The Voynich Ninja

This is in response to a post from Sam G. in the Leo thread, but maybe it's worth starting a new thread on this.
(I hope that this isn't actually making Anton's effort more difficult rather than less.)

Sam G. wrote:

Quote:Anyway, as I'm sure you are aware, the expert opinions are very strongly against the view that the VMS text is a ciphertext of any kind.  Most notably here you have William Friedman, John Tiltman, and Jim Gillogly, all three of whom studied the VMS for decades and concluded that it was not written in cipher.  Maybe you can find a cryptographer somewhere who thinks that the VMS is a ciphertext, but you won't find many, and certainly you won't find one with the reputation or demonstrated codebreaking ability of any of these three.

As far as professional linguists go, you have Jacques Guy, James Child, and more recently Stephen Bax who, although differing in the particulars, have clearly stated that the VMS is written in some unusual natural language, and is not encrypted.  I believe there are some other linguists who have expressed this view in the list archives, and I am aware of no linguist who has ever expressed any other view.  So we have unanimity here among several experts.

So I think it's clear that if we are going to decide, based on the translation/summary of some casual remarks from an art historian posted on the web possibly even without her knowledge, that depicting Aries as a goat is nothing out of the ordinary, then surely the nearly unanimous opinion of many expert cryptographers and linguists who have put an enormous effort into researching the VMS text must carry an even far greater weight.  The VMS is not encrypted, and it is written in an unusual, otherwise unknown natural language.

Now, I know I have seen you express the view that the VMS in fact is a ciphertext, although interestingly you do not state this on your own website.  I'm sure I could dig up the references if you want.  That means that you hold a view that is completely in contradiction to expert opinion, despite your stated view that expert opinion should be respected.

So, from the standpoint of your view that the VMS text is a ciphertext, perhaps the idea that there is nothing unusual about the illustrations and no need to posit any foreign/ancient influence in the VMS might make some sense.

But how do we possibly reconcile a 100% medieval Western European origin for the VMS with the fact that it is written in an otherwise unknown language?

Should the fact that the VMS is written in an otherwise unknown language at all influence our ideas about what is and what is not possible regarding the origins and meaning of the illustrations, and of the content more generally?

I can't go into all of it....

I am fully convinced that the conclusions from Friedman and Tiltman (that it's not a cipher) are not to be challenged.
The key point is, though, what they mean precisely with 'cipher'.
Nowadays, Nick Pelling is clearly in the 'cipher' camp. However, he may have a wider definition of cipher than what Friedman and
Tiltman intended.

From the area of linguistics, there isn't nearly as strong an expert opinion as in cryptography.
One of the statements I clearly remember from Jacques Guy is that, for him, the Voynich MS demonstrated a huge weakness in linguistics, in the sense that he could not think of a test that decided whether the contents are meaningful or not.

For me, after well over 20 years, I am not even certain that there is a meaningful text behind it.
If not, the question between cipher or language disappears.
My tendency is, however, to expect meaningful contents, but I would not be in the least surprised if someone some day demonstrated that there isn't. I have myself found several clear indications that the text is not arbitrary, which suggests a meaning. However, there are also places in the MS where the text looks exactly like arbitrary 'filler' material.

Another prediction that may well never be verified:
if one day someone explains how the text was generated, and there is a meaning behind it, I expect that the method will be relatively straightforward, and one might even be arguing whether this should be called a cipher or not.

I agree with Helmut's point. Indeed, all comparison statistics (from plain texts) have been made based on printed texts that have usually been spell-checked and certainly have no abbreviations. This is of course convenient since this can be done fully automatically.
One would have to be able to make statistics based on handwritten texts, that may not have any orthograpy rules, and may be abbreviated.
This, of course, would require a very significant manual effort, and it can be done in many different ways.

Thank you Rene.

I slightly renamed the thread and (respectively) moved it to Voynich Talk, so that the subject could be wider than just the opinions about the text. Actually I think it's useful to discuss expert opinions about various things (text, imagery & so forth) and have it in one place. Btw, the whole discussion was inspired by your reference to the expert opinion in the field of imagery, if I'm not mistaken.

