The Voynich Ninja

Perhaps yet another short summary:

Torsten's input is something that is like a correlation: similar words tend to appear near each other.

This correlation is converted into a causality: this happens because the writer took previous words, modified them a bit and wrote them down again.

One cannot go from correlation to causality without extra data/information.

The only extra data/information presented is the output of Torsten's App. We don't know what it does exactly.

On top of that, it has been demonstrated that a simple method of converting a meaningful text to unreadable text can have exactly the same property as seen in the MS. This shows that the conclusion that the text is meaningless is not a valid conclusion.

(15-09-2020, 05:58 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.On top of that, it has been demonstrated that a simple method of converting a meaningful text to unreadable text can have exactly the same property as seen in the MS. This shows that the conclusion that the text is meaningless is not a valid conclusion.

Is this process reversible?

(15-09-2020, 08:08 AM)Stephen Carlson Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(15-09-2020, 05:58 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.On top of that, it has been demonstrated that a simple method of converting a meaningful text to unreadable text can have exactly the same property as seen in the MS. This shows that the conclusion that the text is meaningless is not a valid conclusion.

Is this process reversible?

Yes.
It is a word-by-word translation of the original text, so basically one would have a dictionary that can be used in both directions.

I am not trying to argue that this is how it was done.
This method suffers from some of the same problems as the auto-copy theory, for example all the aspects of the 'Line as a functional unit' observation of Currier.

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(15-09-2020, 09:44 AM)Torsten Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Actually I say that there is a relation between word similarity and context AND ALSO that there is a relation between word similarity and word frequency. This means that it is possible to demonstrate "a deep correlation between frequency, similarity, and spatial vicinity of tokens within the VMS text" (Timm & Schinner 2020, p. 3). This means that similar words depend on each other. (Timm 2015, p. 14).

I don't know what is a "deep correlation". However, it is not demonstrated that similar words depend on each other. They may be found near each other. To some extent. It is another leap from correlation to causality that I consider unproven.

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This is getting too heated and too personal.

I am not denying observations. I am critical of the conclusions drawn from them.

That is not something specific to this hypothesis, but is general to all hypotheses that I have been confronted with.

@Torsten,

just a small question regarding this:

"when we look at the three most frequent words on each page, for more than half of the pages two of three will differ in only one detail" (Timm & Schinner 2020, p.3)

Perhaps i have made an error but i think the question is valid. When the frequency counts are equal , how are the top 3 then decided ?

for instance for You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. i get a Top5 of : [('sho', 5), ('daiin', 4), ('chor', 2), ('sheo', 2), ('shody', 2)]

i ordered 'chor', 'sheo, 'shody' alphabetically as a secondary sort when frequencies were equal.

We do not know the alphabetic order of the VMS text

so here 'chor' is in the top 3 but 'sheo' also has the same fequency and if i use that i.e'sheo' as the 3rd word then sho and sheo have a levenshtein of 1 and then this folio matches the 2/3 words.

What did you use for a secondary sort ? and why ?

It's only a small methodological issue and really changes very little in the overarching scheme, I was just curious.

Thanks.

Torsten, I have a sincere question for you: Is there any colleague of yours, whether a co-author or some other colleague, who agrees with your papers and your conclusions, who could possibly join this forum and help explain your arguments and conclusions, and answer the questions and comments that other participants have about your work?

I can see that there may be some validity to many of your observations, points, and arguments. That is not the same thing as agreeing that your papers and all their conclusions are necessarily 100% correct. But frankly it is difficult to work one's way through understanding all of your points and arguments, when almost every paragraph you write on this forum begins with "René Zandbergen didn't respond to the argument", "René Zandbergen denies the observation / conclusion", "René Zandbergen argues this way", etc. (If we just took your posts here and coded a cipher with "denies" = daiin, "Rene" = okain, "argued" = olchedy, etc., we could probably get some very Voynich-like statistics.)

Perhaps a different person, or just a second person, explaining the ideas behind your arguments and conclusions, perhaps in a different style and in a different way, could be helpful to the progress of this discussion on this forum? A more user-friendly approach from another angle might be able to help some of us see some of your points more clearly that way. Just a thought and a suggestion.

(15-09-2020, 05:16 PM)RobGea Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view."when we look at the three most frequent words on each page, for more than half of the pages two of three will differ in only one detail" (Timm & Schinner 2020, p.3)

Perhaps i have made an error but i think the question is valid. When the frequency counts are equal , how are the top 3 then decided ?

In such a case I have chosen a word that is similar. 

This is the list I had used to count the words: