The Voynich Ninja

(13-07-2026, 07:20 PM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.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.

I don't understand that, too. In every post I've written, I've explained exactly what I did and how I did it. All of these examples here were perfectly understandable even without any code—because you don’t need code for them. (In fact, an AI can’t even resolve word repetitions—for example, with “qokedy”; I’ve tried it, and it just spits out garbage; those were created “by hand.”)

None of these pieces of evidence—showing that these peculiarities of the VMS could simply be language in my model—have been refuted so far—because they can’t be refuted. But even on this point, only “personal feelings” have been expressed, not refutations.

The only post that’s a bit more complicated is You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., and even there, I describe very precisely what I did (I put that in the [spoiler] because the text would have been too long otherwise, but everything is in there).

There’s no general code for this. The replacements were made one by one because the order is important. And you can also do most of it without AI—for example, with Notepad++—if you enable the advanced search and replace mode.

I then had the respective steps independently cross-verified by two AI systems (claude / Chatgpt in the highest Version).

The only problem is the Bavarian corpus. I thought I had already attached the Bavarian corpus here in this thread, but now I can't find it myself. (See attachment (unfortunately, it's only available as a PDF because you can't attach longer TXT files).)

Note: Still, with such complex topics like in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., errors can always creep in—I can't rule that out; it's even happened to very well-known scientists.

(14-07-2026, 07:29 AM)JoJo_Jost Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I don't understand that, too. In every post I've written, I've explained exactly what I did and how I did it. All of these examples here were perfectly understandable even without any code—because you don’t need code for them. (In fact, an AI can’t even resolve word repetitions—for example, with “qokedy”; I’ve tried it, and it just spits out garbage; those were created “by hand.”)

None of these pieces of evidence—showing that these peculiarities of the VMS could simply be language in my model—have been refuted so far—because they can’t be refuted. But even on this point, only “personal feelings” have been expressed, not refutations.

The way I see it, looking logical and plausible is not a proof of anything. One can easily find schematics for a perpetual motion machine, there are thousands of designs on the Internet. Most of them look very logical, their creators put a lot of effort into them. None of them work.

As far as I remember, nothing of what you have published so far in this thread looks like "evidence". At most it can be called "demonstration of principles". Evidence would be actually reproducing the statistics of the manuscript using a large source Bavarian text and a set of rules that anyone can follow and achieve the same result. This will show how good the method is. Until then, there is nothing to refute and not much to even argue about. Inventing a short phrase to explain qokedy qokedy or showing how some specific Bavarian words result in this or that pattern are very good logical riddles, but they don't prove the method, they only show it. It's like starting a perpetual motion machine, making it go one round and then saying "so, here's your proof". Make it go for a month in an enclosed space with no external source of low entropy and then we can talk. Feed 10000 characters of a Bavarian text to your method, show the result and this would amount to proving something.

OMG. That’s nothing more than rhetorical sophistry! I’m not that stupid, sorry.

But sure, I’m happy to argue on that level too. I’ll rephrase it to make it very clear! 
Let’s not view the VBM as a solution, because it isn’t one yet (!). I never claimed it was.

Let’s view it as proof that the VBM has refuted a large portion of the arguments made by proponents of the Hoax theory.

Proponents of the hoax theory have claimed:


The VMS can’t be a language because these multiple word repetitions make no sense in a normal language. (qokedy chain)

Refuted

The VMS can’t be a language because it exhibits this long-range effect of glyphs across multiple characters and a space.

Refuted

VMS cannot be a language because only 7 rules can predict word boundaries.

Refuted

VMS cannot be a language due to its word-length structure.

Refuted

The repetitions of words and similar phrases cannot constitute a language.

Refuted

Repetitions of words with only a single letter shift cannot constitute a language.

Refuted

The low letter entropy contradicts the idea that it is a language.

Refuted

The frequency of hapaxes and the condensed head structure contradict the idea that it is a language.

Refuted


Those are most of the arguments put forward by hoax proponents, and VBM can refute all of them, with only a few rules —provably. Can you point out just one of them that isn’t true?- Instead of discussing generalities here?

So for now, let’s just stick with the fact that VBM is very strong evidence that VMS is indeed a coded language.

And if that’s the case, the question arises: why should it be a hoax? According to Ockham’s Razor, that’s actually rather unlikely.

That’s enough for a start on this theory. 

(13-07-2026, 06:35 PM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.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.

I can't offer any opinions on the Bavarian hypothesis, as I haven't studied it and don't have the expertise to analyse it. So JoJo_Jost, please don't take this as criticism of your work specifically.

I just want to note that ololololo really hits the nail on the head there regarding amateur attempts to understand/research an expert subject. I've encountered it many times, in science, economics, politics... in many aspects of human understanding.

We all tend to need an explanation of how something works that falls within the bounds of our own understanding. But because of the sheer amount of knowledge that exists today, for most of us in most spheres of research, the leading edge of expertise is already way beyond our personal understanding.

As an example, I have a better understanding of Quantum Mechanics than the average layperson. But I'd have no chance of working out an explanation for the double slit experiment - because it needs someone with vastly more understanding than I have.

(14-07-2026, 07:59 AM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Evidence would be actually reproducing the statistics of the manuscript using a large source Bavarian text and a set of rules that anyone can follow and achieve the same result. This will show how good the method is

That's the crux of it. Ultimately, the only arbiter of understanding an unknown text is a rule-based system that can actually be used to create (and in reverse, understand) the text in question.

