The Voynich Ninja

(19-11-2017, 06:18 PM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I would consider the possibility that the VMS might be a 16th-century forgery intended to look like a 15th -century or late-14th-century manuscript.

But a modern forgery? The person would have to have centuries-old materials, centuries-old knowledge, a year of free-time, AND would have be completely bonkers to include so many hundreds of minute and unnecessary details. Forgeries are created for some kind of gain (usually monetary). Those specific kinds of details not only are not profitable, because they are time-consuming, they aren't even the kind of thing that would pop into the head of a forger.


Take, for example, the tiny notches on the blue fan-wheel in the cosmo section. Not a detail found in other manuscripts and not the least bit necessary for a forgery to seem genuine, and definitely not the kind of detail that would appear necessary or even within the imagination of most forgers to include.

Or the great quantity of similar small-plant roots. You could cut the number of plants in that section by 40% and still pass it off as a genuine plant section. A forger wouldn't draw the root of the aquatic lily-like plant with every detail of the leaf scars or scales. That just wasn't done in the 15th century, and thus would be an unnecessary waste of time... unless it was by someone who knew and loved plants who really WANTED to record these fine points.


Maybe someone added blarney-text to drawings that were already there. It's posssible. I don't think it's what happened, but it's possible. Are the drawings forgeries? I think it's unlikely. Why would a forger choose the more rare depictions of Sagittarius and Scorpio? Wouldn't that attract suspicion, if you consider that it doesn't increase the value of the manuscript? Why would they drawn 30% more nymphs than would be needed to get the idea across? Why the anatomically incorrect animals? Why laboriously draw so many nymphs around the zodiac animals when half as many would do (or when sheer patterns would do since that's how it was frequently done in the middle ages)?

The VMS shows many signs of being a labor of love. Forgeries generally are not.

You bring up most of the common critiques of my Modern Forgery theory, and they are certainly valid ideas... because we don't know. But in short (rather than address them in detail), the materials were available; the ms. would not have taken so long; loving care and great detail has been put into other forgeries and replicas, anyway; and one could argue that the VMs is not all that carefully made in the first place.

And many of these points can be used for the converse, such as "Why the anatomically incorrect animals?", or "rare depictions" of the Zodiac, or whatever- well a genuine work can have them, but error, anomalies, are actually another red flag of forgery.

But your points, and mine, come down to a matter of opinion, speculation, after that... and so of course both views are valid possibilities, as are many others. Keep an open mind though, on your points... I used to hold them as strong, or stronger, than you do, until on examination, they are not deal breakers to forgery.

A few posts, touching on a few of your points:

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Hi all,

I haven't had time to read this thread in full, but occasionally I spotted some discussion regarding the mods team attitude, namely these posts:

Quote:I understood from the moderator team here that they tend to agree with the good rule of not dragging issues from forum X into forum Y (in this case here).

Quote:That sounds like a plea for censorship. I can imagine you do not find it convenient having hard questions following you around the 'net. I've avoided it for the most part, and only came here to set the record straight on my relationship and opinion of the Beinecke. But isolating unanswered questions to "forum X", and then not ever addressing them, or incorrectly answering them, on "forum Y" might be helpful to keeping people in the dark, but it does not help further the investigation.

Just to make things clear, the first statement (by Rene) is true, but when one speaks of "issues" here, that does mean that we don't welcome personal issues/tensions/conflicts/etc. being dragged here from other places. Very often, when people are enthusiastic about something (as we all are about the Voynich manuscript), their discussions, when in disagreement,  can sadly bring forth personal disputes. We try to keep the talk "personally neutral" here, but what occurs in other places is beyond our reasonable control. So we simply encourage the VN participants to (using poetic phrase) drop their personal tensions at the VN doors.

This does not mean, however, that we would like to practice some kind of "censorship" and prevent discussing Voynich-related issues here which have been discussed elsewhere. No such censorship is in place, we are "Voynich theory-invariant" and stand for impartial discussion reinforced with good argument. It's good when facts and arguments are discussed, and not matters of "Mr X vs Mr Y".

IMHO the stumbling stone is locatable in the term "forgery". Simply put, it isn't applicable. If we could settle for a new term.. all ears are shut though, when it comes to this point. No one ever want's to think about convoluted processes having been at work.

(19-11-2017, 08:14 PM)proto57 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.And many of these points can be used for the converse, such as "Why the anatomically incorrect animals?", or "rare depictions" of the Zodiac, or whatever- well a genuine work can have them, but error, anomalies, are actually another red flag of forgery.

