How big is the plate?
The star dinsda, is a prime example of an enumeration. This is subject to a different rule.
You can believe all words begin with "o". You can also think it is an article.
Which theory lives longer.
(07-05-2023, 10:51 PM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.In the majority of old illustrated herbals, the first word in the description / recipe of the herb is the name of the plant. This is the main reason why people have been trying to identify the plants drawn in the MS. This would provide a good crib
Yes, but this requires a correct plant identification and the specific name used, if there are multiple possible names for the same plant, and it also requires one to be confident that the first word is the plant name. So there are quite a few steps required to establish a reliable crib from this.
I would submit the "Europe", "Africa" and "Asia" on the T/O map in the top right corner of the Rosettes folio. I would argue that in the centre of f68v3 we have a T/O map containing "Europe" and "Africa", however the semi-circle that would contain "Asia" actually contains a list of places in Asia.
I would also argue that on the Rosettes folio on the causeway connecting the bottom left Rosette and the centre left Rosette the "diamond" shape has the four directions "North", "East", "South" and "West" around it, though probably in an abbreviated form.
(07-05-2023, 10:51 PM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Then there are all the star names on f68r1 and f68r2, but these are more difficult because we dont have any indication which star is meant in each case.
Next are the labels in the pharme section, near each of the small plant fragments.
These are potentially great, however there are a few more steps before one can arrive at a reliable crib for these.
Not forgetting the possibility that the plant has been misidentified and that it is virtually impossible for the first word to be the plant name.
For the Voynich Manuscript, cribs are what idiots use to shoot themselves in the foot. 90+% of bs decryptions start with hallucinated cribs and go downhill from there.
But feel free, knock yourself out, you do you etc
(08-05-2023, 09:52 AM)nickpelling Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.For the Voynich Manuscript, cribs are what idiots use to shoot themselves in the foot. 90+% of bs decryptions start with hallucinated cribs and go downhill from there.
You are absolutely right. However I think this is due to their often weak claims for the crib they are using. That is why what one wants is to be able to be highly confident in the crib one has. So the reliability of the crib is key. I appreciate that your block paradigm approach can potentially result in higher levels of confidence; for example a block paradigm for the 28 mansions of the moon Illustration would be great.
I would say that, because of their potential usefulness a discussion of cribs is a very valuable one.
I have searched the forum, but I can't seem to find much reference to illustrations of the mansions of the moon in European documents from the time of the Voynich. Have people found a number of examples of such illustrations?
@Nick
To not make the same mistake 2x, you just have to turn the gun around.
Responding to Mark Knowles, you have an excellent illustration of the 28 mansions of the moon in the Catalan Altas, which is more or less from the Voynich era.
If the Voynich MS were a regular cipher from the late middle ages, even a relatively complicated one, then these cribs would have been extremely helpful.
The "Umkehrschluss" is that the complete lack of success in using these cribs is just one more piece of evidence that the Voynich MS is not like a regular cipher.
It would have taken only a few good guesses of the well over a hundred plants.
That the first words of the herbal texts do not seem like plant names (I agree) is because there is something else going on there. Again evidence that there is more than a regular cipher at work.
Every single chapter / recipe on a herbal page is a potential example of the block paradigm. This was already realised before this term was coined, and it was equally realised that theses texts do not show anything of the typical patterns one finds in plant descriptions / recipes.
Then again on this last point I am not sure how thoroughly these comparisons have been made.
There could still be something there.
Even just a comparison of the text length distribution (in words) between the Voynich MS and a representative alchemical herbal shows a promising similarity.
(08-05-2023, 10:53 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.If the Voynich MS were a regular cipher from the late middle ages, even a relatively complicated one, then these cribs would have been extremely helpful.
Obviously this depends what one means by 'regular'. Personally, I don't think Voynichese is a regular cipher, but I am inclined to think it is related to regular ciphers from the late middle ages. By 'related' I mean that they fit part of a tradition, but could have deviated in a significant way which makes them look outwardly much more different than they are, but this is speculation.
I would agree that these cribs could be very helpful. I would hesitate to say 'extremely' helpful as from what I can tell they don't yet reach the gold standard of a clear one-to-one correspondence between Voynichese word and specific text. However they may well be a stepping stones to finding such a correspondence and so a very important step towards a gold standard crib.
(08-05-2023, 10:53 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The "Umkehrschluss" is that the complete lack of success in using these cribs is just one more piece of evidence that the Voynich MS is not like a regular cipher.
It would be good to see an example of someone using these cribs.