The Voynich Ninja

(28-02-2019, 06:09 PM)Morten St. George Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Your task would be to convince the Beinecke Library (I do not get on well with them) to send her a tiny scraping for testing.


Deal?

Hi Morten St George,

It seems to me that JKP, who has been engaging with the various iterations of your theory for 50 (!!!) pages on this thread, has read your material, and addressed the issues with it point by point.

On the other hand, it is obvious that you haven't bothered to find out what your interlocutor actually has written about the Voynich on his blog, and this cannot lead to a fruitful discussion.

So... before you go about bothering "the protein lady" about unpaid work on hypothetical samples:

Your task is to reciprocate JKP's efforts by actually reading the many posts on JKP's blog.
Yes reading them, not just scanning through one post to copy/paste a picture.
Yes, this may take some time, but I'm sure it will lead to  a better quality discussion in the future.

Does that seem fair?

(28-02-2019, 11:57 PM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Morten, this is BS. You are putting words in my mouth that I have never spoken.

I'm elated to find out that I was wrong about you and that you are open to a wider range of possibilities. My marginalia theory does not require an American origin for the VMS so, though I argue against a purely European history for the VMS, I do not rule out such a possibility.

On the astrology pages, while you were studying the zodiac symbols, I was busy looking at the circles of people surrounding those symbols. On a couple of them I saw equal numbers of men and women conducting a religious or administrative meeting. If today you were to see an equal number of men and women in a business meeting, what country would you rule out for the location of that meeting? Answer: Saudi Arabia. In medieval times, regions under Catholic control were the Saudi Arabia of Europe. Under Catholicism, women had abysmal status and were often burned as witches. Only in a heretic sect called Catharism, which effectively became extinct in the 13th century, did men and women have equal rights.

On the Rosettes folio, we see the depiction of a mountaintop fortress that no one has been able to identify. A famous mountaintop fortress that was completely dismantled (not even the ruins were allowed to remain) was Montségur, the last stronghold of the Cathars. Meanwhile, in the swamps section, we see a Cathar baptismal ceremony and a gal holding a medieval instrument that was used to scrape clean the furry side of animal hides. The Cathars reportedly taught reading, writing, and parchment-making to their converts.

This is only the beginning of the evidence that causes me to dispute Wikipedia's claim (made in the second sentence of its VMS article) that "it may have been composed in Northern Italy during the Italian Renaissance." You do not need to be an art expert to surmise that the VMS does not display artwork in the style of Da Vinci and Michelangelo.

JP, in return, please feel free to lay out some of your principal arguments for me to consider.

(01-03-2019, 01:08 AM)VViews Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Your task is to reciprocate JKP's efforts by actually reading the many posts on JKP's blog. 
Yes reading them, not just scanning through one post to copy/paste a picture.
Yes, this may take some time, but I'm sure it will lead to  a better quality discussion in the future.

Does that seem fair?

Yes, VViews, and that is exactly what I want to do, not just JP's blog, other blogs as well now that I have been made aware of the blogosphere reader. Time is a problem, but little by little I'll find the time.

(01-03-2019, 01:08 AM)VViews Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.On the other hand, it is obvious that you haven't bothered to find out what your interlocutor actually has written about the Voynich on his blog, and this cannot lead to a fruitful discussion.

VViews,

Before getting a chance to visit JP's blog, I clicked on a link at the bottom of your post and was taken to a web page called "The Purse of the Voynich?", where I saw a version of this drawing:



It looks pretty obvious to me that this gal is holding an animal hide in her left hand so I don't know why it was claimed to be a purse, which, I believe, is a handbag often carried by women.

Note that the "purse" has red coloring, the color of a carcass as seen here:



Note that the "purse" has spots, just like a spotted jaguar as seen here:



Actually, this jaguar, like the hybrid mermaid above, is a hybrid jaguar with alligator head, but the "purse" is only the jaguar. Note that gal has her right hand raised in a sign of triumph over the predator animal: Got ya!

The gal holding the hide is standing in a bucket of blue water, signaling pure rainwater used for cleaning as seen here:



A critical step in making parchment (or clothing) is to extensively wash the hide in clean water.

Note also that the gals were well-trained in preparing animal hides:



The gal on the right has just been taught how to clean animal hides and she is dreaming of making herself a skirt.

