The Voynich Ninja

When thinking about very specific details it is always difficult to ask oneself if one is in danger of reading too much into a minor detail. I suppose my approach is that when drawing there was something going on in the author's brain and so specific details must be based on something specific in the author's memory or imagination. Details aren't drawn differently and distinctly for no reason. It would have been easier, mentally speaking, to have drawn both loops/rings the same and omitted the two dots, so it required a conscious decision not to do so. Depending on how one's mind works the author was probably basing his drawings on an image or images in his mind, it seems to me, and inevitably to some extent those images much have been influenced by things he had seen before. The point I am making with this is that I don't believe that these kind differences in details were random, there must have been a reason and basis for these differences and so I question whether we can justify overlooking so many of the specific details.

Something I try to keep in mind when I look at medieval drawings is that pattern was very prevalent at the time. Everything was hand-crafted and artisans were often creative.

So, sometimes a row of columns on a building or in a manuscript will be designed so that each column has a different pattern, even though all the columns have the same function.

In the VMS, I tend to assume different patterns might have different meanings (just in case they do), but I am not certain this is true.

(06-11-2019, 07:41 AM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Something I try to keep in mind when I look at medieval drawings is that pattern was very prevalent at the time. Everything was hand-crafted and artisans were often creative.

So, sometimes a row of columns on a building or in a manuscript will be designed so that each column has a different pattern, even though all the columns have the same function.

In the VMS, I tend to assume different patterns might have different meanings (just in case they do), but I am not certain this is true.

Yes, I am inclined to the view that some of the patterns that we see in the Voynich are just decorations and no more than that. For example, as I may discuss more elsewhere, I think the asterisks * that we see all over the 9 Rosette page, not only in the central rosette, are not stars as has been suggested, but merely decorations. I am inclined to the view that the 3 different patterns that we see on the left, right and bottom "rays" are most likely just decorations, but I want to be open to the possibility that they may not be. When it comes to the rings/loops I find it hard to believe, especially in the case of the two dots, that the author did not have something in his/her mind given the specificity, these are not just simple geometric design patterns.

Mark Knowles Wrote:Yes, I am inclined to the view that some of the patterns that we see in the Voynich are just decorations and no more than that. For example, as I may discuss more elsewhere, I think the asterisks * that we see all over the 9 Rosette page, not only in the central rosette, are not stars as has been suggested, but merely decorations

My reaction, the first time I saw the rosettes folio, was that the "star" shapes in the upper-right rotum might be symbols for plants/bushes. I looked into the shapes that were used in medieval gardens to see how often spiral shapes were used (they did exist, but not often). I also looked at a lot of garden plans to see how they symbolized things (the same idea as schematic modern architectural drawings).

A few days later, I wondered if the spiral area might be water (like a crater lake or harbor) rather than land, but then I didn't know what to make of the star shapes (sea urchins? sparkles on water?).

I also checked out a lot of medieval architecture. Spiral staircases and stone spiral paths did exist (spiral staircases were common in towers), but I couldn't match up the other parts of the upper-right rotum with any specific architecture that might have spiral paths or staircases.


Then, last year, VViews wrote a good You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. about marine symbology (harbor symbols) that might just fit the crater lake or harbor idea (e.g., one of the locations I had considered for this drawing was the Island of Nisida, before I knew about medieval harbor symbols), so VViews offered another possible interpretation of the asterisks that I haven't seen elsewhere (and that I wish I'd thought of it, because it's a good suggestion.  )

I think it's very easy to read our own interpretations into every aspect of the semiotics of the VM.
But sometimes, a squiggle is just a squiggle. It doesn't have to be one great big code 

(06-11-2019, 08:06 PM)davidjackson Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I think it's very easy to read our own interpretations into every aspect of the semiotics of the VM.
But sometimes, a squiggle is just a squiggle. It doesn't have to be one great big code 

I absolutely agree with that. As an example, that is why, although I think Nick Pelling does an great job overall, in his book he argues that the slight variations in the lengths of the tails of certain Voynich glyphs constitutes part of a complex number system. Similarly Nick argues in some instances that I have seen that the greater degree of inking of certain part of drawings has a significance. (I am not picking on Nick, it is merely that having frequented his blog and read his book I am much more familiar with his worl than those of others.)

