The Voynich Ninja

(04-03-2016, 07:17 PM)-Job- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.In the text produced by your generator, what's the ratio between vocabulary size and text size?

The VM has a ratio of 0.21. The A folios have a ratio of 0.3 and the B folios have a ratio of 0.21, so there is some internal variation.

The following are the ratios for sample texts in known languages:
Pliny's Natural History (Latin): 0.27
Bible (Latin): 0.22
Bible (Hebrew): 0.22
Dante (Italian): 0.22
Moby Dick (English): 0.11
Short Stories (Pinyin): 0.21

I expect that you should be able to match a ratio of 0.21 by constraining the copy operation. The question is, how much?

Job. I am not afraid to ask any question ;-)
 so how would one measure the  ratio of vocabulary size and text size in the Voynich, and is there any scientific method or research based on that or can any conclusions be made based on any number?

The issue I have with this theory - and I like this theory - is that it seems too regular for the late Middle ages. 
In other words, there is no reason for such a structural framework to be imposed upon the scribe. Why would you go to such lengths unless you had much more modern knowledge about language and wanted to deceive?
If it were possible to link your theory into a mechanical mechanism, it would be much more believable.
IE - imagine a scribe who has a mechanism to produce words (I'm thinking of a mechanical volvelle which can be easily spun for each word). I haven't been able to come up with a combinator to produce Voynich words in this fashion - have you?

(08-02-2017, 09:33 PM)davidjackson Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The issue I have with this theory - and I like this theory - is that it seems too regular for the late Middle ages. 
In other words, there is no reason for such a structural framework to be imposed upon the scribe. Why would you go to such lengths unless you had much more modern knowledge about language and wanted to deceive?
If it were possible to link your theory into a mechanical mechanism, it would be much more believable.
IE - imagine a scribe who has a mechanism to produce words (I'm thinking of a mechanical volvelle which can be easily spun for each word). I haven't been able to come up with a combinator to produce Voynich words in this fashion - have you?

Not to plug my own theory, but some sort of word-generating mechanism would not be beyond the scope of the 1400s, and I was working on a chart several months ago to demonstrate this:

[attachment=1140]

This is very important regarding an algorithm which would generate text that looks somewhat coherent, but have no meaning.  This would imply a math formula and that the words do not use my system.  But, what algebraic formula would do that?

Would Torsten divulge the algorithm for his autocopy-generator or has he done this?

(08-02-2017, 09:33 PM)davidjackson Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The issue I have with this theory - and I like this theory - is that it seems too regular for the late Middle ages. 

The VMS is very regular. There is for instance the strict word structure.

Quote:In other words, there is no reason for such a structural framework to be imposed upon the scribe. Why would you go to such lengths unless you had much more modern knowledge about language and wanted to deceive?

It was not done on purpose. It was done since it is easier to copy something then to invent something new. It is just the most efficient method to generate text. 

But there are some problems with this method. For instance you will learn something during writing the text. Therefore the generated text would change over time. Since you change the words on purpose this method would also result in many similar words. Since it is far from easy to invent new rules all the time you would probably repeat the same patterns.

Quote:If it were possible to link your theory into a mechanical mechanism, it would be much more believable.

IE - imagine a scribe who has a mechanism to produce words (I'm thinking of a mechanical volvelle which can be easily spun for each word). I haven't been able to come up with a combinator to produce Voynich words in this fashion - have you?

Your eyes are enough to select a previously written word or sequence of letters. Try it yourself:
aur eye areare enug ta sale aprev ously wryt wart ol seequenc af leetee tly iit yau selsel

Quote:some sort of word-generating mechanism would not be beyond the scope of the 1400s

Basic letter frequency analysis was know about in the 13 the century - Rudolph I made a cypher with multiple ciphers to avoid easy breaking of his otherwise basic caeser cipher.


Your eyes are enough to select a previously written word or sequence of letters. Try it yourself:

aur eye areare enug ta sale aprev ously wryt wart ol seequenc af leetee tly iit yau selsel

Yes it is - but that would not create the sequences we observe in the VMS.
I can accept the theory, but I can't see that practice would create the VMS.

(28-02-2016, 06:31 PM)Sam G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Your eyes are enough to select a previously written word or sequence of letters. Try it yourself:

aur eye areare enug ta sale aprev ously wryt wart ol seequenc af leetee tly iit yau selsel

Yes it is - but that would not create the sequences we observe in the VMS.
I can accept the theory, but I can't see that practice would create the VMS.

See for instance the very first paragraph on page You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.:

[attachment=1395]

In the first line there is the sequence [ar ytaiin] and directly below this sequence we have [or ykair] and [or ykaiin]. 
The similarity between this three sequences is eye catching.

The whole paragraph only consists of numerous words similar to each other:

[attachment=1394]

See all the words similar to [shol] like [shory], [sholdy], [shar], [shod] and [chear]. See also the words starting with [cth], [ckh], [cph] and [cfh]. Or see the words ending in [aiin].

You can try it on any other page with at least five lines of text. The whole manuscript only consists of words similar to each other.  It's just that simple. 

This appears to be true, when we look at the EVA transcription.
But I would argue the reality is different. If we look at the original text, we see much more detail than in the transcription:


We fixate upon what we can see and recognise, and EVA helps us to do this by creating obvious patterns.

Let us look at a real world example with a similar effect (left hand column):

We can see similar words repeating themselves. (That's 16th century Basque -Euskera- by the way, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). We can pick out similar fragments that are seem to be repeated, because we don't understand the context. But the text obviously has meaning. Although this example does not show the regularity of Voynichese.

I'm not arguing against your theory - in fact, I find it very plausible - but I'm trying to think of a context to put it in to "prove" it, rather than leaving it as an impression on the part of the reader. 

So how can we prove your theory? Well, I have in the past written upon the evolving epizeuxis phenomenon, which is what I called these sequences when a Timm's pair starts to be repeated across a sentence. I think there's a rich field to be examined there.

(19-05-2017, 09:16 PM)davidjackson Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.This appears to be true, when we look at the EVA transcription.
But I would argue the reality is different. If we look at the original text, we see much more detail than in the transcription:

We fixate upon what we can see and recognise, and EVA helps us to do this by creating obvious patterns.

Did you really want to argue that the glyphs have slightly different shapes? The manuscript was written by hand! You can't expect the same result as with a true type font.

(Some differences indeed show a pattern. For instance the gallow glyphs are larger in the first line. This happens since there is more space available at this place.)

Quote:Let us look at a real world example with a similar effect (left hand column):

We can see similar words repeating themselves. (That's 16th century Basque -Euskera- by the way, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). We can pick out similar fragments that are seem to be repeated, because we don't understand the context. But the text obviously has meaning. Although this example does not show the regularity of Voynichese.

You say it yourself, your text doesn't show the same regularity. There is a huge difference between something happens sometimes and something happens all the time. You have to ask yourself what is the system behind it. The system behind the Voynich manuscript is that it uses words similar to each other.

The manuscript is at it is. Nobody can change it.

(19-05-2017, 08:51 PM)Torsten Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.See all the words similar to [shol] like [shory], [sholdy], [shar], [shod] and [chear]. See also the words starting with [cth], [ckh], [cph] and [cfh]. Or see the words ending in [aiin].

In what way is [shod] or [shol] or [sholdy] like [chear]?