They are anatomically incorrect, or unusually expressed, in very specific ways that would not come into the mind of a forger or benefit a forger in any way.

Absolutely no one draws two crayfish for Cancer and it would take longer for a forger to add the extraneous one, more time and energy and less profit. You will have a very hard time convincing me that this specific kind of addition is a flag of forgery, especially when some of these additions are thematically consistent with one another.


There are other examples, but this gives the basic idea of what I mean.

Voynichebombe... true about the term "forgery", it does not accurately describe the ms. as I see it, in my hypothesis... it is only one of the closest, most convenient terms to get the ideas of my hypothesis across. "Fake" might actually might be closer... because it does not "forge" anything just like it, anything that existed before. But hoax, fake, forgery, "homage", artwork... some parts of all those definitions would probably apply to what I think it is, as it seems to me to have elements of all of them. A mish-mash of sources, mixed with much invention and imagination, many inspirations, and possibly, different intended motivations for creation.

(20-11-2017, 09:21 AM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(19-11-2017, 08:14 PM)proto57 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.And many of these points can be used for the converse, such as "Why the anatomically incorrect animals?", or "rare depictions" of the Zodiac, or whatever- well a genuine work can have them, but error, anomalies, are actually another red flag of forgery.

They are anatomically incorrect, or unusually expressed, in very specific ways that would not come into the mind of a forger or benefit a forger in any way.

Absolutely no one draws two crayfish for Cancer and it would take longer for a forger to add the extraneous one, more time and energy and less profit. You will have a very hard time convincing me that this specific kind of addition is a flag of forgery, especially when some of these additions are thematically consistent with one another.


There are other examples, but this gives the basic idea of what I mean.

Well I'm not sure that there is any specific, definable, habit of a forger... the range of ability and invention, from perfect replica, through inspired modifications, to outright wild invention, are all apparent in that world. And if you include the world of artistic creations, "all bets are off", because certainly there has been nothing out of bounds in that genre. The Codex Seraphinianus is often cited in Voynich discussions... not a forgery, not a hoax, but an artistic creation.

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For one to say such imagination would not apply to any forgery, but only to art? One could, but I don't personally see any reason there can be a crossover, which is how I see the Voynich: A wild exercise, a highly imaginative artistic fake. It does not, in my opinion, have to be "all one or all another".

You may enjoy reading more about the world of fakes, and if you do, you will see many examples of very imaginative ones:

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The thing that one quickly learns is that there are no rules for forgery. Anything you can imagine has been tried, and for countless reasons (not just profit), and every technique, skill, method, have all bee a part of this world. There is really no way to define what would, and would not, be done in a fake, I mean.

The forgery hypothesis by Rich SantaColoma presents some valuable information and interesting ideas, but is probably mistaken in suggesting that the creation of the VMs is modern. The general perception of the VMs is that it was ostensibly created in the time period indicated by the Carbon-14 parchment tests or shortly afterwards. However the myriad difficulties stemming from subsequent uncertainties in the evaluation of content have been highly resistant to any substantive resolution, with only a very limited number of potential exceptions. Mr. SantaColoma has collected these difficulties from the VMs and compared them to the various traits found in forgeries and give examples of numerous correspondences. And as a result of these similarities, he has proposed that the VMs is a modern artifact created by or under the auspices of Wilfrid M. Voynich.
 
While the number of difficulties in the VMs clearly demonstrate the problematic nature of content interpretation in the standard paradigm, there is also some content that posses difficulties for the forgery paradigm. If it can be shown that the VMs contains material, such as the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. cosmos, which comes from a historical source, why is that source not acknowledged? If the purpose of the forgery is to create a connection to Roger Bacon, why was material placed in the text that would support that connection being ignored? How was a forgery created by persons who did not know the content of the material used to create the forgery?
 
So the ‘genuine and valid’ paradigm still predominates, but has these difficulties with interpretation. The ‘forgery’ paradigm offers some explanation for the problems, but it results in the elimination of any possibility that the VMs is genuine – and it probably lacks in written content as well. And if this is correct, it marks the end of VMs investigation. Is there no other alternative, some different paradigm?
 
Consider the ‘puzzle’ paradigm. The puzzle is established by the creation of a false façade. The VMs is a product of ideas and imagination, not the artifact of an unknown culture, though that is how it was made to appear. The VMs is not a normal expository text that is intended to inform the reader; that is the façade. The VMs is an inquisitory text, that asks the reader questions. It poses problems of interpretation. As such, it shares many of the qualities of a forgery, but it was created by a person who knew the historical and traditional details of certain medieval situations and put those details into the VMs in a clever and subtle way. Interpretational difficulties, such as ambiguity, which are anathema to clear exposition and the bane of forgery, are welcome in puzzle construction, the bread and butter, one might say. And the optical illusion of VMs White Aries is an undeniable example of intentional ambiguity, while the papelonny pun is an incontrovertible confirmation. The construction of the VMs cosmos is an intentional ambiguity created by a ‘necessary’ physical separation. Something was necessary to create ambiguity where there would otherwise be none.
 
