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+--- Thread: VALUE (/thread-1330.html)
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RE: VALUE - Sam G - 24-12-2016
(24-12-2016, 06:30 AM)Diane Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.If the written part of the text is enciphered, then one assumes that it is enciphered because it is considered to have some 'uncommon' value and quality, even if only for the particular group who were intended to have access to the content. Wouldn't you say that stands to reason?
So the question to be asked, surely, before people reduce the range of their investigation to the best- and most widely known Latin European texts is... why would anyone bother enciphering a well-known text?
It would be as silly as enciphering the Lord's Prayer, or the Psalter or any other work being positively advocated and which was fairly well known to most literate people, including anyone who had the educational level needed to get a degree in theology?
OK - so Aristotle wasn't as well known as Aratus, but why encipher it?
Yeah, this is a good question and I'm often amazed that so many people seriously advocate this "encrypted medieval hodgepodge" idea. Not only are the cipher theory and the "well-known medieval European content only" theory both in disagreement with the available evidence, they're also effectively in disagreement with each other. If there's a known instance of someone going through so much trouble to encrypt material that is freely and widely available in other sources, I'd like to see an example of it.
Another point, which like your question above is essentially independent of the evidence showing that the text cannot be written in any known kind of cipher, is that it also seems clear that the text was meant to be read as-is. Or does anyone seriously think that someone intended to recopy the entire manuscript out "in the plain" just to make use of it?
For instance, the Fontana ciphers are often presented as an allegedly similar type of ciphertext to the VMS. Yet the Fontana ciphers are encrypted using only a simple substitution cipher, which means that someone who has learned the cipher alphabet can easily read the text without needing to copy it out on a separate piece of "scratch parchment". But realistically this is not going to be possible for more complicated ciphers, such as those that involve substitution based on external keys, or complex transposition systems, etc. The requirement of being able to read the text as-is probably rules out anything other than fairly basic substitution ciphers, and I think/hope that that most will at least agree that the VMS cannot be written in a simple subtitution cipher of any European language.
Now, perhaps you could argue that the VMS is intended as a kind of reference work, so that someone would just copy out small bits and pieces as needed. This explanation might be plausible for some parts of the manuscript. For instance, you could argue that someone interested in one of the plants would just copy out the text associated with that particular plant on a small piece of parchment, and not bother with any of the other plants. Okay, fine.
But now what about the large text-only sections, such as the Stars/Recipes section at the end? How would our putative reader know which bit of text he was looking for? Perhaps he had an external index, although there's no obvious evidence of any indexing system in the VMS. Perhaps you could argue that the stars in the left margin served this purpose, although this doesn't seem to be the case. But in any event the existence of such an index would seem to require at least a partial explanation of the contents in an unencrypted form, and given how short many of the starred paragraphs are, this is yet another explanation that forces us to ask: "why bother to encrypt at all?"
But where you really run into trouble with the cipher idea is with the labeled illustrations and circular diagrams. Here it's not only the ability to read the text that counts, but also the ability to know which text is associated with which aspect of the illustration. So what does the reader do? Does he "tape" or glue bits of parchment with the deciphered text on top of the "ciphertext"? Does he write the decrypted text directly on the VMS itself? Or does he copy out the entire diagram and then fill in the associated plaintext? Realistically it seems he would have to copy out the entire diagram again. And then does he add the colors, too? Or were the colors just there for show in the diagrams which would not actually be used directly?
And then what does he do with these recopied illustrations once he's done with them? Does he destroy them, only to recopy them again the next time he wants to have a look at them? Or does he keep the copies for later use? If he keeps the unencrypted copies, then why on earth did he (or anyone else) ever bother to encrypt them in the first place? Complex ciphers are primarily used to encrypt short messages from being read while in transit. Did someone seriously go through all this trouble just to protect the VMS content while it was in transit?
Maybe I've missed it, but has any advocate of the cipher theory ever so much as asked the question "how was this text intended to be used?", let alone actually answered it?
RE: VALUE - R. Sale - 24-12-2016
The issue of value is an interesting topic. Obviously some person or persons put in some time in the manufacture of the VMs. As I see it, the question is: Why bother? We assume there was some purpose to their efforts, but it's difficult to specify what that reason was. However, it seems that basic motivations will fit in a few general categories.
1) The VMs is an attempt to impart information in a straight-forward manner. The author has made the best possible effort to say what s/he wanted to say.
2) The actual purpose of the VMs is hidden, disguised, enciphered, encrypted, you name it. The author felt there was something significant to be said, or had an ulterior motivation, and created an intentional obscurity, at least in the written text and possibly in the illustrations as well.
3) The written text is not able to convey information for whatever reason. The VMs is a work of art, but not a work of literature. There is no content beyond superficial appearance.
The value of the VMs, established through the meaning in the written text, is either overt, covert or no-vert. The first has established no connections; the third holds that there are no connections to be had, which leaves the second category, the covert option. The VMs is a puzzle. How does one solve a puzzle? By following the clues that are provided. By finding that which was hidden. By recognizing the patterns and images presented. By seeing through the disguise. By discovering the author's intentions.
