The Voynich Ninja

(24-09-2020, 12:15 AM)Voynichgibberish Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.A case for Gibberish and no one should suffer anymore by the hands of the Voynich Author

Another one that I like is that so often circular text(text drawn around a circle) fits perfectly in the space required, this would be very strange for normal sentences and in many cases these cannot be labels as they are in no way tied to a specific thing.

I am not sure if the opening post is meant to argue that the MS 'could be gibberish', or that it 'is more likely to be gibberish'. The second option could also be an even stronger opinion, such as expressed in the past by Gordon Rugg and by Torsten Timm.

These are two very different points.
Indeed, the MS could be gibberish. At least, I am of that opinion.

On the other hand 'likely to be gibberish' would require some good arguments.

A bullet list is presented, but most of these do not actually constitute evidence for gibberish. They are non-sequiturs, mostly of the kind that I once described in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.  (the lemon-banana story).

For each bullet one can find plenty of cases where a meaningful text fully fits the description.

Arabic texts have spaces that are not word separators. That spaces are there does not prove that they are word separators. 'Units' in Arabic consisting of only one consonant exist. That's also true for some European languages. In any case, we can't even be sure which characters in the Voynich MS are consonants.

There are plenty of contemporary documents without punctuation. An arbitrary search immediately gave me two out of four. And the MS has clear paragraphs.

If the label 'otol' means 'red' or 'north-east' or 'important' or 'hot in the second degree' or '24' it can appear near all the items that have been listed. Since we don't have a clue what it means, we can't draw any conclusion from it.

There are several written languages that cannot yet be understood, yet they are certainly meaningful texts. Even linear-A was only deciphered not that long ago.

Now apart from the fact that none of the arguments really point to meaningless text, one thing that is missing is a similar bullet list that the text is likely to be meaningful.

Without writing up the list, one can already say that all of these arguments have similar flaws. They are equally far from being proof.

In the end we have one list of semi-convincing points for, and one list of semi-convincing arguments against a meaningful text, and it is a complete stand-off.

(24-09-2020, 12:15 AM)Voynichgibberish Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

A case for Gibberish and no one should suffer anymore by the hands of the Voynich Author

It seems to me that your argument is more of a cumulative argument, meaning that one may be able to explain a given point on your list individually, but cumulatively they do present a problem.

(24-09-2020, 06:05 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It's a bit disappointing to still see references to Wentian Li's paper.

This comment was striking to read, because Torsten Timm’s work with the VMs leans heavily on Li. I have not read Li (though I’m intrigued now, and probably will soon.) Perhaps I haven’t been paying attention, but I find it odd that “You overestimate how well your primary source supports your model” was not more frequently brought up in debates with Torsten. Especially since Torsten was quite quick-on-the-draw with providing highly specific citations, to mostly his own work but also that of others, as a rebuttal to any criticism. If I didn’t respect him and his work highly, and was feeling uncharitable, I’d even say that Torsten Timm having a bottomless bagful of citations ready to throw at any critic sometimes bordered on a You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. I’m not saying he was deliberately tricky. Nay, I’ll take this any day over a researcher who cites too few sources for his claims. But I think it’s important to remember that the more references someone makes, the lower the odds that all their references are being checked by readers for accuracy and relevance, and some sophists use this to their advantage when arguing.

Dear all,

Let me take the opportuniity to once again encourage you to shorten quotes. While on the desktop it looks so-so, on mobiles lengthy quotes take ages to scroll down, and it's hard to distinguish who wrote what.

Here are two useful hints:

1) While preparing your post, you can edit the quoted text within the quote, deleting everything that's not directly relevant
2) There's the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. functionality.

What is gibberish?
In a book by Diepold Läuber a writer wrote a few lines.
I could only read it with a lot of effort, although it is my mother tongue.
Uni Heidelberg describes it as vulgar German.
I did not even know that there is such a thing as vulgar German.
Vulgar spelling = far from the norm.

If something is written correctly, but somehow doesn't make sense, then it's called lyric poetry.
Example, world-famous nonsense.
It was dark the moon shone brightly,
Snow lay on the green corridor
than a car as fast as lightning,
slowly drove around the corner.
There were people standing inside,
silently engrossed in conversation,
than a rabbit shot to death,
skated on the sandbank.

On a green lawn,
which was painted red,
sat a curly-haired young man
with coal-black hair.

In his arms an old quirk,
hardly counted only 17 years,
In the hand a slice of butter,
which was coated with lard.

And in love he spoke to her,
my beloved oaf.
You have eyes like coral,
that fall out of your head.
And a nose, I tell you,
all calves are like you.

Up on the apple tree,
who wore very sweet pears,
hung the spring last plum
and there are still enough nuts.

And the car drove at a trot,
backwards up a mountain.
Up there an old raven
just opened a tower clock.

There is a deep silence all around
and with terrible noise,
playing with branches in the grass
two camels silently chess.

And two fish were running lively,
through the blue cornfield.
Finally the sun set,
and the grey day appeared.

This poem by Goethe,
Schiller wrote in the evening at dawn,
when he was sitting on the chamber pot,
and read the newspaper...

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..
Translated with You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (free version)

Another example:
The word "aubentz".
First of all, no idea what this means.
Only in context does it become clear.
"so gib ihm morgentz and aubentz"
Those who know German will understand it now, with the others,...... good luck!

(24-09-2020, 10:57 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.There are several written languages that cannot yet be understood, yet they are certainly meaningful texts. Even linear-A was only deciphered not that long ago.

Linear A?   There are a few claims of decipherment but as far as I know none is generally accepted.

Sorry: B

(24-09-2020, 10:32 AM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(24-09-2020, 02:03 AM)Voynichgibberish Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Quote: doesn't matter, it could be a reference label, an abbreviation, or an adjective rather than a noun

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Yes, I would agree with you that JKP's explanation is not a sufficiently persuasive one. If it is a reference label, how and where can one find the thing to which it refers? If it is an abbreviation then it would have to be so brief as to be virtually useless in identifying the word it is abbreviated from, which is particularly significant in the case of the often very specific drawings that labels are attached to. It is hard to see how the same adjectives could be applied to such specific drawings. Another point worth noting is that distinct repeated labels often have very similar spellings.
...

It's not an explanation. It's a list of some of the possibilities. Labels might be something other than nouns. In other words, the seeming incongruity of the same label being on seemingly different images is only an incongruity if you make assumptions about what the label represents (or make assumptions that a possible cipher system is the same for each iteration).

• Where can one find the thing to which it refers? It might be a location on a page. In the middle ages, they did use location markers (section a, b, c, or d referring to a quadrant of the same page or of another page). They also used several different (and cryptic-looking) systems to refer to Biblical passages. Everyone knew what they meant. In Greek manuscripts numeric labels were quite common.
  
• Brief abbreviations are only useless if you are not familiar with them. I see brief abbreviations in thousands of manuscripts. They are very common. Maps often have them also. Words are very frequently truncated or chopped into pieces.
  
• It's very easy for different adjectives to apply to different drawings. Words like hot and cold, wet and dry were applied to everything in the middle ages. Verbs, also. Words like grind, powder, mix, and soak.
  

I'm not making the argument that the labels are words (that's a different discussion). But we cannot make the assumption that dissimilar items can't have the same labels. They certainly can.