The Voynich Ninja

 
Notice on the right image, the dark fold in the middle. The pixels are 100% straight... (many instances like this in the VM) 25 years of photoshop experience, this is not usual.

I'm so sorry Emmanuela but I don't see anything special or hidden in these images. But I admire the passion you have for this particular topic!

(29-02-2024, 02:18 AM)Lissu Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I'm so sorry Emmanuela but I don't see anything special or hidden in these images. But I admire the passion you have for this particular topic!

Thank you Lissu for your feedback, very grateful : )

It's ok, I will keep posting until people see.

 Not random..

I still don't understand how anyone in the 15th century can have predicted your using photoshop on digital scans. Not to mention the fact that the vellum looks totally different now, with centuries of accumulated grime, stains, spills, warping and discoloration.

(01-03-2024, 09:47 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I still don't understand how anyone in the 15th century can have predicted your using photoshop on digital scans. Not to mention the fact that the vellum looks totally different now, with centuries of accumulated grime, stains, spills, warping and discoloration.

I have said it before, I am carefully mimicking the effect of wetting the page. As if I rub water on the page. or drop water on it.

I truly encourage you to take a piece of paper, write / scribble on it and then, wet it. Observe what happens while it's absorbing the water and when it's fully dry.

Accumulated grime, stains, spills, warping and discoloration, as you say, yes for sure, but you cannot deny that we see the leaves, the flowers, the writing, the colours, the nymphs or whatever's on there, clearly, regardless of how old it is.

Some stains and holes and folds are done purposely. Doctored by the author, it's part of the concealing method I think. 

There is another aspect to the VM that is very different. Strange. Why not add this to my "silliness"! 
... If I had to take a wild guess I would say it's also the use of dark matter within the manuscript. Maybe.

I would challenge you to expand your research and add other experiments to the ones you are performing on the VM:

• Can you repeat such methodologies and results in high resolution digital copies of other medieval manuscripts?
  
• Can you repeat such methodologies and results in high resolution digital copies of any medieval paintings?
  
• Can you prove such results exist in the physical VM without experimenting on it directly?
  
• Were there any medieval artists who were known to create art specifically that would achieve the same kind of concealment deliberately? If so, then who were those artists, what were the works in which they achieved this, what was their methodology for doing so, and were others during their lifetimes able to find what the artists hid in their work? And who documented this about these artists, what were their backgrounds, and what methodologies did they use?
  
• Can you find any research that has been done on any original medieval manuscripts or medieval artworks (as opposed to copies) that physically demonstrates the same causes and effects that you are demonstrating in the digital images you are working with? If so, please provide examples that we can also review and tell us how specific examples in such research directly correlate to your digital work.
  

This might only validate your theory, rather than prove it, but until you do this, I'm afraid all your work will simply seem a form of art and not any kind of revelation. So sorry to keep repeating this but everything you have shown us keeps coming back to that (even the things we also see). Certainly, your results are very interesting artistically and you have demonstrated some terrific artistic talent but you present us your artistic renderings as proof of something purposely hidden in the VM without actually proving it is physically there, let alone how or why it is so. You can and we can take all the pieces of paper we want and write or draw on them all we want and then water stain them all we want and achieve at least some of the effects you are so fascinated by. But that is not the same as an artist being able and intentionally drawing something so as to purposely hide something else that the artist wants others of their time to then reveal by water staining nor does it prove it is that and not the coincidence of inadvertent water damage over time. The same thing can be said about holes and folds, though those may be easier to prove even while their existence could equally be the result of later damage instead and it would still be necessary to prove the one over the other. If you admit that trace evidence and damage over time is at least partially responsible, then what exactly do your results prove? Merely that there are circumstantially occurring patterns, however seemingly identifiable, at least in your own interpretation? 

There is an inherent flaw in both your premise and your results: you are purposely altering (both image resolution and image editing), not decoding or reconstructing or restoring, an electronic copy of a physical original and you are saying that proves something about the physical original. While coincidentally that could possibly be true, it cannot be proven without experimenting on the physical original. And if it can't be proven, it is nothing more than an interesting exercise or something creative and artistic.

There is something else besides pareidolia and pentimenti you may want to consider: pattern formations that can be modelled mathematically (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). While the Wikipedia article focuses on naturally occurring patterns (like veins in leaves, rings in trees, the shape of rocks, circles and waves in water, dunes in sand, etc.) and talks about things like fractals and chaos theory, such patterns can also be found in man-made objects. While you see repeating images like leather straps, for example, consider the possibility that these are simply repeating patterns in the wear in the vellum, meaning the creation of the vellum and the ravages of time caused the same effect (creases, holes, discolorations) to occur the same way (visual formations) in multiple places within the VM (repeating patterns that, theoretically, could be mathematically modelled if one could identify and quantify all the variables). If you could prove repeating patterns, which admittedly might be difficult to do without physical access to the VM, in the folio and binding materials, as opposed to the drawings and writing, it would mean you are actually seeing something that is physically there (not pareidolia) and only your interpretation of the patterns would be incorrect or fanciful (pareidolia). However, this would also almost certainly mean that the patterns are not there out of any deliberate attempt to put them there but rather as a sort of natural phenomenon. Your own alterations to the digital VM very likely could also be mathematically modelled and should repeating patterns be found in your work, it could indicate that the patterns are the result of your alterations and not anything already present in the VM (that is, you created the patterns yourself unintentionally and repeatedly).

