It may seem strange coming from me, having been involved in the Voynich MS for more years than anyone else here (to the best of my knowledge), but I regularly perceive that the Voynich MS and the theories surrounding it are taken a bit too seriously.
I don't think it's worth fighting about.
I wasn't going to write anything in the Leo / goat mosaic thread. Neither I nor anyone else has the time to comment on everything.
However, there was a clear request for feedback.
A digression... I regularly get E-mails from people who report some breakthrough in the decoding of the MS, sometimes to the point of a claim of complete translation. In none of these I have ever seen anything that had any chance of being correct.
When pointing out the problems in each case, the reception of this is just not there. The negative feedback is not accepted.
Not rarely, the person is offended, and more often than not, I get the response that, since I can't read the text myself, how can I judge that the proposed solution is wrong. So, then I wonder (but don't write): why ask me in the first place?
In fora like this, getting no response at all, to something that one perceives as important, is certainly frustrating, but this is completely common to all discussion boards about the Voynich MS. Many times, people read it, digest it, but don't have much to add to it. Maybe they don't know whether it makes sense or not, and then not saying anything is quite a reasonable thing.
When honest criticism comes, then this can be negative. This should not be interpreted as a personal insult.
Mail messages tend to be relatively short, so they may seem more direct.
I do strongly object to the statement I read yesterday that I am:
Quote: attempting to maintain the now eight-year campaign to suggest that I am irrational, or inconsistent, or illiterate, or 'out for glory' or any other among the useless and pointless stream of memes
This is imaginary and uncalled for. Simply not true. I do hope that that sort of thing stops here.
In the lion thread, Koen said:
"The problem is of course that the Voynich MS is unusual.
I have seen several different arguments related to that:
- It is unusual, so it is probably a modern fake
- It is unusual, so it isn't European
- It is unusual, so its author probably was unusual (i.e. mentally abnormal in some way)."
I'd like to add another possibility.
- It is unusual, so it is a puzzle. Not just something mystifying and confusing, but a riddle to be solved.
Evidence:
The radial illusion that alters the interpretation of heraldic orientation in VMs You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. - White Aries.
The three page construction of the papelonny pun.
The unique placement of objects in the White Aries illustration to create objective, positional confirmations.
The unique connections to historical church tradition.
It's all in the VMs. As a matter of fact, much of it is in there twice. It's paired. It's part of the pairing paradigm. It's intentional because it's not shown twice by accident. It's a pair of questions. What is your response to the VMs presentation of the Genoese Gambit? Do you know the tradition of the cardinal's red galero?
The combined use of heraldic canting and intentional positioning of specific images reveals a level of sophistication on the author's part that many investigator's are yet to fully realize, myself included.
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.
I keep seeing this diagram identified as Atropa belladonna. I can't see why, everything about the diagram is a mismatch with this plant. It doesn't have equal leaves, no explanation for the different colours, belladonna's bracts don't hug the berry, and they are pointy. The root is wrong, too, seems more like a tree or shrub root, looks like a calloused foot.
To me the Dana Scott identification of Syzygium aromaticum seems to fit much better than any of the other identifications I've seen reported for this plant (St. John's Wort, black nightshade, etc). The only problem I see is that only the clove top shows and is shown larger than it would be in comparison to the leaves. I think the largeness could be to show what part of the plant is used, where to find it on the plant, and that one is generally enough in terms of usage. The fact that it is not 100% obvious is perhaps an attempt to keep the knowledge semi-hidden from the casual observer.
Is there a better fit for this plant drawing? It's not striking me as familiar other than the clove top, and there is also the 'clavus' connection with the word clove and the calloused foot look of the root. But it's not perfect, so I'm open to a better identification. I find that a lot of plant diagrams strike me as looking like weeds I am familiar with in North America, but they are old world plants originally, but the ID of cloves would not fit that pattern. However cloves have been used for millennia, so I could see it as a known plant, just as we know it today, at least the part that is used.
Theriac was a medical compound thought to be a universal antidote or panacea, said to consist of 64 ingredients.
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Clearly the production and use of this compound has a long history from Imperial Rome to Renaissance Venice and beyond. It would seem to be just the thing that those investigating Hellenistic influences or medieval pharmacognosy might have found to be interesting. But other than Diane's brief mentionings, the word has not been used - though there are a number of name variations like treacle.
