(04-02-2025, 01:40 PM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.In regular scientific problems that is never an issue.
You won't find unknowledgeable amateurs trying to solve any of the many unsolved mathematical problems.
That's exactly it. The VM sees deceptively accessible. But studying it seriously means becoming proficient in many serious fields of study, and that step is always skipped.
Issuing a prize might attract some qualified people. But the noise would increase to such a degree that the whole field would become unworkable.
I just cannot believe, that exactly you two- ReneZ and KoenG,
who have put that much of your time, knowledge, support, and passion in this research are against a just prize (or scientific grant), for the team that comes to a conclusion about this script!
Is there something that we- the rest of the ordinary people do not know?
I mean some kind of other promise or motivation, which makes you react so against it?
The truth is that even non-academics can bring a lot of hints, directions and new ideas, which the more knowledgeable ( although I do not know anybody that is more knowledgeable, after no one can read it) may continue to do further untiieing of this Gordon knot...
The more ideas- the better. Do you know "brainstorming"? Yes we are at brainstorming meeting all of us here. There are no wrong ideas.
And another thought- how many hundreds billions go for the warfare, which is built to kill people? Is there no one oligarch, who may submit some of his/her pocket money for the solution of an unsolvable manuscript?
Be healthy and continue the good job!
(04-02-2025, 03:19 PM)BessAgritianin Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I mean some kind of other promise or motivation, which makes you react so against it?
The truth is that even non-academics can bring a lot of hints, directions and new ideas, which the more knowledgeable ( although I do not know anybody that is more knowledgeable, after no one can read it) may continue to do further untiieing of this Gordon knot...
The more ideas- the better. Do you know "brainstorming"? Yes we are at brainstorming meeting all of us here. There are no wrong ideas.
Why offering a substantial monetary prize would encourage people to share their hints and ideas? I suspect people attracted primarily by the reward would mostly keep their ideas and findings to themselves.
Overall, I find the mystery itself more than enough motivation and the current state of the community seems to be the right mix of enthusiastic but not too emotional. I'm not sure there is an actual problem to solve with a monetary reward.
(04-02-2025, 02:35 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (04-02-2025, 01:40 PM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.In regular scientific problems that is never an issue.
You won't find unknowledgeable amateurs trying to solve any of the many unsolved mathematical problems.
That's exactly it. The VM sees deceptively accessible. But studying it seriously means becoming proficient in many serious fields of study, and that step is always skipped.
Issuing a prize might attract some qualified people. But the noise would increase to such a degree that the whole field would become unworkable.
Well, let's have a thought experiment. Supposing purely hypothetically there was a $1 Trillion prize for a decipherment of the Voynich manuscript. Your argument would seem to imply that the existence of such a prize would actually lead to it taking longer for a decipherment to be achieved than the absence of such a prize. Now, obviously nobody would ever offer such a large prize. However, I think such a prize would lead to significant financial and resource investment in deciphering the Voynich; there would probably be companies which would invest large resources in scanning archival material and searching archives for relevant documents. Yes, it would also generate a huge amount of noise. However given the investment of time and resources it would generate I think it would inevitably lead to a correct solution being arrived at more quickly.
With any realistic amount of prize money though, no for-profit companies are going to take those risks. If you spend 200k scanning archives and having a team of researchers comb through them, you probably just lost 200k.
We do not live in a hypothetical world, but in a real one.
As soon as a prize is issued by any entity, this entity then has to set up a panel of some sort to decide when the prize can be handed out. This panel will immediately be bombarded by the likes of Gerard Cheshire, Ahmet Ardic, some people on this list, and quite a few more that most people on this list do not know much about. (And you are better off that way!)
The panel will then (probably) have to tell them that, no, that is not the right solution.
This is already not acceptable to these people in the present-day informal discussions, but guess what happens when a million dollars are at stake?
Overflowing mailboxes will be the smallest problem. Threats and law suits are entirely likely to follow.
And this is what would happen immediately, even before the prize money can start generating some incentive.
The tiny possibility of a positive impact from this incentive does not outweigh the massive problems that it creates.
Let me comment - how I see it.
There is a grant of money, or prize identified by some one.
One of this blog with academic titles and experiences forms a team and a plan. This is presented to the investors and let say the money won (at this point all of the rest are not any more in the game).
This team has the following members:
1. Experienced in VM documentary
2. Experienced in information and propaganda and publications.
2. Experienced in Latin, Italian (this is because of pharmaceutical part)
4. Experienced in image processing
5. Experienced in medieval medicine and pharmacy.
6. Experienced in German, Slovak and English Languages
Let say that some I have forgotten. This makes around ten persons. Ten persons working for one year for 100k a year gives 1 million.
For one year the team promises to provide the following results:
Which is the language(s).
Translation of at least one foil of plants part.
Translation of a foil of "balneo" part.
Translation of the "cosmology" part.
If the company/oligarch/investor is satisfied with the result - there shall be negotiation for the further proceedings.
If the team has no success- then sorry for the investor- there is always a risk.
So methinks there is no way one person alone can manage and take the prize, because the manuscript requires proficiency in many spheres, which are medieval.
(05-02-2025, 04:09 AM)BessAgritianin Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.There is a grant of money, or prize identified by some one.
What you described looks like a grant, the team gets money upfront (or according to some schedule) for research. I'm not from academia, but that's my understanding of how grants are supposed to work.
I suppose there have been some grants issued for VMS related research before, at least somewhere in the world. I'm also absolutely sure that at least one person with expertise from each of the fields you mentioned spent at least some time on the MS in the past 100 years. To me it looks far from certain that a dedicated team you described guarantees a breakthrough.
And then there is the possibility that the manuscript is meaningless, but not provably meaningless. So one can spend grant after grant after grant and never get any result. And it is possible that there are no other extant related documents anywhere in archives in the world. So, no matter how much money you spend, you'll get nothing.
Let me also approach this from a different angle, your list has position #4 "experienced in image processing". While I don't have any relevant credentials, and image processing is not on my CV, I have some experience in image processing and I do answer to at least some of requests related to processing VMS images on this forum. I do this for free, and I would rather do this for free in my free time at the pace I see comfortable, instead of being bound by any kind of agreement. I cannot speak for others, I can imagine you can always find professionals in need for money, but I suppose for most of the proposed positions there is already someone providing high quality feedback. And we are talking about years or sometimes decades of high quality feedback. So, again, I'm not sure a grant or a prize would improve anything here.
Grants might work if they are targeted correctly. You can't just write out a grant for someone or a team to "solve the Voynich", because they might just come up with a bad theory.
What I would do if I had a couple of millions to spare would be to issue targeted grants. Pay researchers with archive experience to comb through undigitized archives looking for specific things. For example, undigitized Zodiac sequences of a certain kind. Issue bonuses for each relevant item found. This would all be defined in concrete terms. For example, you could issue a bonus for each previously unknown crossbow Sagittarius found. I could think of a dozen such things where targeted efforts by specialized scholars could teach us more about the manuscript. Basically the same kind of things we do, but by someone with professional access to archives in their area and experience in using them. The kinds of things that are hard to do for us "volunteers".
In a way this is the opposite of offering a reward for a solution. I agree with Rene that there would also be litigations and lots of general unpleasantness in that case. And you can be certain that theorists will sue. Even with no money on the line, two separate individuals have threatened with legal actions against me already for speaking out against their truth. Grants would not cause these issues because they are basically contracts: I expect this from you and I'm paying you this much.
A grant is a very different thing, because in all normal situations people hoping to receive a grant will have to put together a credible proposal.
That is a a great filter.