RE: VALUE - stellar - 26-12-2016
(22-12-2016, 11:09 PM)Diane Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.One question which has to be addressed by anyone whose theory is that the manuscript's content is some standard text used in medieval Latin European education is this:
Why would anyone trouble to mystify a work whose plain text was available in every scholarly library and taught as part of the ordinary curriculum?
Remember that texts did not only exist in the form of books: their content was quite literally memorised as part of their being read.
If the written part of the text is in cipher (which I tend to doubt) it indicates that the person(s) concerned considered the information valuable and presumably rare - at least rare and valued within their community.
Diane,
I believe that the text is not that valuable, because of labels which are evident in the manuscript. Labels like the stars such as Pleiade would be the most obvious as-well as chives. This information is well known so why obscure it in a cipher. I really think the Author never intended to read his own work after it was complete so he enciphered it in a way where the letters underneath the glyphs were scrambled so Gematria maybe the key. We have to remember that all traditional methods used to try a break into the VMS occurred over time; then something obvious here states a non-traditional cipher, one that excludes even the author from reading his own work some time after it was finished. The information if ever decoded would probably not impress anyone on a scholarly level.
The Rosette, I find the most interesting and I think its a map of Europe's nine most important cities or countries. Tepence is what we have for a name on f1r, so could have he Authored it on old Vellum? I don't know! One would have to find more then a limited Wikepedia page on him, but that's all I have which is another mystery.
If the VMS was valuable, the Author would have used a cipher that would have been broken long ago, because the cipher would have yielded a frequency count associated with a language.
Diane if you know of any cipher that uses a Gematria system that enables you to decode it please tell me how?
RE: VALUE - Diane - 26-12-2016
Thank you Sam.
Asking the questions that should have been asked is one reason that it has taken so long for me to publish some of the background, history and comparative matter which led me to the conclusions I reached after 18 months' study of the manuscript (2008-2010).
Most of the questions come down to "Who first said that? Where did he/she say it? What evidence did they adduce? Was the evidence sufficient to justify the assertion". The bizarre attitude among some few Voynich writers - that they can take research conclusions from anywhere, but then cite their sources accurately or not depending on whether they happen to like the original researcher... can be an added nuisance, too.
About ciphers though - there are possibilities other than the "spy-cipher" type with its scratch pad. I looked at a couple of possibilities once I reached the same view as you hold about impracticality.
One simple solution could be that the 'cipher' links to a system already committed to memory.
I believe that I was the first to mention, in that context, the role of the Guidonian Hand, and to show variations of it in Hebrew, and in the context of a navigational text. (As ever, you may find later echoes on various sites now - Stephen Bax' site seems to see the re-discovery of many such).
There is also the interesting possibility that it could be a cursive script rendered into a simplified form ('block letters' style) to suit foreign readers: presumably Latin readers.
Another appealing idea is that the text is not a 'plain text' of ordinary prose or poetry at all. I looked at the way technical instructions are written for making fabrics, and for other technical lists including those produced by merchants in medieval Cairo.
But - thanks be - the written text isn't my problem.
RE: VALUE - R. Sale - 26-12-2016
Sam G,
At the end of post #11, you pose the question: "Maybe I've missed it, but has any advocate of the cipher theory ever so much as asked the question "how was this text intended to be used?", let alone actually answered it?"
I am not an advocate of cipher theory. I cannot demonstrate that the VMs text is actually legible, though I accept the analytical evidence that there is probably something going on. And if there is sense to be found, then, IMO, it will be communicated in a fairly specific and non-equivocal manner, something far more restricted than the sort of 'pick a word' translations.
Apparently your perspective on the determination of value is the *value* to the person or persons who would have created the proposed cipher text. Obviously the creator of a cipher text already has access to the plain text *data*. There is no need to go through with all these fiddly bits. Every puzzle maker knows how to solve their own puzzle.
Ostensibly a cipher author probably writes for the same reason that ordinary writers do. And that is to communicate. However, rather than communicating with one and all, to the best of their ability, cipher authors intend to write only for a very specific reader. They want to communicate privately with another person, who is separated by distance, or perhaps by time, rather than speaking publicly - for whatever reason. That is the basic purpose for which a cipher-based text is generally used.
RE: VALUE - Searcher - 27-12-2016
Joking apart, I think it is a copy of a very rare document that had big value for the author as a real artefact, or, maybe, it relates to some secret place, etc. Quite possibly, the author was a traveller, he could find or buy some unusual ancient scroll or manuscript and decide to hide its contain in an 15c almost clear manuscript with a few pictures of plants.
Unfortunately, all these are just a couple of many possibilities.
RE: VALUE - -JKP- - 27-12-2016
Correction: Tyrolean notes was supposed to read Tironian notes (brain says one thing, fingers do something else).