The Voynich Ninja

(30-04-2020, 06:17 PM)RobGea Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.This thread is appreciated however i fear it will be forever You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

I do appreciate that it is unlikely to make any difference anywhere, but still the very simple lemon/banana comparison can be used to illustrate some things, for example about asking the right questions.

Arguments like: "it is yellow", "it is an edible fruit",  'it is pointy at both ends", do not help to distinguish between the two. In another thread I was asked to answer a list of exactly this type of questions.

For this simple case it is possible to come up with some right questions (even where there are lots of very unusual types of bananas). For the arguments related to the Voynich MS it is rarely that simple.

(28-05-2020, 05:35 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.In another thread I was asked to answer a list of exactly this type of questions.

That you use your post also for an unspecified reference to another thread says a lot.

(28-05-2020, 08:14 AM)Torsten Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.says a lot

Not to me, I am afraid.

(28-05-2020, 08:35 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Not to me, I am afraid.

That's a pity.

(27-05-2020, 10:19 PM)Torsten Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Instead of that, a systematic approach to decipher an unknown writing system using an unknown language is necessary. For doing so we must describe the most characteristic properties and determine typical patterns. Only if we understand the writing system this will tell us something about the language (see for instance the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.).

[font=Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif]The manuscript has been attacked by "[/font][font=Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif]systematic approaches[/font][font=Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif][font=Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif]" for a century and the result is well known. And f[/font][/font]unnily, the linked paper says that "Ventris made a series of inspired guesses"
The thing is that one shouldn't restrict researcher to certain research methods (let him use systemacy, guesses, exhaustive searches, trial and error, whatever; one wild guess can be worth of several years of systematic work), but strictly test proving mechanisms.

(27-05-2020, 10:19 PM)Torsten Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Therefore, not only the solution itself but also the way of deciphering an unknown script is interesting and important. To ask for the way the solution was reached should be a first test to a decipherment attempt. Researchers using the trial and error method are unable to explain how the writing system works. Moreover they have to admit that they were only guessing.

The citation from The Emperor's New Mind by Roger Penrose often comes to mind (sorry for too long, but the topic itself is too vague and general).

"...A colleague (Ivor Robinson) had been visiting from the USA and he was engaging me in voluble conversation on a quite different topic as we walked down the street approaching my office in Birkbeck College in London. The conversation stopped momentarily as we crossed a side road, and resumed again at the other side. Evidently, during those few moments, an idea occurred to me, but then the ensuing conversation blotted it from my mind!

Later in the day, after my colleague had left, I returned to my office. I remember having an odd feeling of elation that I could not account for. I began going through in my mind all the various things that had happened to me during the day, in an attempt to find what it was that had caused this elation. After eliminating numerous inadequate possibilities, I finally brought to mind the thought that I had had while crossing the street- a thought which had momentarily elated me by providing the solution to the problem that had been milling around at the back of my head!

Apparently, it was the needed criterion that I subsequently called a 'trapped surface' and then it did not take me long to form the outline of a proof of the theorem that I had been looking for (Penrose 1965). Even so, it was some while before the proof was formulated in a completely rigorous way, but the idea that I had had while crossing the street had been the key."

The fact that the solution was obtained when crossing the street is important and interesting (no, really). But I hope it wasn't used in the proof of the theorem

My brain is constantly throwing up solutions to things I thought I was no longer thinking about. Clearly, processing goes on in the "back room" while we attend to other things.

I'd like to think of these as inspirations, but... they are not random and probably not even inspired, they are usually the result of having done the legwork and sometimes getting so close to something it becomes hard to evaluate, like working on an essay or novel so long you can no longer know if it's good... you have to get some distance (put it away for a few days or weeks) to see it with fresh eyes.

During this break, some things are forgotten and others are turned over, evaluated without our conscious awareness. This is often when solutions or insights pop to mind.

It just happened to me this morning. A few days ago I had been trying to solve a computer-graphics related problem and wasn't sure how to go about it. After numerous fruitless attempts, I put it aside. I woke up this morning and there it was... a strategy that didn't occur to me while I was consciously trying to solve it. But I don't think it would have bubbled to the surface if I hadn't already had a reasonably good understanding of the subject matter. I suspect that inspiration is 90% preparation.

(28-05-2020, 05:35 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I do appreciate that it is unlikely to make any difference anywhere, but still the very simple lemon/banana comparison can be used to illustrate some things

Another logic issue is the fallacy that the truth is a compromise between two opposite positions. Examples of this issue are statements like I consider the fact that it is yellow a (weak) confirmation that the fruit is a lemon or it is a hint that it is a banana but the evidence for this is quite thin, so I am ready to change my mind on this point. Taking the middle ground of two positions does not always lead to the truth.

(28-05-2020, 07:45 PM)Torsten Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
...
Another logic issue is the fallacy that the truth is a compromise between two opposite positions...

Yes. I see this quite frequently.


Another fallacy I see is that it has to be one or the other. Many phenomena exist as gray scales, not absolutes.

Yet this is the VM we are talikng about, a chimera if ever there was one.

I've noticed some common patterns in the method used by many of the people claiming (or loudly proclaiming) VMS solutions...

1. Pick out a word that looks familiar in some language, usually using a simple substitution cipher.
   
2. Find a few more that look familiar in the declared language. The total is often less than 20 words.
   

Declare that the VMS is solved.

The predominant assumptions and logical fallacies in this method are: 1) the text is natural language, 2) it is an alphabetic substitution cipher, 3) if it works for a few tokens, the method is correct, and 4) if it works for a few tokens, it will work for more.


When the method is criticized, some solvers go away, and others go down this road...

• Try to find more words in the declared language (which becomes increasingly difficult and many "solvers" never get more than a dozen or two).
  
• Start manipulating the vowels (usually by substituting "a" for "o" and "e" for the c-shape to try to get more words). Find a few more words in that language.
  

Then it gets really tough to find more so... here the road seems to diverge. Either the person takes this route...

• Look for words in other languages. After finding a few, declare that the VMS is polyglot.
  

or

• Declare that numerous glyphs are ligatures and abbreviations but in a way that introduces so many degrees of freedom that it becomes a one-way cipher.
  

or

• Start anagramming (with no particular rule set applied, thus a one-way cipher) or apply some other manipulation that allows degrees of freedom so great that it becomes a one-way cipher with a large amount of subjective interpretation. In other words, the results cannot be replicated by other people.
  

[Optional] Vigorously defend the translation even though the method is questionable and doesn't generalize to the manuscript as a whole (or even to a single defensible phrase).


The basic logic is that if you can find meaning in a few details, you can generalize it to the rest of the manuscript. For substitution solutions that assume close resemblance to natural language, this does not work. When it becomes more evident that this doesn't work, instead of going back to the drawing board, the "solver" frequently begins manipulating the method, usually in subjective ways, rather than questioning the method and its underlying assumptions.