In my (past) academic field of philosophy, countless great thinkers have come up with all manner of plausible and consistent theories of existence... which have been entirely undone by the first piece of contradictory evidence. It's why one of the best approaches to developing a theory can be to look for opposing rather than supporting evidence. The VMS explanation attempts I've encountered here (though I haven't looked at all of them, admittedly), unfortunately, fall into the trap of only looking for supporting evidence, which leads to cherry picking... And I don't know about other people, but when I encounter obvious cherry picking it puts me off committing any thought to an idea - because it takes an extra step of dismantling the cherry picking in order to get at the core of the thing. Those who do their own opposition research and take objections seriously rather than handwaving them away(*) invariably get more respect from me.

Again, this is not critique of JoJo_Jost specifically, so certainly don't be put off by a newcomer like me - please keep up with what you're doing, because you might make a breakthrough. But that breakthrough will need reproducible evidence (in the scientific method sense), not mere plausibility. Even 100% plausibility is insufficient without rigorous evidence.

*PS: As for handwaving, I've even seen objections to a theory dismissed with something along the lines of "Yes, obviously the author was deliberately trying to mislead future researchers there by including something that doesn't fit my theory". All I can do is roll my eyes in response.

(14-07-2026, 09:00 AM)JoJo_Jost Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Let’s view it as proof that the VBM has refuted a large portion of the arguments made by proponents of the Hoax theory.

Proponents of the hoax theory have claimed:

...

Proponents of the hoax theory have claimed all of these?  Even the "7 rules" one?

A number of your posts are still reading like they have been written by an LLM.  If that is the case, please don't use it like that.  Strict translation only.

And I'm still not sure how you have refuted these claims without producing text.

(14-07-2026, 09:00 AM)JoJo_Jost Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.OMG. That’s nothing more than rhetorical sophistry! I’m not that stupid, sorry.

I don't understand what it is you are arguing for or against. And I'm really not sure if I'm contributing anything in this thread at all. But just as a wrap up, do you realize what would happen if someone actually reads deeply into your arguments and actually decides it's a good idea to follow them and would actually present a verifiable reproducible way of converting Bavarian into plausible Voynichese, that after some time leads to a decipherment? Most likely this breakthrough will be attributed to that person and your research will get a footnote at best. As it turns out there is even a name for it, it's called the Stigler's law: in science in many (most?) cases it's not the person who came up with some idea, it's the person who presented it in a verifiable and provable way who takes the full credit. It's Hubble telescope and Hubble constant, not the guy's who actually came up with the expanding universe mathematical model, I don't even remember his name. It's Darwin's theory, even though I think all elements of it had been independently described before, but Darwin was the first one to actually present overwhelming amount of hard evidence. Given all this I don't even understand why you appear to truly believe in your method and yet refuse to make the single most important step that will actually make it your method.

(14-07-2026, 09:54 AM)tavie Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Proponents of the hoax theory have claimed all of these?  Even the "7 rules" one?

A number of your posts are still reading like they have been written by an LLM.  If that is the case, please don't use it like that.  Strict translation only.

And I'm still not sure how you have refuted these claims without producing text.

Hi Tavie

??? No, I swear this wasn't written using AI—it was just translated with DeepL, and there wasn't even any AI involved.

No, this is just a condensed version of what I did in my previous post. And as an author, I certainly know this better than any AI

Most of these points are described here in this post along with their sources, so I didn't want to repeat them again. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.   
The rest can be found in the PDF

And yet, regarding the theory with the 7 rules, I read somewhere that it’s an indication that this doesn’t represent a language.And that makes sense, of course—normally, you can't use just seven rules to determine where about 92 % spaces go in any language. (Except, actually, in Chinese but there are only 5 )

(14-07-2026, 09:59 AM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It's called the Stigler's law: 

You have no idea how little I care about that. I’m not in it for the fame. I’d actually find the idea of becoming “famous” quite unpleasant. I just want some peace and quiet, I'm too old for this crap

For me, it’s about the game, about the challenge—I solve puzzles for myself. If that’s how it turns out, I’m glad I was able to contribute.

What else am I supposed to do? Run around annoying everyone: “Hey, I solved the VMS!!!” What a terrible thought... 

(14-07-2026, 08:56 AM)JoJo_Jost Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.OMG. That’s nothing more than rhetorical sophistry! I’m not that stupid, sorry.

But sure, I’m happy to argue on that level too. I’ll rephrase it to make it very clear! 
Let’s not view the VBM as a solution, because it isn’t one yet (!). I never claimed it was.

Let’s view it as proof that the VBM has refuted a large portion of the arguments made by proponents of the Hoax theory.

Proponents of the hoax theory have claimed:


The VMS can’t be a language because these multiple word repetitions make no sense in a normal language. (qokedy chain)

Refuted

The VMS can’t be a language because it exhibits this long-range effect of glyphs across multiple characters and a space.

Refuted

VMS cannot be a language because only 7 rules can predict word boundaries.

Refuted

VMS cannot be a language due to its word-length structure.

Refuted

The repetitions of words and similar phrases cannot constitute a language.

Refuted

Repetitions of words with only a single letter shift cannot constitute a language.

Refuted

The low letter entropy contradicts the idea that it is a language.

Refuted

The frequency of hapaxes and the condensed head structure contradict the idea that it is a language.

Refuted


Those are most of the arguments put forward by hoax proponents, and VBM can refute all of them, with only a few rules —provably. Can you point out just one of them that isn’t true?- Instead of discussing generalities here?

So for now, let’s just stick with the fact that VBM is very strong evidence that VMS is indeed a coded language.

And if that’s the case, the question arises: why should it be a hoax? According to Ockham’s Razor, that’s actually rather unlikely.

That’s enough for a start on this theory. 

There are other theories that allow us to prove this. This can be proven even without any theory...

Okay, can you name one for me?