The Voynich Ninja

(28-05-2022, 02:46 PM)proto57 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.My point is that... real or fake... most if not all of the unidentified languages and scripts in the 17th century were, by 1912, at least identified if not read. So for any language or characters to be both unidentifiable in the 1600's, AND then still be unidentifiable in 1912, is staggeringly unlikely. It strongly implies to me that... in order for this to be the case... the 1912 script and language would have to be invented around 1912, in order to fulfill the 17th century descriptions of "unknown" and "mysterious".

This argument feels fallacious to me as well. Yes, we can observe that many scripts which baffled people in the 1600's are better understood now. The reason for this is probably a more systematic and scientific approach of scripts and science in general, the development of the scientific method. The development of systematic ways to understand forgotten scripts, to reconstruct lost languages. But the fact that we still don't understand the VM will at most highlight its exceptional status. And exceptional artifacts are allowed to exist: it is not because something is a unique find, that it is therefore inherently fraudulent. The Antikythera mechanism is an easy example.

Your argument boils down to this: "X has a property A which is unique, therefore X is fake". But the problem is that nothing inherent to this property A points towards X being fake. And "uniqueness" in itself is also not a good reason for something to be fake, because then we would be able to call lots of things fake.

(28-05-2022, 09:15 AM)bi3mw Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It is fair to say that. Was Kirchner's approach to deciphering ancient Egyptian texts not based on fundamental misconceptions ? It probably never occurred to Kirchner himself that he could be wrong.

Kircher was once humiliated after being presented with a fake text by some students of his as a joke, being told only that it had baffled many other scholars. He confidently produced a translation, only to be left a laughing stock behind his back, a joke which many of his enemies seized upon. It didn't seem to slow him down. (This was long after he wrote the letters under debate, BTW).
Kircher was not a man plagued by self-doubt, and he played upon his reputation. If he said he didn't recognise the alphabet, then it was certainly a strange one.
Remember, this was a man obsessed by languages for more than 30 years of his professional life, especially the esoteric ones. And he was at the centre of a network of professional linguists, in a city which was a cultural superpower. He would have had access to somebody who understood just about any known language, and would know many, many forgotten ones. 
The Jesuits at the time put great emphasis on linguistics. Their mission was to spread the word of God across the world, and that meant speaking every known language. Their missionaries were tasked with sending back texts and dictionaries from across the world to Rome and Kircher sat at the middle of vast, world wide web of information.


In his own Jesuit study, he had friends who spoke Chinese, Japanese, Tartar, Indian (Brahmani , Sanskrit et al), Persian, Chaldean, as well as African and even South American languages. He had easy access to scholars such as Heinrich Roth, Robert Nobili, Giovanni Campori, Bento de Goës....

So, why wasn't he more fascinated by the VM? Well, why should he be. He had a copy of a couple of pages and it didn't fit into his work at the time. It's not as if somebody had discovered a new tribe for which new missionaries had to be trained. 

I've written more on what script did Kircher mean in his 1639 letter here:
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And analysed the original letter under debate here:
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To paraphrase, Kircher admits he doesn't have a clue, excuses himself by saying that he's very busy at the moment and end up saying he's confident he could crack the problem if only he could be bothered. It's the sort of response you'd expect from the man.

(28-05-2022, 02:46 PM)proto57 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.My point is that... real or fake... most if not all of the unidentified languages and scripts in the 17th century were, by 1912, at least identified if not read. So for any language or characters to be both unidentifiable in the 1600's, AND then still be unidentifiable in 1912, is staggeringly unlikely. It strongly implies to me that... in order for this to be the case... the 1912 script and language would have to be invented around 1912, in order to fulfill the 17th century descriptions of "unknown" and "mysterious".

That's not really the argument, actually. Whether or not the same script was mysterious in both the 17th and 21st centuries or not is irrelevant, because that doesn't provide a link.
 