Please let me know if you don't object to such change of scale; if you do, I will restore the thread in its original place.

I will put in my 5 cents later in the day...

I agree that it is important to know which definition of 'cipher' is used by the researcher in question. 

For example, the difference between a one-to-one cipher and a transcription to a different alphabet is merely one of intent. If someone comes up with a new alphabet to be able to write in a foreign language, I wouldn't call the result a cipher. There was no intention to hide or obscure.

So when experts say: the VM is not a cipher, what exactly do they mean?

That is why in case of doubt, it would be useful to provide a direct quote.

(The same goes for expert statements about goats and calenders).

..........

Please can we keep discussion moderate and academic.

Yes, Sam, ardor and enthusiasm in defending one's points are a good thing, but that should not transgress into the tone of disrespect which I somewhat noted in your post, so I join David in his kind request.

About the experts and their opinions.

First of all (just to make that clear for those who don't follow the discussion from its beginning in another thread), what we mean by "experts" here are not "experts in the Voynich Manuscript". In other words we are not speaking of those people who have dedicated much time studying the VMS and accumulated much knowledge/information about it (like e.g. Nick Pelling), but we are speaking of experts in specific fields of science which are (or might be) relevant to the VMS. Like e.g. "experts in cryptography" or "experts in paleography", or in botany, and so forth.

Now and then an expert (in the meaning described above) expresses his/her opinion or judgement on this aspect of the VMS or another. The question is: how should such opinions be treated? Should they be trusted blindly by way of "authority", since experts are people who know what they are saying? Should the further discourse be built on the expert opinions? Or experts generally are just the same people as the amateurs are, in that they are also prone to mistakes?

Yes and no.

The matter is most easily understood if you take your field or profession and imagine that you are an expert yourself. Actually, even if you are not a scientist, you most likely have a profession (or study for a profession), so you are much better acquainted with this field of human activity than most people are. In that sense of the word you may call yourself an "expert". Yes, you may be not the very best in your profession, but you are better than many, anyway.

So now, ask yourself: are you perfect in your profession? Do you not make mistakes? Have you mastered each and every aspect of your profession? Can each and every aspect of your profession ever be mastered by a single person in principle? If good self-criticism is your friend, then probably your answers will be in negative.

That's exactly the way with experts. There's no such person as an "ideal expert", except if we speak of people who laid foundations. (As an example, Marx can probably be considered as an ideal expert in Marxism). But that's not the case with the VMS.

First of all, everyone's expertise is limited. This is especially true with such sciences as history, archeology or codicology, because they are related to historical facts and artifacts, and our knowledge of historical facts and possession of artifacts is naturally limited - with the time, new facts are discovered and new things are found which can substantially change our ideas of the past.

Next, the expert's opinion largely depends on the context. One thing is a passing judgement. Another thing is judgement based on having learned the facts about the VMS systematically and having dedicated sufficient time to the study thereof. I am afraid that the opinion of many experts has been of the passing kind. Myself, I have noted quite a number of times that my advice (expressed in the course of my professional activity) was - I would not say wrong, but rather only partially adequate: that because i failed to, or was not able to, provide for all the circumstances of the subject matter.

Third, the expert's opinion often is either biased (to greater or lesser extent) by the "background" or suffers from the uncertainty in the related questions. A good example is carbon dating of the VMS, which I think ruled out some earlier propositions by good experts. Have those experts possessed the carbon dating results, no doubt they would alter their judgements.

To put it short, an expert's judgement should not be taken as 100% truth in advance. One should take into account that 1) everyone's expertise is limited; 2) the expert may have failed to account for all the relevant facts; 3) the expert's opinion may be biased.

That does not mean that experts' opinions are useless and we don't need them. On the contrary. What is most valuable in experts is that they save our time and effort of studying the subject field ourselves. An expert is a person who provides a response to the point. The response may turn to be right or wrong, but it will always be to the point and always useful.

