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+--- Thread: Elephant in the Room Solution Considerations (/thread-5160.html)
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Elephant in the Room Solution Considerations - MHTamdgidi_(Behrooz) - 21-12-2025
Hi everyone,
My name is Mohammad H. Tamdgidi (nicknamed Behrooz, which you can call me by for ease of communication).
I am new to Voynich research. I have had a bit of time recently to acquaint myself with this interesting puzzle. I do not plan on staying here for too long given other prior research commitments. By signing up I wish to learn more about your good work (including access to the links and images/documents) to the extent time allows. I am most appreciative of all the care and critical considerations you have offered for solving this puzzle and will try the best I can to help you solve it, if possible.
My interest in this topic, as in others I have explored, is mainly methodological. But of course, that interest can be best explored in a substantive way. Having learned some things already from your contributions, I believe that you have found a lot already toward a viable solution. From past and other research experiences, I have found that there is at times a tendency in researchers to try to prove their own finding(s) and (for that reason) dismissing others, at times reasonably done, and at other times perhaps not as reasonably.
Sometimes rivalries become themselves a cause for not realizing that each is seeing a part of the elephant, so to speak. Also, given the reputation or intimidation of a long-lasting puzzle to solve, we may ignore useful contributions others have made, small or large, to solving the puzzle. This then results sometimes in not seeing the elephant in the room. So, I use (as I have done so in my other research and publications) the metaphor of the elephant in the double senses expressed above (seeing whole/parts, and not noticing some obvious issues or contributions).
I am a sociologist, specializing in the sociology of (self-)knowledge and hermeneutics, interested in advancing transdisciplinary and transcultural approaching to solving long-standing puzzles especially in the intersection of mysticism, utopianism, and science. I have published both academically, and independently by way of a research center I established in 2002 to frame my independent research (for more information you can visit my site at You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). I have noted that in your discussions you have desired for others with academic training to get involved. I found that encouraging when considering participating in this forum.
I am beginning this first post just as an introduction, placing it in your Theories & Solutions section and titling it “Elephant in the Room Solution Considerations," in the spirit of what I shared above, and to offer a space where discussions can be advanced in the spirit of realizing that any solution to the Voynich enigma can and only be a collective solution to which every one of you have contributed immensely, and to which I also wish to also contribute if at all possible. I have learned a lot already from all of you, and the tools that have been accumulated over the decades to solve this puzzle are incredibly helpful and creatively (and time-consumingly) devised.
Given time constraints and in the spirit of trying to test anything I may offer by way of a step-by-step logical procedure, I will just share whatever I have found gradually and hopefully by way of careful and critical feedback you may offer I will correct any errors I have made to improve what I can still offer, if at all worthwhile.
Since it is not possible for me due to time constraints to know every detail of contributions made over the long past, I will welcome and request from you that you inform me and others of any contributions you have made in cases where I am not sure of the specifics of the chain of acknowledgments to be given for any idea I will share. Where I know I have learned something on a specific topic, I will surely acknowledge it, and if I miss doing so unknowingly, please correct me.
I am not a linguist, nor involved in quantitative or statistical research, though I appreciate others’ contributions using those approaches. I think they will also be needed for seeing the whole elephant (in the room). My solution contributions will be informed by my sociological viewpoint, especially in the tradition of the sociological imagination, a term coined by the sociologist C. Wright Mills in 1959, suggesting that social (including personal) life can be best understood by way of exploring how personal troubles and public issues interact. I think that is helpful also in historical and hermeneutic studies.
The Voynich manuscript is an artifact that must have originated in the intimate intersection of biographical and historical contexts in which someone (or persons related) was dealing with personal troubles amid public issues of their times.
I have absolutely no problem with being proven wrong, reasonably, in any contribution I make. I have learned from prior work that such realizations are not only necessary for scientific research but also for opening more fruitful ways of solving puzzles. However, I do reserve the right of not agreeing with an argument that I may not find reasonably made.
What I wish to encourage in this thread is for everyone to see it not as an “alternative” solution, but one in which their own contribution can be made fruitfully. I will try to show that any solution ideas I will offer will be based on a synthesis of the best and most reasonable contributions you all have made to solving the puzzle, of course adding any new ideas I may also offer, subject to your critical consideration.
(Note to the moderator, Tavie: With greetings, if you think this post still is a talk and not yet a solution, please feel welcome to move it to the Talk section. However, I will be gradually making some solution-oriented posts following this introductory post—not sure exactly how soon but will do my best to do so in a timely way).
