The Voynich Ninja

What are the rings that the author has drawn around the beams that emanate from the central rosette towards the 3 centre side rosettes, but not the top centre rosette? They are drawn differently, why? David Jackson suggests lenses, I think, is that a correct interpretation?

There are a few very minor details that I haven't explained such as: What are the "*"s? Do they have a meaning or are they merely an artistic flourishes? Why are the beams emanating from the central rosette shaded differently from each other and in the way that they are? Does this shading have a meaning or is it also just an artistic feature?
Generally, I have tried to arrive at the best explanation of every detail that I can from a list of possible alternative explanations.

(24-11-2024, 11:16 AM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.In my opinion, it is good that providing more detail makes a theory more susceptible to criticism. A theory should be subject to criticism as much specific criticism as possible. Theories should be challenged at every point and every detail and every argument to see how strong they really are. A theory may on the whole be good, but even then some details may be wrong and need to be correct or challenged. If others don't challenge a theory it is the obligation of the theorist to perform this process of challenge and counter-argument to their own theory.

It is a grueling and painful process having one's theory criticised, but it is precisely necessary to do so.

So I would reiterate that in my opinion:

It is "fortunately" a fact that providing more details makes any proposal more susceptible to criticism.

I was not specifically writing about proposals for Voynich MS explanations, but more about competitive proposals. However, that could also be made to apply here.
After all, Voynich MS explanation proposals can be considered to be competitive.

In any case, the use of "fortunately" here is mostly hypothetical.
It is extremely rare in the world of Voynich theories to see people reacting positively to negative criticism.
The people who are capable of that tend not to propose unverifiable statements in the first place.

(24-11-2024, 12:21 PM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I was not specifically writing about proposals for Voynich MS explanations

I realised that.

(24-11-2024, 12:21 PM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It is extremely rare in the world of Voynich theories to see people reacting positively to negative criticism.

I think people don't react well to negative criticism for obvious reasons. When you have spent time and energy developing a theory to have someone to take it apart and damage or destroy the theory is unpleasant. It is as though you had constructed a house only for someone to reduce it to dust with a blow. Our own ego and identity is often tied up with our own theories. To be told a theory is wrong can feel like a personal insult to one's intelligence like calling someone stupid or foolish; and nobody likes that. When you have worked hard to build something with pride and effort you become attached to it and don't feel happy to have it damaged.

But if there a uni-reality, by that I mean one reality then there is only one explanation and multiple explanations cannot be true. Maybe it would be nicer if all our theories could be true simultaneously like schrodinger's cat, simultaneously alive and dead. Maybe in a quantum world or multiverse they can be.

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(24-11-2024, 12:21 PM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It is extremely rare in the world of Voynich theories to see people reacting positively to negative criticism.

So, of course, we all as human beings have a tendency towards confirmation bias. We are not perfect science or history investigating machines. This is true not just of people researching the Voynich. None of us amateur researchers are going to lose our career or our source of income or probably our social status by being wrong. So in some ways it could be argued that we might be less prone to confirmation bias. Human individual personal interests can often stand in the way of collective progress in the advancement of knowledge. On balance we would all prefer our theories to be right not wrong. We are not indifferent machines.

(24-11-2024, 12:21 PM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It is extremely rare in the world of Voynich theories to see people reacting positively to negative criticism.

There can be different kinds of criticism. If someone were to say to me "Oh. Your theory is stupid" I probably would not react well to it, particularly as it is not at all specific.
However, there is constructive criticism. There is a difference with criticism from someone who knows and understands my theory well and has given the subject a lot of thought and criticism from someone who has not given the theory or the details of the page much thought or consideration.

On the subject of confirmation bias. It is certainly an ever present risk what we should all try and be cognisant of. Whatever our theory we all probably suffer from a degree of confirmation bias.

As far as other biases go on a personal level I can say that
I am not Milanese or Swiss and I have no personal reasons why I have a preference for this theory. I am not related to the Barbavara family. In fact I rather prefer a more exotic map location than Central Europe. I like the idea that it could represent Georgia or Armenia. I have arrived at this idea as I find it the most plausible explanation that I can find or think of. If I could think of a better explanation then I would happily dump this theory and move to a better theory.
Certainly, if I found out that my explanation was completely wrong then I would find it dispiriting. Do I expect some things to be wrong? Yes, as it is such a detailed theory it seems inconceivable that is all correct. Some details are surely wrong.

I greatly enjoy mysteries whether detective or other and the Voynich manuscript is a great mystery. And I really want to know the truth of the manuscript including this page specifically. So, a desire for the truth whatever it is whether mine or someone else's, is important to me.

(24-11-2024, 12:21 PM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It is extremely rare in the world of Voynich theories to see people reacting positively to negative criticism.
The people who are capable of that tend not to propose unverifiable statements in the first place.

I suppose it depends what you mean by "unverifable statements".

If you mean statements that it would probably be impossible ever to verify such as whether the author of the Voynich had a good relationship with his/her mother.

If you mean statements that are not yet verified or be proven to be true. In this respect if people did that then this forum would almost be empty of comment. I don't think there is anything wrong with making proposals that are as yet unproven to be true; in fact I think it is vital that people propose theories. I am not of the camp that believes that the fewer theories proposed the better. I think theories and ideas need to be put out there and examined and processed such that we can move towards trying to verify them or not. Again, I think this is a very important methodological question. I view almost all statements about the Voynich manuscript that people make as being probabilistic some may have low probability and some may have high probability of being true. So I don't feel that we can neatly split statements into fact and speculation.

I think we should all be prepared to be introspective and ask ourselves if I am suffering from confirmation bias in this or that situation and I am being objective. We can easily view ourselves as a centre of objective reason whilst those around us are merely victims of bias.

(23-11-2024, 09:47 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.However, there is clearly a great disagreement among researchers about what makes an argument strong when it comes to interpreting these images.

Yes. And I think that maybe we need to start to think hard about what is the methodologically correct approach to interpreting images.

Clearly, comparing images to drawings in other manuscript that were around contemporaneously is a good idea and this is a common approach as the author would have clearly been heavily influenced by other manuscripts and documents that he/her/they had seen. I think it is important though to accept that the author(s) drawings were also influenced by things that they had seen in the real world outside of manuscripts. They may have also been influenced by things that they had read and observed in manuscripts or the outside world. And of course the drawings will have to some extent been a product of the author(s) imagination. I say this as often I think there can be an approach which relies too heavily on the notion that everything drawn in the manuscript was merely copied from another manuscript and so we should only be comparing that drawing with those in other manuscripts. Comparing drawings with those in other manuscripts is undoubtedly a very very good idea, but I think that some times this can be over done. In my own analysis I have certainly been keen to compare illustrations on the Rosettes folio with those in other maps of the period. I have also though deliberately been very happy to compare illustrations with those of photos of real world buildings and places.

While these discussions can seem rather "meta" and philosophically abstract maybe this is a time to talk more about methodology.