When (and if) Friedman says "the VMS is not a cipher", this does not mean that the VMS is not a cipher, notwithstanding all the reputation of Friedman. As our professor of philosophy used to say in my university years, there is no such thing as "authority" in science. The moment when the argument of authority comes in, the science chokes. But if Friedman (to return to my example) says this and explains why he thinks so, you can then make your own conclusions, because Friedman served you with facts and with the trail of experiment and/or deduction which led him to this conclusion. You (let alone experts other than Friedman) are then free to analyze whether there are any flaws in his discourse or there are not.

***

As to the couple of points touched by Sam.

I don't think that Friedman et alii came to some mathematical or the like proof about the VMS being not a cipher. If I'm not mistaken, after their deciphering attempts failed, they just came to the opinion that the VMS is some kind of synthetic language. I have not read the reports of the study groups and do not know the methodology and the initial assumptions. Especially, whether the potentially abbreviated nature of the text was taken into account and whether shuffling was considered.

I do not know if Friedman and Tiltman were experts in medieval ciphers. And they were much limited in that they did not know the dating.

I do not think that Stephen Bax ever positively asserted that the VMS is a natural language stuff. As far as I followed his blog, Stephen is quite careful in his assertions and prefers to speak in terms of hypotheses. I think that he simply follows an assumption, applying his expertise to that assumption.

I join Helmut in his note about the possible abbreviated nature of the text. I think of it as of the "Gold-Bug" or telegraph style: "A good glass in the bishop's hostel in the devil's seat..."

---

Quote:But how do we possibly reconcile a 100% medieval Western European origin for the VMS with the fact that it is written in an otherwise unknown language?

Given the aror sheey wound into the string of Latin script in f116v, we just have to reconcile this in one way or another.

My opinion about that famous brief You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. by Prof. Ewa Sniezynska-Stolot.

She seems to me to be strictly commenting about the iconography of the medallions of the zodiac pages. She says nothing of the unusual repetition of Aries and Taurus nor of the amazing rings of "nymphs" encircling the signs. She discusses the zodiac cycle as a whole, only mentioning specific signs as examples: I consider this approach very sound, quite different from focusing on isolated details such as the number of petals of the flower at the feet of Virgo or the shape of the third spot on the back of Scorpio. Of course, her analysis is based on the thousands of details that can be observed in the medallions: discussing all of them in detail would have been more appropriate for a whole book than for a brief statement.

When she writes that "the signs of the Zodiac do not present problems" she is saying that their degree of variance is compatible with what can be observed in the wide range of medieval European zodiac cycles. At least, this is my personal interpretation of that sentence.

The only detail that she mentions as strange (the manger or "well" of Taurus) is exceptional indeed. I don't think I have ever seen anything similar in an illustration of Taurus (while Taurus grazing a bush or small tree is almost as common as Aries doing so).

In the last sentences, she provides some speculation about Taurus and about the origin of the manuscript. She is clearly not as sure of the reliability of these points as she is of her other observations.

Friedman was the one suggesting some early version of a synthetic language.

Tiltman's opinion can be read in his paper, which I just posted in the library of this forum.

The relevance of their opinion cannot be stressed enough.

Anyone trying to turn the Voynich MS text into plain text by simple substitution of the symbols
is bound to fail.

(16-08-2016, 10:36 PM)Anton Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Yes, Sam, ardor and enthusiasm in defending one's points are a good thing, but that should not transgress into the tone of disrespect which I somewhat noted in your post, so I join David in his kind request.

Well, yeah, admittedly my frustration got to me a bit there, but maybe you can see where I was coming from.

Quote:About the experts and their opinions.

First of all (just to make that clear for those who don't follow the discussion from its beginning in another thread), what we mean by "experts" here are not "experts in the Voynich Manuscript". In other words we are not speaking of those people who have dedicated much time studying the VMS and accumulated much knowledge/information about it (like e.g. Nick Pelling), but we are speaking of experts in specific fields of science which are (or might be) relevant to the VMS. Like e.g. "experts in cryptography" or "experts in paleography", or in botany, and so forth.

Now and then an expert (in the meaning described above) expresses his/her opinion or judgement on this aspect of the VMS or another. The question is: how should such opinions be treated? Should they be trusted blindly by way of "authority", since experts are people who know what they are saying? Should the further discourse be built on the expert opinions? Or experts generally are just the same people as the amateurs are, in that they are also prone to mistakes?

