| Welcome, Guest |
You have to register before you can post on our site.
|
| Online Users |
There are currently 1050 online users.
» 12 Member(s) | 1035 Guest(s)
Applebot, Bing, Google, Aga Tentakulus, Hider, Juan_Sali, lelle, LiviuV, obelus, Pirou, RenegadeHealer, Ronald Pittman
|
|
|
| Is the VMS a pamphlet of the bastards ? (theory) |
|
Posted by: bi3mw - 14-12-2021, 01:00 PM - Forum: Voynich Talk
- Replies (24)
|
 |
Here an article in the NZZ about a Voynich theory from the beginning of the year. I stumbled over it when I tried to change a Wikipedia entry in the German Wikipedia about the VMS. The authors are Lea Carl-Krüsi and Christoph Eggenberger. Carl-Krüsi is a freelance art historian. Eggenberger was titular professor of art history at the University of Zurich and head of the manuscript department of the Zurich Central Library.
Quote:Wikipedia (VMS)
The two art historians can contribute nothing to the decipherment of the text, but recognize a clear concern in the sequence of the pictures: "It is a plea for the offspring of the nobility, conceived with women from the people, the so-called bastards". Under the guise of botanical symbols, the plight of the disenfranchised and disinherited between the nobility and the people is depicted. "In botany, the most splendid plants - entities sprung from the imagination - are the result of crossbreeding. So the conclusion is obvious: the same rules apply in human biology as well."
Unfortunately, the Google translator does not work with the NZZ page. That's why I have linked the original German language page here.
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
I think the theory of Carl-Krüsi and Eggenberger is a bit far-fetched, especially since it is based on nothing but assumptions. There is probably also no comparative picture material that would prove the assumptions somehow. However, one should assume that at least Eggenberger is an expert who knows what he is talking about. What do you think ?
|
|
|
| Classifying False Voynich Decipherment "Solutions" |
|
Posted by: Mark Knowles - 04-12-2021, 04:12 PM - Forum: Voynich Talk
- Replies (50)
|
 |
In discussing a Voynich prize the issue of handling a large number of false decipherment "solutions" was raised.
I get the impression, though I haven't looked in depth at many false solutions, that they have a lot of common and so very similar flaws. Whether the theory is proto-turkic or proto-romance or some kind of vulgar latin it seems they have a "degree of freedom" problem such that there is sufficient flexibility in interpretation that a theory can be made to fit. It also appears that the process by which the theories were created has a lot in common.
It is my opinion that the real solution will have very little in common with these kinds of theories both in the method by which it was arrived at and the structure and nature of the actual solution.
However in order to reduce the time taken investigating false solutions it could be worth classifying them and so when a new theory is presented it can be classified as for example a "Cheshire solution" or other type. One can then point to the flawed method by which the solution was constructed and the flawed widely open to interpretation, inherently highly flexible solution structure.
The degrees of freedom allowed in such solutions that we even see in the anagram "Artificial Intelligence" theory should be a warning that "there is something rotten in the state of Denmark"(apologies to any Danes; it's a Shakespeare quote) With sufficient degrees of freedom in interpretation then any theory will fit. As an absurd example if I postulate that every Voynich symbol can represent any letter in the alphabet then I can interpret the text to read whatever I wish. Whilst that is certainly an extreme example it appears to me that so many false solutions have such a large degree of freedom.
Managing these false solutions may help in the construction of standard tests for these theories.
So I see the handling of a large number of false solutions as unlikely to be problematic.
|
|
|
|
| Heraldic expansions |
|
Posted by: R. Sale - 18-11-2021, 09:39 PM - Forum: Voynich Talk
- No Replies
|
|
Heraldic investigations have expanded VMs interpretations in a number of areas. Traditional heraldic interpretations have opened up new aspects of VMs understanding. The traditional use of heraldic elements in the VMs shows that the artist knew the tradition.
Armorial heraldry - lines of division: the nebuly line. Used in VMs cosmos (f68v3), VMs critter (f80v), and elsewhere in Quire 13, with a few scattered in the plants section.
Armorial heraldry - standard shield patterns known as ordinaries and sub-ordinaries. Used as tub patterns around the outer ring of VMs Pisces and in Aries. E.g. the chevrons on Pisces.
Ecclesiastical heraldry - red, white, or green colored hats used on the zodiac nymphs; red for cardinals, green for abbots, white for Premonstratensians. [While Premonstratensians faded in much of western Europe, they held on in the Burgundian state through the C-14 dates.]
Historical heraldry - the combination of armorial heraldry and ecclesiastical heraldry, red hats and blue stripes, the origin of the tradition of the cardinal's red galero. The combination is found on a nymph in the inner ring of White Aries.
Armorial heraldry - the heraldic tradition of most honorable placement on an insignia also plays a part in the White Aries illustration.
Armorial heraldry - the types of tincture: papelonny, a traditional fur. Used in VMs Pisces and Dark Aries.
With all these heraldic elements in use, perhaps there is reason to consider that the VMs artist was capable of heraldic *thinking*, by which I mean heraldic canting. Used in the placement of the papelonny patterns to structurally confirm, beyond question, the historical identification of the Fieschi popes [French: pape. (Get it?)], they correspond in quadrant and in sphere with the blue-striped, armorial patterns on White Aries.
Perhaps someone will suggest how other areas of investigation, such as alchemy or astrology, have made similar contributions to VMs interpretation.
|
|
|
|
| A disquieting thought |
|
Posted by: davidjackson - 18-11-2021, 07:27 PM - Forum: Voynich Talk
- Replies (12)
|
 |
In the shower the other morning (where I do my best thinking) I wondered whether evidence that the grammar changes in concordance with scribal hands gives weight to the theory that the text is meaningless.
