The Voynich Ninja

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As I wrote in another thread, I don't think it is a good idea to place people in camps like "believing the text is meaningful" and the opposite. This is always too simplistic, and it provides a tendency toward ad hominem argumentation.
At the very least, there will always be a 'neutral camp'. There are many people (myself included) who are still waiting for more evidence before being willing to make up their minds either way. Yet again, inside this 'camp', people may still have a tendency to prefer one way or the other.

I have not seen any conclusive evidence for either viewpoint. Bowern and Lindemann state their opinions, and so do Timm and Schinner on the other side. I cannot see much of a difference between the level of confidence between the two cases, nor on the strength of the evidence to support this confidence. In general, I would say that Bowern and Lindemann phrase their statement slightly more carefully.

The auto-copy theory does not equate with meaningless text. As I have made very clear in the past, I cannot see how the Voynich MS text can be the result of such a process. However, it can still be a meaningless text.

Most importantly, for me, is that it is not such a black-and-white question at all. I don't agree with the statement: "There exist exactly two possibilities: either the Voynich Manuscript contains linguistically meaningful information, or not."
It is not difficult to imagine how the text could be meaningful, with some amount of meaningless padding. I don't even want to begin guessing what could be possible ratios between the two.

There are clear suggestions of meaningful content and there are clear suggestions of meaningless behaviour in the MS. The "one theory that explains it all" is still missing.

The idea that it is meaningless text raises a fundamental question: would anyone go to such lengths only to end up writing nothing meaningful ? I think this is rather unlikely.

(11-02-2021, 12:54 PM)bi3mw Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The idea that it is meaningless text raises a fundamental question: would anyone go to such lengths only to end up writing nothing meaningful ? I think this is rather unlikely.

I think Sergio Torsella's idea, that the VMs was designed for use as a tool (prop, actually) by a traveling quack doctor or similar wandering con artist, has merit, and has historical precedent. It would add legitimacy to a medieval quack's act, to have a handbook or professional reference book he could "consult" in front of his marks. Since this quack wasn't actually learnèd, using a copy of a real, comprehensible medical reference had the potential to give away his act, especially in the presence of anyone truly literate or familiar with real medicine. So a book full of symbols that look like language, but aren't actually readable to anyone, would have provided an effective cover. The majority of his marks would have been illiterate, and therefore in no position to call out such fakery. But the marks with real money had a real chance of being literate. If one of them scrutinized his handbook and raised an eyebrow, all he needed to do was claim it was from far away, and written in an obscure language that the mark was not familiar with. He could also claim it was written in an idiosyncratic shorthand of his own invention, in order to protect the valuable (and in the wrong hands, dangerous!) secrets of his trade.

For this purpose, an entire book of nonsense text and ambiguous illustrations would provide a much more convincing cover than a much shorter or incomplete nonsense document. I could see such a prop being passed down from father to son, or from senior to junior gang member. I could also see such a prop being lost or stolen, and mistaken for an exotic and valuable artifact by the discoverer.

The problem is, how could such a quack doctor's prop be reliably distinguished from a real traveling doctor's real handbook, purposely encrypted to protect the doctor's trade secrets? Unfortunately, as was discussed in David Jackson's thread "I mean really, why would it be encrypted?", I'm not aware of any documented historical precedent for this.

As bi3mw says, the idea that the VM is meaningless is rather unlikely. I'd say it would be something as mysterious as dark matter for astrophysicists. To think that someone has gone to all that trouble to say nothing is out of this world.

Of course the VM has a meaning, a meaning consistent with its time. What you cannot do is try to understand a human product from 600 years ago with a current methodology. Talking about computational linguistics is completely absurd.

We just don't know enough yet. Better get out of the trenches.

Antonio, look up SciGen, or even better the Sokal Affair, for examples of the motive to write a lot but not really say anything. It’s a deceptive high-level rhetorical trick that’s highly useful to people who want to make their voices heard, or are expected to say something, but have nothing of value to say on the matter. It’s intellectually dishonest and deserves to be called out, and I don’t think it’s a type of trickery that most present company would deign to try. But it’s not as far-fetched as you’re implying.

Even a nonsense document must be illustrated and, above all, provided with text. Who is incapable of writing will hardly be able to produce a manuscript whose text is structured like the one in the VMS. He would be able to produce only incoherent "letter salad" (if at all). Whoever produced the VMS wanted to give the impression of a compilation, at least in the pictorial design, and was most likely able to read and write fluently. In my opinion, plain text was "transformed" here into the text it now represents. I consciously avoid to speak of a cipher, since one associates with it immediately certain procedures, which do not have to apply here.

I judge it like this.
I have some German, understandable and grammar is OK so far.
I have something like Latin. I don't really understand it, but it seems to make sense to me. Which for me also gives a hint of origin.
Now I have RenegadeHealer's statement, I'll join in right away.
Now it's 3 to 1 for me, which also represents my point right away.

I must correct myself. I kind of shifted when I was reading.
I think it's unlikely that there's any text next to the drawings that doesn't say anything.
Accordingly, I agree with bi3mw, not RenegadeHealer.

Furthermore, there is evidence for a reason for the encryption. That would be the restriction of the local language in order to consolidate German as the official language over a large area.

The problem is well exemplified by the English wikipedia entry on the Voynich MS.
As I understand it, this is being edited continuously by countless unidentified people.

Today (11 Feb 2021) the very first line says:

"The Voynich Manuscript is an illustrated codex hand-written in an unknown, possibly meaningless writing system"

Lots of useful facts could be written before this speculation in the very first sentence.

Alternatively, one might want to add: "possibly modern fake, possibly meso-american".