Your point is that it would have to be a script unknown to Western linguistics in the 17th century, but which fits the Voynich template.
I repeat what I have written before:

Quote:

• The first is something that has been copied from a book and sent to him; he calls it You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. writing. He does not analyse it, but says it would be easy enough, except that at the moment he has not the time; he promises to return to it when leisure allows.
  
  • This strongly suggests to me that Kircher is not looking at something unintelligible like cipher text, but something with a hidden meaning. Steganographici as a word existed since Tristhemius’s 1499 Stagnographii. This book was on the Prohibited List of the Church so Kircher would not, as a devoted Jesuit, have been able to read it; notwithstanding that, there were several popular books examining the work that weren’t banned and were freely available. As a linguist and a mathematician, Kircher would certainly be aware of the difference between steganographici and descifrando – he uses the latter term in his 1665 letter to Marci (see You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.).
    

[..]
[font=Open Sans]The transcription of a book he was sent? The word staganographici, together with “a shrine of text”, worries me. It implies that the cover text was legible and had an apparent meaning, but that there was a hidden message to those who could “open the doors” and read it. That would not fit the VM, which was later to be described by Kircher himself as encrypted (he uses a definite term in 1665, decrypting). Furthermore, Kircher made no attempt to identify the alphabet or suggests that it is unknown (unlike in the next paragraph, where he does so for “the other sheet”), which seems to indicate that the alphabet was recognisable to all parties concerned. Again, this hinges entirely on the use of one word; but if Kircher had a choice of terms to use (encrypted or steganographic), and as a prominent linguist and mathematician, why use the more obscure term?
[/font]
What I think we can take away from this letter is that in 1639 Kircher replies to Moretus saying he’s glanced at a handwritten excerpt or copy of a book he has been sent; that it is steganographic; that he has solved such problems before and is sure he could solve this one, except that he’s quite busy at the moment.
[font=Open Sans]And we know that 17 month before Moretus was asked to pass on a handwritten excerpt from a book we assume to be the Voynich Manuscript to Kircher for his analysis. 17 months for this request to go across Europe across three parties, be looked at, then replied is not overly excessive I suppose, although it would far outlive my attention span in our digital age. Correspondents in the Republic of Letters were used to waits of months for their letters to be sent and replied to, and Barschius was not a member of the Republic, but acting through Moretus as his intermediary. Kircher had spent several months travelling around southern Italy in 1638, no doubt a lot of correspondence built up at the Colegio Romano for his attention when he returned.[/font]

(28-05-2022, 03:20 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Yes, we can observe that many scripts which baffled people in the 1600's are better understood now. The reason for this is probably a more systematic and scientific approach of scripts and science in general, the development of the scientific method. The development of systematic ways to understand forgotten scripts, to reconstruct lost languages.

All true. It is why there were, by the early 20th centuries so few languages were still not understood.

Quote:But the fact that we still don't understand the VM will at most highlight its exceptional status. And exceptional artifacts are allowed to exist: it is not because something is a unique find, that it is therefore inherently fraudulent. The Antikythera mechanism is an easy example.

First of all, this misstates my argument. I do not contend that "because something is a unique find, it is therefore inherently fraudulent". I don't believe that, and that is not at all my point. I've also used the Antikythera mechanism as a parallel example of uniqueness, calling the Voynich "The Anitythera mechanism of manuscripts". So you see I would not say that uniqueness=fake, and haven't here.

Quote:Your argument boils down to this: "X has a property A which is unique, therefore X is fake". But the problem is that nothing inherent to this property A points towards X being fake. And "uniqueness" in itself is also not a good reason for something to be fake, because then we would be able to call lots of things fake.

And here again you have given an argument which is not mine. I do not, and did not, say anything like this. There are a great many unique items in the world which are very real. I don't even know anyone who has used such an argument, certainly not me.

