(12-07-2026, 06:40 AM)JoJo_Jost Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.To counter the impression that I’m “watering down” my theory with all these posts, I’d like to briefly clarify the structure of my posts.
At first, there was really only a single basic assumption or rule:
Rule 1: Vowels are represented as bigrams, separated in the middle by word boundaries.
Rule 2: The Consonant-nuclei are encrypted.
The second rule is actually just a conclusion: Since the remaining consonant clusters cannot be plain text or a simple substitution due to the family structures, they must be encrypted.
With this alone, I can explain the various oddities of the VMS:
...
This is what you claim. But you haven't actually shown what happens when a real historical Bavarian text of 10000+ symbols is encoded by deterministically and reproducibly applying your rules, so that anyone could independently verify whether the rules actually work to produce a good enough match for Voynichese or not and how well various oddities of the Voynich MS are reproduced when applying these rules. Until you do this, at least from my point of view, this is all a conjecture not demonstrated to actually work. Short snippets don't prove anything, it's very easy to invent a short snippet that would demonstrate any needed behavior.
Note that I'm not asking to find the right decoding for the Voynich MS. To support your claims it would be enough to show that some fixed set of rules transforms a sizable historical Bavarian text into plausible looking Voynichese. I think, this would be stage one of making this theory believable, until then there is simply no evidence that it actually works, and we are supposed to take your word for it. Most of us don't know Bavarian and some of us (me included) can't really understand the intricacies of your theory's rules and principles.
To be honest, I don't know what to write in response anymore, which is why it took me so long to reply.
I approach the text exactly the way I do. I think that’s exactly the right approach to deciphering it. I look for statistical peculiarities and ask myself which model explains them most plausibly.
Once I’ve reached the point where I have a deeper understanding of the cipher—and that’s a lengthy process with many setbacks—I’ll build a generator. That could take days, weeks, months—who knows....
But even now, in its unfinished version, the VBM already shows a clear superiority over many other theories (actually, I don’t know of any that can achieve all this with so few resources)—which simply suggests that this might be the right path and probably will be.
(13-07-2026, 04:20 PM)JoJo_Jost Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Once I’ve reached the point where I have a deeper understanding of the cipher—and that’s a lengthy process with many setbacks—I’ll build a generator. That could take days, weeks, months—who knows....
There is no hurry, it's been 600 years. Would be great if it ends up in decipherment, and I never said this is impossible, I'm just skeptical about the evidence presented so far.
(13-07-2026, 04:20 PM)JoJo_Jost Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.But even now, in its unfinished version, the VBM already shows a clear superiority over many other theories (actually, I don’t know of any that can achieve all this with so few resources)—which simply suggests that this might be the right path and probably will be.
In your eyes, yes. I can't help but point again the similarity to how in the Chinese thread the Chinese origin is presented as an established/proven fact. I think this is some psychological phenomenon where a theory aligns particularly well with the beliefs or cognition of the person who created it, which is expected, and then it looks much stronger to its creator than to other people. I think it's similar to survivor bias, probably every person has some mental/cognitive/worldview blind spots and when working on hypotheses if the faults in a hypothesis overlap with these blind spots, the theory appears impeccable to this particular mind, while looking weak to other people.
Of course, the reverse is also possible and has happened many times in science - when the general public were the ones with the blind spots, while the author of a very unorthodox theory turned out to be right. So it's possible that one of the theories that are discussed now on the forum is the right one (let's be frank, I'd say only remotely possible). But it's impossible for all of them to be right at the same time, that's for sure.
(13-07-2026, 05:18 PM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I can't help but point again the similarity to how in the Chinese thread the Chinese origin is presented as an established/proven fact.
This is normal, in principle. This arises from the fact that people consider their theory to be, first of all,
obvious, and therefore the most correct...
(13-07-2026, 04:20 PM)JoJo_Jost Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.But even now, in its unfinished version, the VBM already shows a clear superiority over many other theories
The criterion of truth for you is, apparently, logical impeccability. If the approach does not require assumptions and is "simple" (and it may be simple for you, but I did not understand it immediately, to be honest), then it automatically becomes correct? No...
There are many such consistent theories. For example, someone named Thorsten believed thatYou are not allowed to view links.
Register or
Login to view.. You called this theory eisegesis, but the author said that this model had produced "consistent" results many times. How can you tell who's right?
