(29-12-2022, 10:41 PM)nablator Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.it is simple enough to have been invented independently.
And yet from my understanding you are saying it was only invented once in history in the case of the Voynich manuscript.
If it is simple enough to not need any historical precedent/influence and therefore in some sense outside of history then I would have thought it would have been invented multiple times in different places and historical periods.
I am always very suspicious if someone states that something emerged independently of history. I got quite interested in the history and evolution of the steam engine; when one looks into it one discovers that there were many intermediate people and steps in the emergence of this technology that one has no idea about in the standard history i.e. which is normally told just as it was invented by James Watt.
(29-12-2022, 10:51 PM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.If it is simple enough to not need any historical precedent/influence and therefore in some sense outside of history then I would have thought it would have been invented multiple times in different places and historical periods.
If it had a great practical value or if there was no other way to encipher texts it would have been.
There's more than one way to skin a cat - as they say. There's more than one way to encode a written text. While these various intellectual ways of manipulating the writing system during the relevant C-14 era clearly need to be investigated, and I applaud your efforts, Mark et al., there is another, very effective and simple means to hide the intended communications of the VMs, and that is to physically hide the text. Let the greater part of the written text actually consist of nonsense. Nonsense is an excellent deterrent to decryption. There are markers and various other artistic ways in which certain text segments might be designated.
Apparently, there are some who expect to read every vord of the VMS, cover to cover. Why is that?
*Apparently* there are a fair number of pages missing from the VMs. Why did they get cut out?? Just because they were "pretty"?
@nablator: Perhaps rithmomachia??
(29-12-2022, 11:30 PM)nablator Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (29-12-2022, 10:51 PM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.If it is simple enough to not need any historical precedent/influence and therefore in some sense outside of history then I would have thought it would have been invented multiple times in different places and historical periods.
If it had a great practical value or if there was no other way to encipher texts it would have been.
But if was a superior way to encipher text then surely it would have been very popular. Clearly a cipher as difficult to break as the Voynich cipher would have been preferred to the standard ciphers of that time.
(30-12-2022, 02:10 AM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.But if was a superior way to encipher text then surely it would have been very popular. Clearly a cipher as difficult to break as the Voynich cipher would have been preferred to the standard ciphers of that time.
Not necessarily if it was an absolute pain to use. Diplomatic and military cyphers have not always prioritised greater secrecy over speed, to their cost.
Also we do not know just how impenetrable the manuscript would have appeared to a hypothetical, motivated "unauthorised reader" who stumbled on it around the time of its creation who might have a reasonable idea of the language inside it and its content. If knowledge of these points weakened its strength, that would also harm its value in the balance against ease of usage.
So I would hesitate to call the system "superior".
I don't want to challenge the notion that no innovation comes 'out of the blue'. I am sure that this is supported by plenty of historical evidence.
However, I also suspect that the following two considerations may be valid:
- there is likely to be a grey area where connections of innovative ideas to earlier thoughts may be 'more distant'.
- in case of a historical innovation, evidence of the previous thoughts may no longer be available, or ahs not yet been found.
In any case, my main concern with respect to the discussion is the term "The cipher". We do not even know if there is one, or, if there is a method, it is anything like "a cipher".
(30-12-2022, 02:10 AM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (29-12-2022, 11:30 PM)nablator Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (29-12-2022, 10:51 PM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.If it is simple enough to not need any historical precedent/influence and therefore in some sense outside of history then I would have thought it would have been invented multiple times in different places and historical periods.
If it had a great practical value or if there was no other way to encipher texts it would have been.
But if was a superior way to encipher text then surely it would have been very popular. Clearly a cipher as difficult to break as the Voynich cipher would have been preferred to the standard ciphers of that time.
A substitution cipher would have been deemed superior (if anyone ever had to choose, which I doubt) because it was secure enough at the time (without computers) and faster to use: with a little practice most symbols could be remembered and there was no need to glance at the key at every letter.
There is an evolutionary gap between substitution ciphers and more advanced ciphers/codes that the Voynich fills nicely.
(30-12-2022, 09:51 AM)nablator Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.There is an evolutionary gap between substitution ciphers and more advanced ciphers/codes that the Voynich fills nicely.
I'm not sure if this is the best way of putting this given the current state of our knowledge. It suggests that the Voynich cipher (if we assume it is one) is a conscious attempt to make substitution ciphers more difficult to crack. Wouldn't we expect such innovation in a different context, i.e. politics, espionage, military...? The Voynich just appears to be a different beast altogether, at least I wouldn't place it in any kind of evolutionary or hierarchical scheme.
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The art is to work first with what the book offers.
So you have to ask yourself why the aunt (only one) is standing in water and not in a barrel. Or why some are lying in the pipe and others are standing on the pipe.
When you have understood what exactly the nymph in the water is, you have a second key word.
The method with which the VMS could be "encrypted" is perhaps simpler than one might first assume. After all, an entire manuscript would have been edited with this method. An overly complicated system would be very cumbersome to implement and, given the mass of text, also very error-prone.
One can only speculate whether the author wanted to provide a text that is theoretically decipherable or whether this possibility was unimportant for him. In the latter case, it would be irrelevant whether the text contains errors in the encryption or not. This would, of course, make decryption even more difficult.