Yes and no.

The matter is most easily understood if you take your field or profession and imagine that you are an expert yourself. Actually, even if you are not a scientist, you most likely have a profession (or study for a profession), so you are much better acquainted with this field of human activity than most people are. In that sense of the word you may call yourself an "expert". Yes, you may be not the very best in your profession, but you are better than many, anyway.

So now, ask yourself: are you perfect in your profession? Do you not make mistakes? Have you mastered each and every aspect of your profession? Can each and every aspect of your profession ever be mastered by a single person in principle? If good self-criticism is your friend, then probably your answers will be in negative.

That's exactly the way with experts. There's no such person as an "ideal expert", except if we speak of people who laid foundations. (As an example, Marx can probably be considered as an ideal expert in Marxism). But that's not the case with the VMS.

First of all, everyone's expertise is limited. This is especially true with such sciences as history, archeology or codicology, because they are related to historical facts and artifacts, and our knowledge of historical facts and possession of artifacts is naturally limited - with the time, new facts are discovered and new things are found which can substantially change our ideas of the past.

Next, the expert's opinion largely depends on the context. One thing is a passing judgement. Another thing is judgement based on having learned the facts about the VMS systematically and having dedicated sufficient time to the study thereof. I am afraid that the opinion of many experts has been of the passing kind. Myself, I have noted quite a number of times that my advice (expressed in the course of my professional activity) was - I would not say wrong, but rather only partially adequate: that because i failed to, or was not able to, provide for all the circumstances of the subject matter.

Third, the expert's opinion often is either biased (to greater or lesser extent) by the "background" or suffers from the uncertainty in the related questions. A good example is carbon dating of the VMS, which I think ruled out some earlier propositions by good experts. Have those experts possessed the carbon dating results, no doubt they would alter their judgements.

To put it short, an expert's judgement should not be taken as 100% truth in advance. One should take into account that 1) everyone's expertise is limited; 2) the expert may have failed to account for all the relevant facts; 3) the expert's opinion may be biased.

That does not mean that experts' opinions are useless and we don't need them. On the contrary. What is most valuable in experts is that they save our time and effort of studying the subject field ourselves. An expert is a person who provides a response to the point. The response may turn to be right or wrong, but it will always be to the point and always useful.

Well, this all basically sounds pretty similar to the way I look at things.  Like I said, my argument here was basically a response to Rene's treatment of that single brief statement from Ewa S-S as the last word on the Zodiac imagery, and wielding that single "expert opinion" as a club against any other viewpoint or against new evidence that has been presented.  Basically I was trying to show the problem with that way of thinking by applying it to his own viewpoints.

Normally I prefer to go through the evidence for myself, making use of expert opinion as appropriate.

Quote:When (and if) Friedman says "the VMS is not a cipher", this does not mean that the VMS is not a cipher, notwithstanding all the reputation of Friedman. As our professor of philosophy used to say in my university years, there is no such thing as "authority" in science. The moment when the argument of authority comes in, the science chokes. But if Friedman (to return to my example) says this and explains why he thinks so, you can then make your own conclusions, because Friedman served you with facts and with the trail of experiment and/or deduction which led him to this conclusion. You (let alone experts other than Friedman) are then free to analyze whether there are any flaws in his discourse or there are not.

Sure, but the point remains that his opinion was that the VMS was not a ciphertext.  Of course you're free to disagree with that.  But if such a great emphasis is going to be placed on expert opinions (not so much by me, though I don't consider these opinions irrelevant either), then it is important to honestly report what these were, and I think saying that we can change what Friedman meant by redefining the word "cipher" is pretty audacious.

Quote:ReneZ
.... I agree with Helmut's point. Indeed, all comparison statistics (from plain texts) have been made based on printed texts that have usually been spell-checked and certainly have no abbreviations. ...

eh, if you exclude me from those who made comparison statistics, you are right. But on the other hand, i do make statistical analysis and i do make them based on handwritten texts between 1300-1600.  I am now approaching 1.5 million analyzed words. Text that is, most of the time, not abbreviated. That part is correct.