But back to your point about the Anikythera mechanism... although you didn't specifically make this point, you may have intended it. Correct me if I am wrong:

"We know unique items exist, and are real, and the Antikythera mechanism is real. Like the AM, the VMs may be a unique item, seen by the men of the letters, and survived to 1912 to still be mysterious and unique. Therefore, Rich's argument does not show the Voynich to be fake, only unique."

And if so, yes, you are absolutely correct, on an absolute level. And of course this occurred and occurs to me, too. But here is the problem: We know the men of the letters were exposed to hundreds, if not thousands of mysterious and unknown languages and characters. They discussed many with Kircher, and like all curious, scientifically, linguistically minded people of the time, it is obvious they would have been exposed to a great many languages in their lives.

Virtually all were solved by 1912. For one to believe the Voynich is genuine, and also the book they saw and discussed, one has to believe the phenomenal odds that the one book they saw, was the one still unsolved, still mysterious, in 1912. None of the others they saw, or would have seen, happened to fall into Voynich's hand. I have no problem if that is a position you wish to take, I do not, and would not, as it stretches all credibility.

The only way to make is seem tenable is to alter the argument in some way, but as it stands, as I mean it, I think it is a difficult position to support.

Rich.

Hi David:

(28-05-2022, 02:46 PM)proto57 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.My point is that... real or fake... most if not all of the unidentified languages and scripts in the 17th century were, by 1912, at least identified if not read. So for any language or characters to be both unidentifiable in the 1600's, AND then still be unidentifiable in 1912, is staggeringly unlikely. It strongly implies to me that... in order for this to be the case... the 1912 script and language would have to be invented around 1912, in order to fulfill the 17th century descriptions of "unknown" and "mysterious".

(28-05-2022, 03:49 PM)davidjackson Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.That's not really the argument, actually. Whether or not the same script was mysterious in both the 17th and 21st centuries or not is irrelevant, because that doesn't provide a link.

I'm not entirely certain what you mean about it "not providing a link". I don't think there is any link, and the lack of one could actually be seen as an element of my point: There is no link between a text described as unknown in the 17th century, and one described as unknown in the 20th. But I am not sure what you meant, so I've possibly misinterpreted your point and misused it. Sorry.

Quote:Your point is that it would have to be a script unknown to Western linguistics in the 17th century, but which fits the Voynich template.




I repeat what I have written before:

Those are fine observations about the semantics of the wording of the letters, and I have no problem with that. I agree that the work they saw, that they were writing about, confounded them in many ways, and the effort you make... as does Philip Neal, Zandbergen and others, is a worthwhile one.




It is valuable on many levels, but does not alter or affect the argument I am making, here, as in my post, and summarized, above.





That being said, if you mean by "which fits the Voynich template" the text that they did actually see, I don't think it would have, at all. It was probably something which today we would consider quite mundane and understandable... it's meaning, dating, origins, geography, history.





By the way, I highly recommend Maurice Pope's "The Story of Decipherment", if any of you haven't read it. The history and family tree of languages and scripts is outlined, in order to understand and place each deciphered language in an historic context. It was during reading this that I realized the incompatible differential between a 17th century understanding of "unknown", with an early 20th century one. But there are so many other points which can be gleaned from knowing the history of languages, not the least of which is that the Voynich script does not fall in any of them. This is another thing which distinguishes Voynichese... it fits nowhere. It is not something I elaborated on in this blog post, but hope to do so in a future one.




That is, for all the unknowns to the men of the letters, for most of them, then, and all of them, later, they fit somewhere. In some age, some origin, some geography. Rongorogo is totally unknown, but we know who made it, and approximately, when. The Phaistos Disk, that ring from China, and I think all that one can think of: All might be mysterious and unknown and untranslatable, but about where they fall in the tree can be known.




Which brings me back to Koen's point, that there are unique, and real, objects, like the Anikythera Mechanism: But we know who made the Antikythera mechanism, and why, and approximately, when. It is unique in form, as nothing like it exists from the time it was made, but there is where the similarity to the Voynich ends: Because just like all the solved languages, the Anikythera Mechanism was solved. It is unique, but not an unknown, and not a mystery. This, because it has the signs all over it, of where it belongs, where it came from. The Voynich does not.




