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+--- Thread: [Book] Voynichese a Morse Code Cipher? (new book) (/thread-2955.html)
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RE: Voynichese a Morse Code Cipher? (new book) - -JKP- - 03-10-2019
David, I think he chose Morse code for the same reason he chose numerology a couple of years ago.
Numerology adds up to the same number for many different words. It enables you to create a list of words with the same value. It was never intended to be used as a decryption system for large amounts of text (it evolved as a way to find words with the same value that might have a spiritual connection (for biblical interpretations, for example)).
For example, if Token A adds up to 19 (you add up the value of each letter in the word), then you might get 400 words in that language that add up to the same amount. Then Tom CHOOSES a word from that list of possibilities to put into his translation.
Same thing with Morse code (at least the way Tom does it). Each VMS token is converted to Morse code using his substitution system.
Now you have a row of dots and dashes that mean certain letters in Morse code, but if you scramble the dots and dashes any way you want (anagramming, as Tom calls it), then you can create your own version of "Morse code" and generate a list of words from the converted letter combinations and, like the previous method, CHOOSE which one of the words you want to put into your translation.
Tommy's "method" is always the same. It's only superficially different. Choose a different language, choose a different way to convert the letters so they can be manipulated into a LIST of words, then choose the words you want to generate a "translation" (with no real grammar).
When I asked him about the grammar, one of his explanations was that Wilfrid Voynich messed up the grammar to throw people off the track. Very lame and unconvincing explanation.
Plus, this kind of system is almost invariably a one-way cipher (if you can choose each word from a long list, then even 10 words can result in hundreds or thousands of combinations of words that slightly go together to look like a phrase). I'm pretty sure Tom knows this. He, of course, sees it as an asset, since it enables him to create text that vaguely looks like real phrases.