(20-09-2019, 11:35 AM)Anton Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Personal safety is a good motivator
Yes, but the proof is in the pudding - you make enemies by having more clients, not because you have a bunch of personal recipes.
As bi3mw says, you might encrypt the secret recipe bit, but not the whole book.
But anyway, I think we can discard the notion that this is any sort of medieval workable cipher.
(20-09-2019, 10:40 AM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Perhaps it was because they knew Latin so well that it looked strange to them (despite the commonalities in glyphs). They couldn't read it.
To me it looks like real effort was put into designing the VMS script. I don't mean just the glyphs, mainly I mean the way the whole thing was put together. When you really study it, there is just enough complexity and variation from line to line and folio to folio to suggest there is SOMETHING there (what that something is, I don't know).
Personally, I don't think it is a cipher in the more common medieval sense.
Monica's take on it is that it's a Romanized alphabet, which is not a cipher.
I think it was written in a Semitic type language that is no longer in use. I was working with a gentleman from Israel who would mirror the page and be able to read some words, like 'sl' for basket, but he had a hard time in current Hebrew understanding other words, because they are no longer in use today like the word 'pz' for gold. It utilized some very old Hebrew script before the standard block lettering became more prominent, and used 'o' for Ayin, like the old paleo Hebrew. The elongated letters are for sound and how the word should be pronounced. In Hebrew the same letters can have different meaning based on its pronunciation, the 'g' at the end of most words is like a glottal stop.
(20-09-2019, 11:48 AM)davidjackson Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (20-09-2019, 11:35 AM)Anton Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Personal safety is a good motivator
Yes, but the proof is in the pudding - you make enemies by having more clients, not because you have a bunch of personal recipes.
As bi3mw says, you might encrypt the secret recipe bit, but not the whole book.
If your enemies grasp your recipes after you're down with, then at least they will not profit by it.
I'm inclined to consider the VMS not as a book in general, but as a personal conspectus. Handbook - that's probably the word. Might be very well encrypted. Many of us make use of file encryption when storing sensitive information. Why would not a medieval person follow that same concept?
(20-09-2019, 12:49 PM)Anton Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Many of us make use of file encryption when storing sensitive information. Why would not a medieval person follow that same concept?
File encryption is easy and automated. Plus, we are all reminded on a daily basis of the dangers of information security.
Encoding folio after folio in an unbreakable code 600 years ago neither fits in with real needs, nor mindset, nor physical capabilities.
René linked to a manuscript of medical recipes (in Latin) that was written entirely in a substitution cipher.
(20-09-2019, 11:20 AM)bi3mw Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Why write a whole manuscript pretending to be something it is not? With regard to most of the illustrations, one could assume at first glance that the content contains little that would have to be kept secret. Unless, for example, it is a manuscript for the production of Theriac or something like that (secret herbal ingredients, secret manufacturing process, recipes). In any case, the encryption of such a large amount of text requires a high degree of motivation. The vanity of the author(s) would certainly have been satisfied with a few lines.
(20-09-2019, 01:36 PM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.René linked to a manuscript of medical recipes (in Latin) that was written entirely in a substitution cipher.
And let's not forget Giovanni Fontana. Why did he write his manuscript in cipher?
The impression I have of Fontana is he was showcasing his skills.
(20-09-2019, 01:50 PM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The impression I have of Fontana is he was showcasing his skills.
Maybe the author of the Voynich was doing the same thing.
Often motivations in life are complicated. There can be a mixture of different motivations. The reason that one person does one thing may be difficult for another person to understand. An individual may not even understand their own motivations.
There are a lot of things that people did in the past that seem very odd and hard to understand from a modern perspective. To reiterate I think it is mistaken to view motives as purely rational and functional. Why do we post on this forum?
(20-09-2019, 02:16 PM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view....
Often motivations in life are complicated. There can be a mixture of different motivations. The reason that one person does one thing may be difficult for another person to understand. An individual may not even understand their own motivations.
...
Yes, I agree on both counts.
Just a general remark about Fontana: His writings, which are not in normal script, are not ciphres in the real sense, they are inventrd symbols and seem not to have been intended as a 'secret'. That is one of the reasons I think the B. 408 author knew Fontana