Some of the 64 ingredients are included in the botanical identifications proposed by various VMs botanical researchers, but perhaps there are still a few ingredients that might help make a VMs identification. It just seems strange to me that the word is essentially unused, or else I'm not reading the right discussions.
Posted by: R. Sale - 04-08-2016, 05:58 PM - Forum: Imagery
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Building on the standard nebuly line as defined by heraldry - a balanced, bulbous line. And connecting with VMs Quire 13 et al.
The d' Oresme cosmos has an elaborated nebuly line as the basis of its celestial boundary line.
And there is a good version of an elaborated nebuly line in the VMs central rosette.
Now there is the hybrid nebuly line. This line has the single bulb of the standard nebuly line on the inner side of the circle and then has an elaborated version of a nebuly line on the outer side.
First example is shown in Imagery > Nebuly Lines > Post #6 - in the second image, see the pattern in the blue circular band. Compare that with the pattern in the VMs drawn around the field of stars being discussed under Voynich Talk> More mathematical musings in the Rosettes folio. Both are round and single-bulbed in the inside and a three-way, head-and-shoulders pattern on the outside.
How about 'more nebuly musings in the Rosettes folio'? This line is new to me. [What do I know, it's all cloudy?] Just these two examples, currently. So more investigation is needed here, if relevant material can be found.
The figure below shows the processor model of the neural network of the brain. On the sides of the square depicts the synapses. Left and right form a nucleotide - phosphoric esters, which means hydrogen bonds form a bridge. One of the synapses, upper or lower, suppressed, i.e. deactivated, other shapes the message. The resulting structure is ion. Ions are attracted to each other, as if sinking down through the pipe. Adjacent bridges are combined fosfodièfirnymi links, thereby forming a DNA molecule. Formed T. O. the molecule is lowered into the ventricles of the brain and the cerebrospinal fluid is transported into the gland, which, in fact, incubators are providing the packing of DNA in cells. In the body there is a continuous process of recombination of DNA, i.e. the process of updating information under the control of the brain. This process allows to maintain the normal functioning of the organism during its life.
While browsing images of old mosaics looking for similarities with VMS imagery the other day, I came across this interesting image of a leopard from the Qasr mosaics, located in what is now Libya, that bears some interesting similarities to the VMS Leo/August image:
For one thing, the body shape is certainly similar. I'm not good with animals, but I have always thought that the VMS image looked more like a leopard or similar species of big cat than like a lion, and I know I'm not the only person to make that observation.
The second similarity is the coloration. The VMS Leo/August animal is blue, the only animal among those in the Zodiac section to be colored that way. The Qasr mosaic leopard is also blue, and while a few other animals depicted in the Qasr mosaic are also blue, most are not. Maybe this is a total coincidence, or maybe there was some established convention for coloring leopards in this way.
The third similarity is the tree in the background of the Qasr mosaic image, which is similar in both position and shape to the end of the tail of the VMS animal.
It's interesting to look at these similarities in light of other comparisons that have been made between the VMS Leo/August image and Western European Zodiacs. For instance, on JKP's site we find a comparison with the Zodiac from the du Barry Book of Hours (which seems to be a fairly typical western European Leo depiction):
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There are some clear similarities with the VMS image here as well, but they are different from the similarities noted above. The commonalities with the VMS image here are that the tongue is sticking out, the head is facing forward, and the position of the tail between the hind legs is similar.
What I propose is that the image in the VMS is essentially a composite of something similar to the Qasr mosaic image and something similar to the du Barry Zodiac image. Or, more specifically, that someone started with something like the Qasr mosaic leopard and made some modifications to it, bringing it in more in line with the Western European norm.
- The basic form of the leopard, rather than of a lion, has been retained from the original
- The blue coloration has been retained from the original (possibly)
- The head has been adjusted to face forward, as in the Western European example
- The tongue is sticking out, as in the Western European example
- The position of the tail is between the hind legs, as in the Western European example
- The top of the tree has been retained from the original, but merged with the tail to form the weird tree-tail hybrid we see in the VMS. This could have been intentional, but more likely it was unintentional. What probably happened was that, when the position of the tail was changed from the original location, the end of the tail now overlapped with where the tree made contact with the underside of the leopard, and a later copyist did not realize that the tree and the tail were two distinct entities, and so misinterpreted the tail as curling up behind the leopard and terminating as the top of the tree.
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