In terms of VMS, you shouldn't be sure about anything, and it's important to be willing to accept that your theory might be wrong. I take this position because it's not biased.
Also it's even more important not to give up
(13-07-2026, 05:27 PM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.This is normal, in principle. This arises from the fact that people consider their theory to be, first of all, obvious, and therefore the most correct...
Yes, I've been trying to express this idea, but could't find the right word, thanks! One's own ideas appear obvious and what is obvious usually feels right. I think this is the foundation upon which most of the "solutions" are built.
But it can also work the other way around: other people’s theories must be wrong because they can’t be true—since that would undermine one’s own theory.
It’s a circular argument.
Koen once said he’d know it as soon as someone came up with the right approach.
I bet against it at the time
...you’ll see!
PS: But the fact that people in a forum about cryptology don't understand what I did... what else is there to say? It's not like I just translated three words and say that's the solution. There are hundreds of statistical tests and analyses behind it. I'd love to publish them all, but who's going to read all that?
(13-07-2026, 06:27 PM)JoJo_Jost Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It's not like I just translated three words and say that's the solution. There are hundreds of statistical tests and analyses behind it. I'd love to publish them all, but who's going to read all that?
Those who will be interested in it
I think you're right that there aren't many people here who understand cryptology. For some reason, most of the solutions here avoid the idea of a cipher, offering other, sometimes intricate, ideas. I think it has to do with the fact that VMS is explores by non-professionals. They tend to find solutions that are easy to understand (for them) and that they can accept more easily than complex cryptological analyses.
But that's no reason to despair... If the world is plunged into darkness, then become a flashlight!
(13-07-2026, 06:27 PM)JoJo_Jost Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.But it can also work the other way around: other people’s theories must be wrong because they can’t be true—since that would undermine one’s own theory.
I don't know if I'm right or not. If I create even the most consistent solution possible, I won't know if I'm actually right. To find out, I'd have to invent a time machine and ask the author to evaluate my work. So I won't be so categorical.
But if it happens, I'll definitely let you all know. I hope I don't have to decipher the VMS author's speech...
(13-07-2026, 06:27 PM)JoJo_Jost Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.PS: But the fact that people in a forum about cryptology don't understand what I did... what else is there to say? It's not like I just translated three words and say that's the solution. There are hundreds of statistical tests and analyses behind it. I'd love to publish them all, but who's going to read all that?
I think I understand perfectly well what you did in general. And I absolutely don't need the statistical tests and the analysis, because unless I'm absolutely sure the author knows what they are doing, I won't really trust a single graph or number published since early 2025 on this forum. A lot of people publish beautiful charts and long tables created by the code that they didn't personally write and have no idea what it does exactly. There is simply no easy way to tell apart honest and diligent researchers from vibecoders. This is why I think it helps to provide a large sample of the encoded text together with the code or explicit ruleset that can be used to reproduce this encoding along with the source plaintext and let others comfortably check how good the method is. No amount of nice looking charts can replace this.
(13-07-2026, 04:20 PM)JoJo_Jost Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I approach the text exactly the way I do. I think that’s exactly the right approach to deciphering it.
As you know, I have my own theory about the VMS. But I just remembered a bit of trivia that provides a bit of support for your theory as well as mine.
Lewis and Clark are another example of travelers inventing their own phonetic writing system to record local languages -- in that case, mostly people and place names. They would
split the foreign word into syllables and then write each syllable with Latin letters so that it would have approximately the right sound when read with English spelling rules:
Quote:The names of the Chiefs we acknowledged Made this day are as follows Viz
Indian name English signftn.
1st We ar ruge nor Ottoe Called Little Theif
2 Shon go ton go " " Big Horse
We the a Miss. " Hospatality
Shon Guss Con Ottoe " White horse
Wau pe uh M.
Ah ho ning ga M.
Baza cou ja Ottoe
Ah ho ne ga M.
All the best, --stolfi
(13-07-2026, 09:13 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Lewis and Clark are another example of travelers inventing their own phonetic writing system to record local languages -- in that case, mostly people and place names. They would split the foreign word into syllables and then write each syllable with Latin letters so that it would have approximately the right sound when read with English spelling rules:
Thanks, Stolfi!
This shows that this is a procedure that makes perfect sense from a human perspective; it's really interesting and good to know, and of course it fits perfectly with VBM (and of your chinese Theorie
)
Greetings Jost