As for your comment about dark matter, I don't think you understand the concept or its history (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). Perhaps you meant something else and just used the wrong terminology?

I LOVE the idea that the Voynich Manuscript was created with Dark Matter, I really do. But that is just wishful thinking. People desperately seek magic but there is no magic. Just ordinary dead cows and ordinary inks and ordinary humans with wishful ideas (both in the 15th century and the 21st century).

Remember, the Voynich Manuscript was written on dead cows, not paper made from plant fibers.

(02-03-2024, 07:53 AM)merrimacga Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I would challenge you to expand your research and add other experiments to the ones you are performing on the VM:

• Can you repeat such methodologies and results in high resolution digital copies of other medieval manuscripts?
  
• Can you repeat such methodologies and results in high resolution digital copies of any medieval paintings?
  
• Can you prove such results exist in the physical VM without experimenting on it directly?
  
• Were there any medieval artists who were known to create art specifically that would achieve the same kind of concealment deliberately? If so, then who were those artists, what were the works in which they achieved this, what was their methodology for doing so, and were others during their lifetimes able to find what the artists hid in their work? And who documented this about these artists, what were their backgrounds, and what methodologies did they use?
  
• Can you find any research that has been done on any original medieval manuscripts or medieval artworks (as opposed to copies) that physically demonstrates the same causes and effects that you are demonstrating in the digital images you are working with? If so, please provide examples that we can also review and tell us how specific examples in such research directly correlate to your digital work.
  

This might only validate your theory, rather than prove it, but until you do this, I'm afraid all your work will simply seem a form of art and not any kind of revelation. So sorry to keep repeating this but everything you have shown us keeps coming back to that (even the things we also see). Certainly, your results are very interesting artistically and you have demonstrated some terrific artistic talent but you present us your artistic renderings as proof of something purposely hidden in the VM without actually proving it is physically there, let alone how or why it is so. You can and we can take all the pieces of paper we want and write or draw on them all we want and then water stain them all we want and achieve at least some of the effects you are so fascinated by. But that is not the same as an artist being able and intentionally drawing something so as to purposely hide something else that the artist wants others of their time to then reveal by water staining nor does it prove it is that and not the coincidence of inadvertent water damage over time. The same thing can be said about holes and folds, though those may be easier to prove even while their existence could equally be the result of later damage instead and it would still be necessary to prove the one over the other. If you admit that trace evidence and damage over time is at least partially responsible, then what exactly do your results prove? Merely that there are circumstantially occurring patterns, however seemingly identifiable, at least in your own interpretation? 

There is an inherent flaw in both your premise and your results: you are purposely altering (both image resolution and image editing), not decoding or reconstructing or restoring, an electronic copy of a physical original and you are saying that proves something about the physical original. While coincidentally that could possibly be true, it cannot be proven without experimenting on the physical original. And if it can't be proven, it is nothing more than an interesting exercise or something creative and artistic.

There is something else besides pareidolia and pentimenti you may want to consider: pattern formations that can be modelled mathematically (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). While the Wikipedia article focuses on naturally occurring patterns (like veins in leaves, rings in trees, the shape of rocks, circles and waves in water, dunes in sand, etc.) and talks about things like fractals and chaos theory, such patterns can also be found in man-made objects. While you see repeating images like leather straps, for example, consider the possibility that these are simply repeating patterns in the wear in the vellum, meaning the creation of the vellum and the ravages of time caused the same effect (creases, holes, discolorations) to occur the same way (visual formations) in multiple places within the VM (repeating patterns that, theoretically, could be mathematically modelled if one could identify and quantify all the variables). If you could prove repeating patterns, which admittedly might be difficult to do without physical access to the VM, in the folio and binding materials, as opposed to the drawings and writing, it would mean you are actually seeing something that is physically there (not pareidolia) and only your interpretation of the patterns would be incorrect or fanciful (pareidolia). However, this would also almost certainly mean that the patterns are not there out of any deliberate attempt to put them there but rather as a sort of natural phenomenon. Your own alterations to the digital VM very likely could also be mathematically modelled and should repeating patterns be found in your work, it could indicate that the patterns are the result of your alterations and not anything already present in the VM (that is, you created the patterns yourself unintentionally and repeatedly).

As for your comment about dark matter, I don't think you understand the concept or its history (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). Perhaps you meant something else and just used the wrong terminology?

Thank you for taking the time to write this message. I will gladly provide everything you have listed : )

I have to say I take zero credit for the results we see. This is all the author possibly but I assure you this is not my work. All I might be doing is uncovering.

Stay tuned...