Picking up on things in several recent threads, I'm wondering just how all of this comes together. Does the linguistic side of the VMs have a solution? One that can be recovered from the text in its present condition. Is there language; is there code? Is there sense, or nothing but nonsense? Is there a lot of filler with only a relatively smaller portion of text intended for meaningful interpretation? If the smaller portion is meaningful, how is it found? Where is it found? Any investigation focused on that filler is surely going to find nonsense.
The question has been asked: Is it possible, how is it possible to build a "disguised messaging system" in the 1400s that defies modern interpretation? Nothing but pen and parchment , the No-Tech build. The answer seems to be that this is something practically impossible. The complexity of cipher systems was insufficient at that time. There is the potential problem of a one way cipher. The possibility that meaning has been hidden in a way that is not recoverable.
If complexity is insufficient, then there is trickery. With lots of filler text, the important part may be hidden. Or by using a one way cipher on the majority of text, the key to deciphering may be hidden both physically and by a two way cipher. The main body of written text would be secure, but a solution would be possible. The second cipher would be less problematic than finding the proper segment of text - if all there was consisted of written text. But of course, there are the illustrations and there was trickery used in the illustrations. Lots of trickery in the illustrations. Perhaps trickery in the illustrations is connected to trickery used in the written text.
I've been thinking a lot lately about the mindset that underlies the images, and how that would translate to the text.
In my opinion, the images are:
- artificially layered
- intelligently crafted
- packed with meaning
If those three are true for the text, I would be very pleased. So far, we might only suppose the second to be true: the text or at least the writing system appears to be intelligently crafted. I also believe it is artificial, in that it probably did not organically evolve over time.
If it were layered, though, wouldn't we expect more entropy instead of less? I've thought about it, but I don't see how approaching the text as an artificially layered construct can solve any problem.
On the other hand though, I see one principle shared by the text and part of the imagery, and that is exactly low entropy, predictability. If artificial intelligence would generate the average "Voynich nymph", I have a pretty good idea what it would look like, because their appearance and poses are relatively predictable.
To me the text appears intelligently crafted. This applies both to the glyph-shapes and the way it is laid down.
There is a great deal of repetition and yet, within the overall structure, also a great deal of originality considering it's a limited set of building blocks. The ways in which the components are combined are sometimes surprising in their simplicity while still being inscrutable in the lack of repetition of certain overall aspects of the text.
It's not stream of consciousness, it's not random. Whether it's language, cipher, or synthetic, there is some ingenious method underlying it.
With respect to layered interpretation of the Voynich MS, it may be interesting to read up on Kircher's (false) interpretation of hieroglyphics.
Arguing from inscrutability is a particularly stupid and barren way of reasoning about unsolved ciphers, no matter how well-accredited the arguer happens to be.
I don't know how to describe this aspect of the VMS without posting pages and pages of examples and numbers. If summing it up in a narrative way is barren then perhaps I'll refrain from doing that and just go back to my research.
What I want to do is to suppose that we start with blank parchment. It's the first half of the 1400s. We have information to be recorded / transmitted and it must be done in the most secure manner possible. What are the options? What are the possibilities?
As I understand it, the various cipher systems in use at that time were not all that complex, They could 'potentially' be broken by others of that time and would not withstand modern analysis. On the other hand, there were (at that time?) one way ciphers, where information could not be recovered, - (without knowing the cipher key?) [[Is this valid in the 1400s?]]
So, if one option is too easy and the other is impossible, what about the combination? What about a one way cipher with a hidden key? Conceptually it's simple. Security is high. In fact, the security problem no longer depends so much on the language system as it does on the ability to disguise (and recover) the hidden cipher key. An unreadable text cannot tell us how to read an unreadable text. For that we must rely on the illustrations. If all illustrations are fantasy, then how is one option validated over another? If illustrations are validated by tradition, then the interpretations are grounded in a known reality. If traditional references are too obvious for those who were knowledgeable of those traditions, then the obfuscation, the level of ambiguity, is too weak.
Six hundred years later, these forgotten traditions have been covered by a thick layer of dust. As various investigators have helped to cart the dust away, perhaps a bigger picture will emerge.
R Sale,
It's hard for me to follow the line of thought in your various threads regarding tradition, white Aries, heraldry etc and how it's connected to the VMs.
Can you please summarise your thoughts on the VMs (preferably accompanied with images) and explain the above points? It would help me engaging in the discussion.
Thanks in advance
(11-08-2020, 11:25 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.packed with meaning
What if some of the glyphs stand for characteristics, and are added to the words. Perhaps they even come from a table, but now look like words in a sentence, taking up far less room, hence, packed with meaning, in both space and in the extra descriptions.
Quire 13 strikes me this way especially, and the glyphs i was thinking as seeming to act as modifiers appeared to match up with the listing on f76r.
If this were so, it could explain the strange ordering and other peculiarities of the text.
A couple of years ago, I posted an example on my blog of common properties of plants that had been distilled down to single letters:
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The way this writer did it was unusual, but any medieval mind familiar with the properties of plants would recognize them, even if written only as single letters plus a number as they are here, because they were so frequently expressed with the same words and in the same order in medieval manuscripts.
In other words, it struck me, when I saw this, that it wouldn't have to be in a chart, it could also be integrated with the main text and still be understood.