The medieval instrument she is holding in her right hand was used to clean animal hides. She is holding it in the middle but to use it they would grab each handle at the ends and use the curved blade to scrape the hide.

I think it is an open and shut case: the "purse" is an animal hide. Moreover, there were no stores in the Louisiana swamps and hence no place for these gals to go shopping. They didn't even need clothing, then why a purse?

Morten, there are some very intelligent, well-informed people in the Voynich community who have some very good ideas for what some of those objects are and they are NOT the same interpretations that you have.

In other words, YOU HAVE NO PROOF. You have opinions, and opinions have to be backed up with evidence.


What you call an animal hide might be three spindles, two with red wool, one with white.  There are other spindles in the VMS, so it would not be out of character.

It might also be something completely different from animal hide or spindles, as suggested by other researchers, ideas like purses, bags, medical paraphernalia, etc., are just as valid as yours.


There's also no proof that these are Louisiana swamps. Even if it's a swamp, there are swamps everywhere.

But what if she killed the jaguar hybrid to make it into a purse?

(01-03-2019, 08:26 AM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
It might also be something completely different from animal hide or spindles, as suggested by other researchers, ideas like purses, bags, medical paraphernalia, etc., are just as valid as yours.

I've presented evidence for the animal hide, all drawn from nearby pages in the VMS, to be evaluated by anyone or everyone on its own merits. The evidence I saw for a purse did not convince me.

(01-03-2019, 08:26 AM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.There's also no proof that these are Louisiana swamps. Even if it's a swamp, there are swamps everywhere.

Yes, you're right. Those swamps could have been located anywhere around the Gulf of Mexico or nearby where spotted jaguars roamed.

(01-03-2019, 10:11 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.But what if she killed the jaguar hybrid to make it into a purse?

No, not a purse. She wanted to make a skirt as shown in the illustration I posted.

(28-02-2019, 10:58 AM)Morten St. George Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It was very clever of you to have figured out that Shakespeare wrote the VMS marginalia.

Why do you characterize this as my achievement when I was attempting to outline your theory? Is this a belief of yours or not? It is not mine.

Quote:

(28-02-2019, 06:44 AM)Linda Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.You cherry picked that image specifically for its preposterousness, to provoke JKP.  A wolf in bison skin. Disappointing. 

Even in friendly debate, you point out weaknesses in your opponent's arguments. I wouldn't read more into it than that.

In pointing out the first millennium Sagittarius, you pointed to the weakness in your own argument, since its style is nothing like that in the vms, and that was the point of discussion. Even if it was a progenitor of others, or one in a line thereof, the likeness of the vms version with its suspected copies would be with the style of those that followed, not with that one. I think you probably know that.

Your 6th century versus 7th century comment to JKP also seems to have been meant to cause dissonance. Unless i am mistaken, JKP places it a few centuries after the fall of Rome, and does not say which century specifically. You had placed its timing as 6th century in a comment to me, projected this idea onto JKP,  then questioned it of him, in what i can only determine as a means to create dissonic stress. 

There have been various other times when you have done similar things, like the above Shakespeare theory attribution, which you repeat subsequently. 

Pointing out weaknesses in theories is fine. Creating weaknesses in theories projected onto your opponent to defend, that do not actually exist, is another matter. 

Quote:

(28-02-2019, 06:44 AM)Linda Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.And yet JKP is still trying to help you to see, despite all.

Yes, and I admire JP for continuing to post in this thread even though I so strongly disagree with many of his beliefs.

It is up to him as to whether to continue, as it is with each of us.

(28-02-2019, 03:19 AM)Morten St. George Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.What is important here is that a move away from the Centaur (a mythological creature that, unlike other zodiac signs, represents nothing real in the real world) has already occurred in the sixth century, so it could have easily occurred again in the 13th century. It did not have to wait until the 15th century to reappear.

It seems that this discussion has suddenly degenerated from lively debate to ad hominem attacks, so it is time for me to take a break. It is now up to the Russians (who, according to Alexa.com, visit voynich.ninja in large numbers) to decode the VMS and tell us when and where it originated.

That something occurred at two times in history is no proof of that thing occurring in the intermediate time period, nor does it account for its 15th century style. You seem to be attempting to create a precursor out of thin air to fit your theory. There could have been one like it, so there was?

What kind of statement is the one about the Russians?