(07-04-2024, 01:25 PM)Aga Tentakulus Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The VM author knew the difference between paws and claws, which Wilfried apparently didn't look at in the cat. The difference between the paws of a lion and a cat is worlds apart. Wilfried's cat is a cloven-hoofed animal.
The ram is exactly what a ram is in the Alps. I doubt that Wilfried knew that.
Well of course what you say it technically correct... cloven hooves on an appropriate animal, are not on the cat. But here is the thing I've noted for over 15 years now... 18 years? And it is hard to explain, but I'll try:
A use of widely varying standards of exception and admission in any investigation- forensic, legal, cultural, archeological- is one of the greatest problems in determining the truth of the matter. That is, by altering the standards used to determine the truth of anything, one can never come to any conclusion. And the lack of standards, the use of varying standards, is inadvertently applied to "adjust" the opinion about what the truth might be.
In the case of the Voynich, we of course have a tremendous range of accuracy, from deplorable to almost perfect, in the illustrations. This range of styles, content, and artistic representation leaves it particularly susceptible to the problem I am describing. There are no "land marks", as there are in, say, a work of art by a particular artist, or the engraving on paper money, or in the evidence in a crime, or anything in which we are seeking an answer: If something is "off", we see it, we know it is wrong, and it points to a possible answer: Who made it, or did it, if it is real or not, when it was made or happened, and so on.
But in the Voynich, there is from the beginning to the end of it a cacophony of styles, quality, accuracy, which form a vast stew from which anyone can draw inferences, and they have: I have (we all have) seen the illustrations alternatively described as poor and talented, amateur and expert, immature and adult, accurate and inaccurate. Things that look, on the surface like some thing are said to be "too good" to be that thing, because the Vms artist was too talent-less to make it that good; and the SAME OBJECT said to be "too poor" to be that thing, because the artist was too good to make it that bad. In fact in a great many discussions about many illustrations over the years, I have had several people so argue these opposite points, for the same illustration. And even, in a few cases, had the same person say, in the same discussion, that something was both "too good" and "too bad" to be the thing many think it actually looks like.
It ends up being like the Three Bears... anything one wants an object to be, or any comparison noted, to any features, can be "adjusted" to fit whatever outcome they like, until the result is You are not allowed to view links.
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So look what happened here, with my ram-cat comparison: Some of the feet don't exactly match in the cat to ram, so they are said to not be by the same person. Then you point out, correctly, that cats don't have cloven hooves, and apply what you think the standard of the artist is in order to dismiss a connection to Voynich: That the Vms artist would KNOW what animals have hooves, and which do not, therefore the artist cannot have drawn the cat. He/she was "too good" for that.
Meanwhile, even much higher levels of inaccuracy are constantly excused, for almost any illustration in the Voynich, in order to accept that the thing is what it must be to be old and real.
Well first of all, I do think, as I have often said, that the problem is partly intentional... and that it has to be. No other work that I know of, that I have seen, has so many features that are both very close to something identifiable, and then off "just enough" to cause a lack of ability to identify them. IMO, that staggers credibility. From 2010:
https://proto57.wordpress.com/2010/05/06/a-little-like-everything/
"Added up, all these myriad of these similarities, so close and yet so far, are staggering in number. And again, I propose, to accidentally miss on thousands of individual elements, over 200 plus pages of text, without giving away one concrete connection to anything real… this, in my opinion, would be almost impossible to have happened by chance, and must have been intentional, and therefore is our biggest clue… a clue never followed. Instead, effort is put into finding a real connection, endlessly, as it has for a hundred years."
So what do we do to avoid this dilemma? Where do we find our "land marks"? Maybe that problem is impossible to resolve. Here, I believe the artistic standards are low, very low, and so the level of comparison between the ram and the cat are very good, that they very well could be by the same person. You disagree, and the previous commenter, too, and that the Voynich artist would be better than to make these mistakes. So how are problems like this resolved? Where is our yardstick, or land mark, to decide?
I would say "consistency and context". If one judges the accuracy and talent of any particular illustration to some level of acceptance/rejection, they they must attempt to use that same standard over the entire work. And while doing so, think about the possible context that would then explain the reasons items fall in and out of acceptance... without then adjusting the standard to fit the new observation. I mean, don't use a scissors when doing a jigsaw puzzle.
And while applying this uniform set of standards, look for a context that explains why items fall in and out of acceptance.
I'm not telling you what to do, I'm telling you both what I try to do, and what I see in others, when trying to determine the value of their input... for my own use, my own purposes. If I don't see consistent standards applied, or a uniform context to explain their opinions, then I value it less. It is less useful to me, I mean. I believe that the overall style, ability, accuracy, and yes, features, of the cat and the ram are not easily dismiss-able, and plausibly suggest the two artists may be the same. And I come to that opinion through a consistent application of a standard: That the Voynich artist was a very poor artist, and that they were both purposefully and unavoidably inaccurate in representations of items they often used as influences and suggestions, items which they then altered in form to some degree, so that inarguable identification would always be elusive, thus insulating themselves from identification and possible detection. And they did this under an overall context which explains these observations: They were a forger with poor artistic skills, and lacking in a care or understanding of human and animal anatomy and botany.
This then also explains the occasional accuracy seen, as even a poor artist can copy better ones: I'm thinking particularly of the claims I've read that the artist was "good" because they used perspective, and only a good artist would understand perspective; while at the same time looking at illustrations using perspective that are actually atrocious. Which is is? I believe that they were, still, a bad artist attempting to copy perspective.
TLDR: Without any uniformly applied standards of acceptance/rejection, the Voynich can be seen to be anything the observer expects or desires.
Rich.
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