is indeed impossible to prove that something is meaningless. For instance we both could agree that someday I will send you an unreadable message and that this message mean something if it starts with the word ‘fachys’ and something else if it starts with the word ‘kchsy’. In this case the two words would mean something to you even if you cant read the text itself. It is also possible to use for instance the Bacon cipher to hide a message within a meaningless text (see You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). Therefore it is for sure impossible to prove that the Voynich manuscript is meaningless. My point is that t[font=Verdana][font=Verdana]he [font=Verdana]auto-[/font][font=Verdana]copying method is only efficient in generating a meaningless text. There is no advantage in using an auto-copyied text for hiding a message in it.[/font][/font][/font]
It was not work for nothing. Marci wrote in his letter that
Rudolf II spent 600 ducats on that book. [font=Verdana]If the intention of the scribe was to write a book to sell it to Rudolf he needed an efficient method to fill the book with some text. In this case the auto-copying method was a intuitive method since it is far easier to copy something then to invent something new. [/font]
[font=Verdana]The term natural language is used to distinguish between a You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and a You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..[/font]
(29-05-2017, 11:23 PM)Emma May Smith Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Quote:Torsten
(27-05-2017, 06:38 PM)Emma May Smith Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (26-05-2017, 05:22 PM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Here is the statement:
"Cryptologists say the writing has all the characteristics of a real language."
Is that really true? Is that the general consensus among cryptologists? Is there a general consensus among cryptologists?
I'm very keen on the possibility that the Voynich text is ultimately a natural language or something very similar, and I wouldn't quite agree with this statement (not that I'm a cryptologist either).
This is what Cryptologists say about the Voynich manuscript:
Good word, I try to be humble about my own position and you give me chapter and verse! Maybe I should simply defend my research position unstintingly, fail to respond to genuine problems, and continue hammering on with the same beliefs year after year?
There is no contradiction between your statement and what I say here. My post was in first place a response to JKPs question "Is that the general consensus among cryptologists?"
In my eyes it doesn't matter if you are a cryptologist or not. The deciphering of undeciphered scripts is so special that nobody is a specialist to this subject. For instance Stephen Chrisomalis is a linguist and his post is also interesting: You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view. It is a response to a You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view. of two physicists about the Voynich Manuscript (see You are not allowed to view links.
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(29-05-2017, 09:28 PM)Torsten Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.This is what Cryptologists say about the Voynich manuscript:
"Languages simply do not behave in this way." [...]
Sorry Torsten, but that is not right.
One cannot take the words of Friedman, Tiltman, et al. and interpret them as saying something that they did not mean.
The essence of what each of them was saying is that a reasonably simple cipher is not going to work in decrypting the Voynich MS, for the various reasons that they presented: it will not result in a text with language-like behaviour.
Friedman settled on the possibility that it was some constructed language, so his opinion is definitely language.
Tiltman declared that he considered some more complicated form of a cipher, not that it's meaningless.
Their conclusions further justify the words in the video.
The better known argument in favour of meaningful contents is the Montemurro and Zanette paper, as I already mentioned before, which made the press some years ago.
Note that I don't agree with their conclusions. That is: I don't think that the conclusion is justified by the analysis.
I guess "real language" would encompass both natural and synthetic/constructed languages.
I think when I heard it on the video, my brain interpreted "real language" as referring to natural language because the video was aimed at a general audience and general audiences have different ways of interpreting words than a specialized audience. For example, words like "force", "normal", "threads", and "pointers" are often understood differently by a general audience than they are by a physicist, mathematician, or programmer.
(30-05-2017, 05:32 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (29-05-2017, 09:28 PM)Torsten Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.This is what Cryptologists say about the Voynich manuscript:
"Languages simply do not behave in this way." [...]
Sorry Torsten, but that is not right.
One cannot take the words of Friedman, Tiltman, et al. and interpret them as saying something that they did not mean.
The essence of what each of them was saying is that a reasonably simple cipher is not going to work in decrypting the Voynich MS, for the various reasons that they presented: it will not result in a text with language-like behaviour.
Friedman settled on the possibility that it was some constructed language, so his opinion is definitely language.
Tiltman declared that he considered some more complicated form of a cipher, not that it's meaningless.
Their conclusions further justify the words in the video.
The better known argument in favour of meaningful contents is the Montemurro and Zanette paper, as I already mentioned before, which made the press some years ago.
