The Voynich Ninja

A thought that occurred to me is to do with the internal matching of images in general within the Voynich. Now outside of plants it is hard to see how this would work.

My thought is in terms of carrying out a large scale statistical textual comparison.

Nymph image
Star image
Specific Root
Specific Leaf
Specific Flower

The default hypothesis would seem to be that meaning of text corresponds with drawings. It is possible that this is not the case. In this eventuality the text of the Voynich could be meaningful, but the drawings made up to distract and obscure the true meaning. The idea that the Voynich text is not a hoax, but the Voynich drawings are a hoax seems unlikely to me given the sheer amount of effort put into producing the drawings, still maybe it should not be discounted too quickly as it could help explain a number of things.

Obviously the advantage of any internal match compared with a direct match is that it is not necessary to known the language/cipher used.

To be continued...

Continued...

Crudely every page with a nymph (or a specific kind of nymph) drawn on it might be more likely to have a word or words linked to the concept of a nymph.
A similar argument might apply to every page with a star on it.
This seems to work best with plants where one compares/matches plants with the same kind of flower or where one compares/matches plants with the same kind of leaf(ves) or where one compares/matches plants with the same kind of roots or even maybe some other plant feature.
This differs from the full plant matching that I have been doing so far here to specific plant-feature matching. Compiling this data would seem to be a lot of work and the numeral statistical analysis could be arduous. However it could have a significantly greater power or potentiality than the simpler plant matching.

I noticed some formatting issues in the ratings workbook tonight when I went into it to work on my ratings and comments. The data in the ratings sheet appeared recently re-sorted and filtered. This also affected the sort of all the individual comments sheets and the ratings sheet ratings key and reference links (columns Q and R). The data itself was unaffected. I fixed this and then added filter buttons to the column headers in (a) the ratings sheet (all except columns Q and R) and (b) each of the individual comments sheets. I also resized the columns so that all the header text is still visible even with the filter buttons displayed. Now participants can use the filter buttons instead of the filter view to limit the data displayed while completing their edits. One really cool thing about this is that you can now filter to only view blanks (i.e. view rows that have cells with no entry)...no re-sorting required. Just be sure to reset the filter when done so that all data is visible again before the next person needs to make edits. A more detailed description of the structural changes can be found in the wish list tab.

Ah, I sorted the page by score yesterday because I wanted to check something, but forgot to reset it. My bad. 

By the way, we need some more people rating all the matches!

Indeed. I think we all got a little distracted from the project. I'm working on my updates still but it's slow going as I work to complete my comments on Mark's matches before I start working on ThP's and Rene's matches.

One additional improvement I thought of adding to the workbook would be links on the match numbers (ratings sheet column G) to Mark's and Rene's match image files in this thread simply because they are larger images better for comparing than the ones in the Folio Browser. But then that would take me away from my edits...again. Still, if it will make everyone's rating and commenting easier, I'll work on that first.

I won't have much time next week (I'll be in Boston), but after that I'll have some time for this project again.

It wouldn't be unusual for a voynich research project to just fall flat after a while though, when it appears that it's just too hard to find anythinh with certainty or that there's simply nothing there. I've got several of those that I poured countless hours in but eventually only allowed me to say that I didn't find anything. (Not finding anything can also be a valuable result, though far less exciting than the opposite). But we still have a way to go in this project.

Say hello to Beantown for me. That's where I grew up and I still have family there, though I haven't visited since before the pandemic.

I have noticed this about VM research and even had a few of my own trying to identify some of the herbals. But I think this one is worth the effort, as is Mark's small plant labels project, so, despite the slow going, I hope we do complete it. Plus, there seems to be several other members regularly following our efforts (quick tip: scroll to the bottom of any page of the thread and you can see who has browsed it; hover over each name and you can also see the date they last accessed it).

Since we appear to have plenty of time, I will go ahead and add the match image links to the workbook.

(20-10-2023, 01:12 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I've got several of those that I poured countless hours in but eventually only allowed me to say that I didn't find anything. (Not finding anything can also be a valuable result, though far less exciting than the opposite). But we still have a way to go in this project.

I have been busy with other things recently and so haven't yet done the label matching text work. But I haven't given up. The original image list that I shared I produced over two years ago, and I only decided to share it recently, so I don't expect instant results.

Links to the plant match images Mark and Rene posted in this thread have now been added to column G (Orig nr) in the ratings sheet in the workbook for easier reference than in the thread posts. The links are only in the ratings sheet - they didn't carry over to the individual comments sheets or the comments comparison but hopefully this will help as everyone works on their ratings and comments.

If there are similar images for the Theodore Petersen matches, links to those can also be added to the ratings sheet, either directly or they can be posted in this thread so I can add them.

Let me know if any further structural changes are desired or needed.

Finally I had time to analyze the match table.
What was new to me were 5-6 proposals, which I could give a rating of 2-3 points.
I want to ast  merrimacga if it is possible to add my matches that I published in 2017 to the table. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. 
1/ In post 47. circular similarity of 3 plants.
2/ in post 49. nine examples that I would rate = 3.
3/ 36 examples posted in posts 55, 56, 60.
4/ example from post 73. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and 101r. Not only does the shape of the leaf match, but there are also “eyes” in both drawings.
5/ similarity of roots in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and f2r, only in one picture the heads of the snakes are cut off.
To eliminate competition, in case of repetition of the proposed matches, indicate several authors in column "F".