So I agree we have to be able to tell what is just squiggle and what is a function of deliberate thought and decisions; this can be hard, but I would argue not necessarily so hard. Obviously the as a whole is not a series of random squiggles even in the case that the text turns out to be meaningless and the manuscript a hoax; deliberate and conscious decisions were made. Now some small deliberate and conscious details may just be decorative patterns with little meaning even if deliberate and conscious. Putting one's self in the mind of the author is clearly hard, but I think identifying specific conscious choices is very possible. As an example I think drawing the two dots I have mentioned earlier constitute a specific and conscious decision; now identifying what that ring/loop illustration represents probably will not have a great effect on our understanding of the page, but I think we can say that ring/loop represents something.

I suppose an obvious example of reading too much into details is what I believe Newbold did by interpreting cracks in the ink of Voynich writing as micro-characters.

However on the 9 Rosette foldout there are a lot of specific details which could only be a result of conscious decisions which in most cases I would think have a basis in things the author had visually observed whether in real life or in manuscripts, of course imagination is very important, but even imagination is normally at its core based to a significant extent on observation . This is why I find it frustrating that so very many specific details on this page seem largely ignored.

(06-11-2019, 08:56 PM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(06-11-2019, 08:06 PM)davidjackson Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I think it's very easy to read our own interpretations into every aspect of the semiotics of the VM.
But sometimes, a squiggle is just a squiggle. It doesn't have to be one great big code 

I absolutely agree with that. As an example, that is why, although I think Nick Pelling does an great job overall, in his book he argues that the slight variations in the lengths of the tails of certain Voynich glyphs constitutes part of a complex number system. ...

I have not read Curse of the Voynich and I have read only a tiny fraction of Nick's blogs (not enough free time plus I am so horribly behind in my own blogs), but I have to agree with Nick that there might be something to the tails, and not just the tails of the "aiin" sequences, but of the y and dy endings, as well (I don't know if Nick mentioned these additional possibilities in Curse).

As far as a number system is concerned, it's quite reasonable to consider that av, aiv, aiiv, and aiiv might be part of a number system. They LOOK like Roman numerals and they might WORK like Roman numerals. The length of the tails is quite specific in the "ain" sequences. Also, calling it "ain" is simply an EVA convention. In the actual manuscript, that last shape looks more like "v" than "n" (in other words, they also physically resemble Roman numerals). Consider also that c, cc, ccc, and cccc sequences are also common in the VMS.

Even if it's not a number system, the length of the tails might nonetheless encode information of some sort.

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I don't know if Nick discussed the tails on the y and dy sequences in Curse, but I've frequently talked about these endings (which I suspect are distinct from one another), and  here are some of my reasons for considering that the length or direction of the y tails might be meaningful...

• The length (and direction) of tails IS meaningful in some alphabets, so there is a precedence for this in natural-language alphabets.
  
• The same-looking endings in the VMS are too numerous to be consistent with natural languages, even those with a lot of repetitive text, so one of the ways this might have come about is if the designer decided to encode variations with the swing or length of a tail—a detail that might be overlooked by a casual observer.
  
• Having created 4 transcripts, I noticed partway through the first one that whether a tail was straight or curved seemed fairly deliberate, just as the length of the tails on the "ain" sequences appears deliberate.
  

I also watched very carefully to try to discern whether the different shapes of the "cap" on EVA-sh might have different meanings, but having done some statistical tests, and observing how "all over the place" they are, I did not get the feeling that the "cap" shapes are meaningful but... maybe some of them are. It's possible, it just seems to me to be less consistent than the tails on "ain" and the tails on y and dy.

It's also possible there's nothing meaningful encoded into Voynichese, in which case none of the above would matter even if it were deliberate.

The things you showed in the #1 posting with the two dots in it, from around the period 1470, it seems that they are a connecting ring for the beams or rays or flows or whatever goes through. This means indeed somethings flows through, the ring holds it all together.

If you look at pipes, spindels, coils, spil's, pivots, axis, spools and such from that period you will see that those will resemble.