Note that I don't agree with their conclusions. That is: I don't think that the conclusion is justified by the analysis.
Rene you cannot take one sentence of my post and argue against something I didn't say! The word meaningless or the name Friedman is not even part of my post!
The question was, has the text all the characteristics of a real language. Tiltman and D'Imperio give clear examples why they mean that the words in the text didn't behave like words in a natural language. See for instance sentences like "I am not aware of any long repetitions of more than 2 or 3 words in succession, as might be expected" or "lack for parallel context surrounding different occurrences of the same word". They clearly mean that the words doesn't behave as expected in natural language. It is also correct that they assume a system different from natural language for the Voynich manuscript. It is obvious that it is necessary to explain all the regularities found in the text of the VMS. Therefore it is no surprise that they search for an explanation for the regularities found. But they are still searching for an answer.
In the end I sum it up and give some reasons why the words in the manuscript "doesn't behave like words in a natural language" and say "If you assume that the text contains meaning the question is what a group of symbols can stand for?"
The question is what is the system behind the text of the VMS. Why it is possible to describe all the regularities for the manuscript? Why is the combination-space for the glyph groups restricted? Why did the glyph groups co-occur with similar groups in a given context?
The findings described by Montemurro and Zanette paper didn't allow their conclusions. This was for instance criticized by Stephen Chrisomalis: "So in essence, Montemurro and Zanette seem to be suggesting that the VM has properties similar to no writing system ever known to have been used on earth, because they do not seem to know what sorts of writing systems they are comparing things to." (You are not allowed to view links.
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Montemurro and Zanette did analyze the text as a whole. They use words that "are both highly frequent and have a strongly non-uniform distribution over the different 'thematic' sections". Only for this words they came to the conclusion that "Words that are related by their semantic contents tend to co-occur along the text" (Montemurro). Currier has described the same pattern as evidence for a language A and B. "The characteristics of 'languages' A and B are obviously statistical. Suffice it to say, the differences are obvious and statistically significant. There are two different series of agglomerations of symbols or letters, so that there are in fact two statistically distinguishable 'languages.'" This means that the very same pattern is used by Currier to show that there must be at least two 'language' systems and by Montemurro and Zanette that there is a language system! But if there are at least two distinguishable 'languages' the words are maybe related to there 'language' and not to their semantic contents. Since the text of the manuscript is not homogeneous it is necessary to take this into account while comparing the text with something else. Montemurro and Zanette are failing to do so.
Moreover Montemurro and Zanette use the same pattern to demonstrate "links between the thematic sections of the text according to their common words". This way they link all sections of the manuscript together. Unfortunately they are not aware of the work of Currier. Therefore they didn't notice that the whole characteristic of the text is changing and that they link this way two distinguishable 'languages' together. Therefore they didn't investigate why the text is changing his characteristics in this way. Normally languages didn't change over time. Therefore Montemurro and Zanette have found in fact evidence that the manuscript is not compatible with natural language.
The problem with many of these discussions is that they are full of pitfalls that come from:
- unstated assumptions that are of key importance
- papers drawing conclusions that are not justified by the data
- rebuttals of papers or theories that are as invalid as the work they are criticising (including some typical logical fallacies)
- so much has been written about the MS text that one may selectively find support for any theory (cite Rugg or cite Montemurro as one prefers).
In what Crisomalis writes I see some valid points and some invalid points. The fact that he considers Rugg's theory plausible is not a good point either.
While there have been years of discussion whether the Voynich MS is cipher or language, it is always overlooked that the two are not contradictory. If it's a cipher, there is a language. Using invented characters to write a language
is a cipher (simple substitution).
The alternative to language (for me) is: 'meaningless'.
I could go on, but this is already way off the original topic
The 'lack of repeating sequences' has been named many times as evidence that there is not a meaningful text.
This is, for me, the most badly treated topic in all Voynich MS text analyses.
Critical numerical comparisons are not to be found. There was at least some of that here in this forum, and of course it is not easy.
(30-05-2017, 10:09 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The 'lack of repeating sequences' has been named many times as evidence that there is not a meaningful text.
This is, for me, the most badly treated topic in all Voynich MS text analyses.
Critical numerical comparisons are not to be found. There was at least some of that here in this forum, and of course it is not easy.