It is the nature of the VMs to present puzzles where the problem of interpretation is based on the existence of ambiguity. It is also in the nature of puzzles to provide clues. The clue in the VMs cosmos is the nebuly line. But when there is no name for it, how can it be understood? It is the simplest and clearest form of a cloud band, and it confirms the three-part correspondence with the Oresme version. While the essential difference between the designs used in the cloud band is that one is plain (VMs) and one is fancy (Oresme). Not to mention the fancy version of a scallop-shell cloud band found in the VMs Central Rosette, which is a close match to the pattern in the Oresme image.
 
The clues to White Aries are numerous. Even in the most subjective interpretation, once the radial illusion is removed, paired, blue-striped, armorial insignia and a red galero exist in combination in only one historical situation. And the interpretation of an ambiguous illustration can only be resolved if the reader has knowledge of that specific situation and can recognize the presence of the figures in their proper hierarchical locations, along with other objective confirmations based on placement, not appearance. These confirmations are used to resolve the ambiguity that is the basis of the puzzle’s construction. It is the nature of a puzzle to provide clues that lead to answers. And in that sense, the answer will not be found by a lucky, single stroke, but rather at the end of a labyrinth with many chances to go wrong, some of which the author put in the VMs ambiguously on purpose, in order to create this puzzle, in order to divert the investigators, in order to hide the answers.

-JKP-

Could you explain a little more about 

Quote:Absolutely no one draws two crayfish for Cancer

I'm not quite sure if I understand what you mean here.  Is that  "nobody does that today", or "no-one (so far as you know) ever did in medieval Europe"?  Also when you speak of drawing did you mean to say that the practice might have occurred in other media?.  I suppose you wouldn't have meant that nobody ever did so, anywhere.  

Also, are you speaking from personal experience, or is that something I may have missed in Dekker or in Dolan etc.?

If I quote you, I'd like not to misinterpret. Thanks

.

(07-12-2017, 04:59 AM)about Diane Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.-JKP-

Could you explain a little more about 

Quote:Absolutely no one draws two crayfish for Cancer

I'm not quite sure if I understand what you mean here.  Is that  "nobody does that today", or "no-one (so far as you know) ever did in medieval Europe"?  Also when you speak of drawing did you mean to say that the practice might have occurred in other media?.  I suppose you wouldn't have meant that nobody ever did so, anywhere.  

Also, are you speaking from personal experience, or is that something I may have missed in Dekker or in Dolan etc.?

If I quote you, I'd like not to misinterpret. Thanks

.

I have collected more than 500 historic zodiac cycles (c. 1520 and earlier). I searched from the beginning of zodiac history until approx. 1520, from what is available on the Web, but I concentrated on those from about 1460 and earlier.

I searched every kind of medium: urns, mosaics, manuscripts, architecture, coins, talismans, jewelry, etc.


There are a few examples of double crabs representing Cancer (as distinct from the crayfish/lobster image) in both western and eastern manuscripts because the ones that lean more toward astronomy than astrology sometimes represent the constellations from both viewpoints (mirrored), but when they do, they do not single out Cancer (as occurs in the VMS)—the duplication was applied to most or all of the constellations, and the image was typically a crab, not a crayfish. I consider this different from the VMS in which the crayfish is singled out for duplication and is not in a series in which all the constellations are astronomically mirrored.


I don't know who Dekker or Dolan are. I found the zodiacs in primary sources. I didn't look for zodiacs in books about astrology unless they were historic books. Later zodiacs are pretty much standardized and not very interesting and have no bearing on the VMS.


I also assumed, when I made the statement above, that forum readers are intelligent enough to know that I mean "in resources found so far". There are hundreds of thousands of manuscripts that haven't been digitized yet. Perhaps there is a very rare example of a solitary double-crayfish Cancer symbol in an otherwise not-mirrored zodiac series somewhere in that vast storehouse that is not yet publicly available.


Also, the context of my statement is on a thread about whether the VMS is a fraud and I used the double crayfish as an example. This is not specifically a thread about constellations/zodiacs/astrology and thus my statement should be framed within that context.

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.(c.1455) shows a double crayfish (no line between them) in its calendar.