In other words, if there are different scribes, and each scribe has a slightly different grammar, are they all using their own interpretation of the same generating mechanism to create slightly different nonsense texts?
If they were working off the same encoding mechanism, then you wouldn't see these differences, as the text would always be encoded in the same fashion.
Of course, we could explain this away by suggesting that each scribe had their own style of writing, and it's just the way they put together the underlying plaintext that causes the differences.
|
|
|
|
| Revisiting A Voynich Prize |
|
Posted by: Mark Knowles - 17-11-2021, 07:47 PM - Forum: Voynich Talk
- Replies (75)
|
|
There was a thread on this topic from some time ago, but it has long since been closed.
I was reading about the many prizes that there are in Mathematics and my thinking came back again to why there shouldn't be a prize for Voynich decipherment.
Maybe some people believe that prizes should not be awarded in Mathematics or any field and likewise should not be rewarded for Voynich research. But if one thinks that it is right to have them in Mathematics, but not in Voynich research then one has to ask why.
It is often suggested that a prize would attract the wrong kind of people and just lead to more nonsense theories wasting researchers time and distracting from good research. However does this happen with Mathematical or other prizes? I don't doubt they also receive plenty of nonsense theories. Why do they have prizes if prizes are such a bad idea?
From a personal point of view if I manage to decipher the manuscript and there is no financial reward of any kind at the end of it I will feel cheated. I have put a lot of time into it and it has been enjoyable, but that shouldn't preclude some financial benefit. Academics doing research in many areas make a living from it, so it does not seem radical that people researching in this area should be precluded from making any money out of it.
Ultimately any such prize would have to be funded from public donation or by a private individual. But if such finance existed it does not make sense to me for it to be turned down.
I am aware that there is strong opposition to this idea, nevertheless I thought I would reintroduce the question and I daresay I will raise it again in the future.
|
|
|
|
| Is the VMS a work of female authors ? |
|
Posted by: bi3mw - 04-11-2021, 09:01 PM - Forum: Voynich Talk
- Replies (122)
|
|
I have recently read a blog post in which it is assumed that the VMS is a work of women. Addressees of the manuscript are also ( mainly ) women. This thesis raises a number of questions, here are some of them:
Are there coded works which were demonstrably created by women ?
Is it possible to deduce from the pictorial representation in the VMS in any way that the themes are primarily women-specific ?
Can the low number of depictions of male characters be explained by the assumption that mainly "women's issues" are dealt with?
What kind of topics can be addressed concretely ( for example bathing rules / hygiene ) ?
Which female authors would come into question in the period of origin of the VMS ?
To be clear, I think this thesis is rather questionable but at least worth to be discussed. Until now it seems to me to be an unspoken basic assumption that the VMS is a work of male authors.
|
|
|
|
| Was the Voynich manuscript unusual for the time? |
|
Posted by: Mark Knowles - 28-10-2021, 11:19 PM - Forum: Voynich Talk
- Replies (4)
|
|
I have seen people write that the Voynich in terms of its contents is unremarkable for it's time.
Apart from the obvious way in which it is unusual I would question the idea that the manuscript is conventional.
Now admittedly I have not studied all aspects of the manuscript and exhaustively compared the Voynich with contemporaneous texts, however from what I am familiar with it does seem to be quite distinct.
First of all I think it worth stating the obvious point that there seems little reason in enciphering something that can readily be found elsewhere. It makes more sense if there is some original content contained throughout the manuscript.
Looking at the plant illustrations it seems that other contemporary herbals seem broadly more similar to one another than they do to the Voynich. I wonder if the same can be said of the astrological sections.
Is there a contemporary text with all these different kinds of content that we see with the Voynich contained within it?
|
|
|
|
| How many people could have written the Voynich? |
|
Posted by: Mark Knowles - 21-10-2021, 08:33 PM - Forum: Voynich Talk
- Replies (15)
|
|
This may seem like a "how long is a piece of string" kind of question, but I hope there is more to it than that.
If one only includes people from areas of the world that the majority of researchers think the author could have come from. I would think this would exclude China, Americas(I am excluding Nahuatl), India. In truth probably almost just Europe. Population of Europe in the year 1400 was 78 million.
Then ask what percentage of that population would have the financial means to afford to produce such a manuscript. Say 5% ? Which gives one a figure of under 4 million people.
I could see why some might think this a pointless effort, but I am curious what vague figure we could give to this question.
Personally I would be more narrow in my figures say toughly 10 million people in Northern Italy and Central Europe. Maybe 2% of people who had the financial resources to produce such a manuscript. So that gives you a figure of 200,000 people.
However I have plucked those figures out of thin air, so I would be curious what other numbers people might suggest.
|
|
|
|
| A Suffix for Plants |
|
Posted by: Pardis Motiee - 20-10-2021, 05:39 PM - Forum: Analysis of the text
- No Replies
|
 |
I believe there are suffixes for a number of plant names. In first lines of f7r, f11v, f13r, and f95v2, word A starts with sh and word B starts with q (sh..., q...). I have found it with help of meanings and omissions and it is occurring in more than one page. In two folios it is turning to Jak/Jek functioning like a suffix. The others need to be checked. Jek also works in Azerbaijani language. I have no idea if this is a Voynich specific suffix or from an actual dialect.
|
|
|
|
|