In the Voynich MS repeated phrases didn't exist. The repeated sequences found mostly contain only two or three words, mostly at least two of this words are same or very similar and last but not least the words also occur in different word order (You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view. p. 3). For natural languages you would expect word classes which are normally used together. For instance you have used the word "The" in a special grammatical way since you have used it before a noun like in "The fact" or "The alternative". You have also used phrases like "at least", "some of that" and "many times". This is what D'Imperio means by "the strange lack for parallel context surrounding different occurrences of the same word" or Tiltmann with his statement "I am not aware of any long repetitions of more than 2 or 3 words in succession". Even if someone didn't know the writing system he would be able to analyze such repetitions. Grammar is one of the key features of any natural language. Therefore Tiltman and D'Imperio describe it as strange that repeated phrases or words used the same way in similar context are missing for the VMS.
Normally such repeated phrases are the first clue to understand the system behind a script. See for instance You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view.. Here it was the repeated phrase "name A, great king, king of kings, son of name B, king of kings" that allowed the decipherment of that script.
Another example are my theses about the Phaistos disc (see You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view.). Even for a text with only 61 words in an unknown language using an unknown script it is possible to identify a "sentence structure with three to five words" and to discuss what words stand for subject, verb and object. This rises the question why something possible for a text with only 61 words is not possible for a whole book with 37 000 words?
It appears that Rene and Torsten are arguing past each other a bit here. I think Torsten is saying that the VMS cannot be directly representing a language (i.e. a "simple substitution cipher"). I don't think Rene disagrees with this.
The real point of contention is, could there be a more complex cipher system that would explain the strange co-occurrence patterns found by Torsten in the VMS? I lean towards "no" and think it is more likely at this point that the VMS text is truly auto-copied gibberish, but in theory I could imagine ciphering systems that would give rise to and/or allow the strong self-similarity autocopy-like properties of the text.
However, the only sort of ciphering system capable of this that I can think of would be some sort of verbose cipher.
For example, we know that there is a "curve/line" system in the VMS thanks to Brian Cham. Just to pick this oddity out as a far-fetched example, what if this curve/line system was cryptographically significant? To imagine a very anachronistic example (for the sake of simplicity), imagine that each curve-character stood for a dot, and each line-character stood for a dash, and VMS vords thus spelled out Morse-code letters, with gallows characters and other oddballs being nulls to throw off deciphering attempts. In this one weird case, one could easily imagine the following thought process from the point of view of the encipherer:
1. I need to encode 5 curves in a vord. I randomly write "chedy" which fulfills my need (I could have chosen many other possibilities such as "dyeeko" or "toodoo")
2. For my next vord, I need to encode 4 curves. I could either come up with an entirely new random vord (such as, "Feoyd") or I could be lazy and just tweak an existing vord. I look over and see "chedy," so I just write "okedy" next.
3. For the rest of the VMS, I continue to be extremely lazy and never explore the rest of the vast combinatorial possibility space of Voynich characters ("deedo," "tollokedo," "forger," "rookeed" etc. would all work just fine) and instead I just make new vords from existing vords, leading to "qokedy," qokeedy," and all the rest.
Or, consider a giant lookup table (GLUT) idea:
1. The encipherer starts with a random vord (that just happens to be something like chedy).
2. The encipherer, being extremely lazy, just lists a bunch of ways that chedy can be tweaked: okedy, qokedy, qokeedy, etc.
3. The encipherer numbers these tweaks starting from 1, 2, 3, 4....etc.
4. The encipherer then using a book like the Bible and matches vord no. 1 (chedy) with the first letter in the Bible, vord no. 2 (okedy) with the second letter in the Bible, and so on.
Now, my lack of imagination isn't conclusive proof that a non-verbose cipher is incompatible with the autocopying of the VMS. In principle, there could be some non-verbose cipher that is able to work even though the vords of the VMS were lazily autocopied. But I just find it unlikely that there would be enough degrees of freedom in the non-verbose cipher to allow it to still work despite the lazy autocopying. In any case, it's impossible to prove a negative. So I'm happy to tentatively conclude that I find it very unlikely that the VMS is a non-verbose cipher. And as for verbose cipher with intended meaning vs. gibberish, I give gibberish the benefit of the doubt at this point, although my mind is still open to possibilities of verbose ciphers that would be compatible with the autocopying and provenance of the VMS.