The Voynich Ninja

(11-05-2020, 11:34 AM)ddskbnbn Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Sounds like just a scam to sell some books.

Could be, but I'm not sure if "scam" is the right word. Most people with Voynich solutions are convinced that they have the truth in their hands, and that they are the one to tell the world how to solve this century-old problem. That said, I always think it's a shame when people get tricked in paying just to read unsubstantiated nonsense. Especially while many people here are doing better research that's available for free.

(11-05-2020, 11:44 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Could be, but I'm not sure if "scam" is the right word. Most people with Voynich solutions are convinced that they have the truth in their hands, and that they are the one to tell the world how to solve this century-old problem.

It's really a shame that Stephen Colbert's word "truthiness" didn't catch on more. Because it really applies well to VMS theories that are demonstrably wrong, but earnestly believed by their creators. These theories "feel true-ish", and are presented and taken as true, to people without the necessary background to see the problems with them.

Part 1:

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Part 2:


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Part 3:

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Here is Weiler's transliteration table from Part 3:

a = a or ei or el
c = c
e = e
i = i or l
ii = n or u
ai = ai, en, eil, eli, eii or ell
aii = an, all, au, ail, ali, ein, eni, eui, eiu, elli, elil, eili

The glyphs that occur very frequently at the ends of tokens already do not accord well with common Latin endings or common Latin words (daiin is very frequent in the VMS) but I assume there's more since this only lists a few of the glyphs.

Also, since there are many options for these glyphs, I'm assuming the other glyphs will be handled similarly, which introduces significant degrees of freedom and increased subjective interpretation. Even without seeing the transliteration for the other glyphs, I already suspect Weiler is describing a one-way cipher.

Going by that sample, one thing I must give him credit for is trying to do something about the minim problem. It's not just a one-to-one approach blindly based on EVA.

However, I agree that the number of options per glyph is too large. Twelve possibilities for [aii], that spells trouble.

A look back at Amazon shows this book is now out of print.

It's a pity how many authors don't discover this website until after they've invested in publishing a book.

Do you think he took it out of print because he realized his theory wasn't sound? That might be a first.

When I was reading his posts on Reddit, I got the impression he was sincere and interested in doing a good job, and wanted to convey what he had learned, not put something over on people. He did not get belligerent like a few others.

So, maybe he read the critiques and had second thoughts. His heart might be in the right place, but he doesn't know the subject matter well enough yet to write about it. Maybe in 6 months or a year he will have a better grounding (if he works at it).

(19-05-2020, 02:09 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Do you think he took it out of print because he realized his theory wasn't sound? That might be a first.

If that's indeed what happened, then I give him a lot of respect for being willing to change his mind when presented with evidence. As we all know that's a mark of good scholarship, and a quality human being in general. I wish it was more common in online discussions of scientific and historical matters.

As JKP notes, Paul engaged kindly and professionally with Redditors who replied to his posts, including a few who weren't nearly as kind to him. As I said in the OP of this thread, I never got a whiff of trickery or salesmanship from him. I think he's just an author trying to make a living.

I invited Paul Weiler on one of his Reddit threads to check out this forum, and I sincerely hope he does if he keeps working on the VMs, because I think he's got some things to contribute.

The more i have read from this guy, the more i like him.
As Koen and JKP say he has responded to comments with cordiality and respect and has even updated some of his writings
in response to criticisms and objections, that takes a bit of doing.
Also i like the theory and hope he comes up with something good.

And a side note; the idea of a context dependent encipherment raises some interesting ideas.
One could see a situation where the original text is in broken latin and the deciphering method contains lots of
ambiguity, then a modern day real solutiion to the VMS would be one that the original author/s would agree with and since they
are gone it would be impossible today to say definitively that one has solved it.