Rich.

PS: Sorry I had to edit that a couple of times to fix my messing up the formatting... still not great, but I'll leave it for now...

Oh, I'm not at all convinced the letters refer to the voynich, although I could be swayed either way.
The difficulty is in the use of the word used in the letters: deciphering, rather than translating.

Quote:Marci is talking about a mysterious book whose previous owner has spent a lot of time and effort in “deciphering” (point 2). Not reading or translating but trying – and failing utterly – to decipher. He is talking about a suspected unbreakable code book. The previous owner was obviously obsessed with it, hence the phrase about not giving up hope until his death.

For the letters to be referring to the voynich, you would have to postulate that these scholars recognised it to be in a code, not a foreign script.

(28-05-2022, 10:10 PM)davidjackson Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The difficulty is in the use of the word used in the letters: deciphering, rather than translating.
...
For the letters to be referring to the voynich, you would have to postulate that these scholars recognised it to be in a code, not a foreign script.

Hi David,
I see no difficulty. Champollion is commonly credited for the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and Ventris for the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. The word was, and still is, used to denote the interpretation of anything that is not easily understood.
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. uses the verb about solving a [theological] doubt ("decifrare questo dubbio").
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. uses it about clearing-up misunderstandings ("discifrare gli equivoci").

I think what Marco says about decifrare applies to steganographia as well, Kircher surely does not talk about steganography in the modern sense, but about a hidden text in the original meaning of the word, something like tachygraphy or stenography, that would explain why Kircher says he has seen things like that  before and can find out what they mean

Yes, but my question is:
What in the VM would make Kircher assume it was a hidden text and not a foreign alphabet? He explicitly refers to a secret chest of a sort he is familiar with. 
multas huius scrinae scripturas variis occasionibus me dissolvisse memini, imo et iam circa hanc quoque molientur ingenii

Quote:André Szelp: opinions that “shrines” refers to the concealment of text by encryption which has to be cracked, i.e. opened like a shrine/cabinet? In particular, in Latin “scrinium (neuter)” means ‘case, chest for a book’, so has a connotation with knowledge and writing which I agree with. Kirchner uses a non-standard gender form (feminine) “scrina”. The idea here seems to be that there is a chest of knowledge – ie, plain text hiding a secret message.

It's the psychological setup. Somebody sends you a text and says "I can't read this".
You either assume it's a code or it's an unknown alphabet. You come to this observation after examining it. Kircher assumes it's a code or cipher of some sort.

Kircher actually goes on in the same letter to refer to an unknown alphabet, in a completely different way
Alterum denique folium quem ipsi ignoti characteris genere scriptum....

Finally the other leaf upon which are written types of unknown characters....
and continues to explain that it's Galgolithic. Because he's recognised the script.
 
Now, Helmut's suggestion seems to be that Kircher recognised it as tachygraphy. Entirely possible. We've recognised plenty of similarities to Latin shorthand. 

If so, and we assume this is indeed the VM, then Kircher's response is an important one for ourselves, if we assume he's not just bragging when he claims he could easily read it if he only had the time to study the text. It means he's recognised it as an artefact he is familiar with. 

OK, I'm floundering now, but it's because I'm still not clear in my own head about it 

David,


You either assume it's a code or it's an unknown alphabet.

That is your assumption, not Kircher's or mine, I think K.
recognises Late Medieval Tachygraphy(NOT LATIN TACHYGRAPHY;
.i.e.  NOT Tironian Notes!), whih he very likely could read
and had read before

To say it clearly, my suggestion IS that we have in Beineke 408
a caswe of Late Medieval Shorthand. It came to me when I ignored the
misreadings of EVA and started to read the ms. by itself, which is
possible as I have told you again and again