RE: Elephant in the Room Solution Considerations - Bluetoes101 - 21-12-2025
Welcome Behrooz, it is nice to see a "wall of text" in this section of the forum by a first time poster that is not AI garbage
. Without seeing what you know so far, it's hard to point you in directions that are not a waste of time for you. What are you interested in, or think you may need from others research that would help your own?
RE: Elephant in the Room Solution Considerations - MHTamdgidi_(Behrooz) - 21-12-2025
Hi Bluetoes101,
Thanks for your welcome and sorry for the wall (I must have apologized in advance). I thought of just getting some basics out so I can get back to sharing anything, hopefully in a shorter way! Also registering allows me now to see more of the links and images previously seen as not clickable, and to search. So please give me a little time to get back to you and all with any ideas I may have to share, or questions I may need to update myself about on latest findings on a topic. Sorry for not being more specific or forthcoming now. The wall already took a bit of my time too! In any case, it is nice to hear from you.
RE: Elephant in the Room Solution Considerations - Bluetoes101 - 21-12-2025
No problem, I didn't mean it in a bad way. It's good to see this much info, just usually when we do it's AI generated "slop".
Hope you find some useful info while looking around. There's a lot of blogs with good info, I just don't want to point you to any and it be totally irrelevant to your interests.
A safe one for general info is Rene's site - You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (if you have not read what is on here already)
RE: Elephant in the Room Solution Considerations - MHTamdgidi_(Behrooz) - 21-12-2025
Hi Bluetoes101,
Yes, I know of Rene's excellent site. There are many current (or older) other very helpful blog URLs listed in this forum's helpful Blogosphere reader page which I have bookmarked and have been looking into. There is a lot to catch up, literally decades (well, centuries … given the VM itself) of them, and not sure I ever will catch up.
I have learned from other research that enigmas such as these can be very hypnotic and can pull you in forever, and I like to remind myself that I don't have centuries or perhaps even decades, or years, left, so I need to be careful with balancing my time. I will "try" to be mindful of that and whenever I feel I am not helpful, I will not take more of others time. On the other hand, I thought perhaps I can also help you all solve this in a way that is helpful with your time as well. With best wishes …
RE: Elephant in the Room Solution Considerations - MHTamdgidi_(Behrooz) - 22-12-2025
I apologize in advance for a second “wall” of text. My choices are either to do it this way, or split it into more sections (each of which runs the risk of being misunderstood as being a part of a whole section/notion). I have chosen the former to avoid the latter, and those wishing to read it in parts, can still do so. You can just treat these as “short” essays, rather than brief posts.
Just to begin with, I wish to elaborate more on and explain the logical procedure I will use to share what I can about the Voynich Manuscript (VM). So, I include in this post just a few more matters of method.
I find it helpful to apply to my study of the VM what we call in sociology the “phenomenological” approach. Even though that term crosses disciplinary boundaries for good reasons, in sociology we use it to refer to a procedure whereby we study something inductively, in each step always questioning not just what we are studying, but also our own notions of it that we have taken for granted. So, in each step, we ask, even regarding obvious terms or notions, “what do you mean by that?”
Being inductive also, as you know, involves a procedure of going from surface appearances to deeper layers of the inquiry, as if peeling an onion step by step, in contrast to starting with preconceived notions of what the object of our study may be.
This is very important in sociological phenomenology, since the object is not just “out there,” but also “in here” and how the two relate. And this of course has significant sociological implications as well, especially regarding the VM study.
An “enigma” is not just about what is out there, or what we believe about it, but a relation between the two. What may appear to be enigmatic to us now, was likely not only not enigmatic to the ones who produced or created the artifact, but perhaps not even to those living in their times (for now I will use a plural for “ones” and “them” not to bias the procedure, implying it could be one or more people behind the VM’s creation).
So, when we say something is enigmatic, we need to always problematize what we take for granted, always asking, “enigmatic for whom?” also needing to ask, “enigmatic when?” and “enigmatic where?” Also, we can and need to also ask “is it really enigmatic” and “does it serve anyone’s interest to keep an inquiry enigmatic, consciously or not, even when it can be reliably demonstrated that the object under study was not, is not, or is no more, enigmatic?”
The inductive procedure also allows us to remain as much as possible on reliable and verifiable grounds as we peel the onion, since if we were deductive, we could have tons of wild or tame ideas or theories to start from. I am here mindful of ReneZ’s good point about the challenge of keeping a balance between what he calls “solutions space” and the inevitable narrowing down that takes place when we begin to take concrete steps in favor of specific theories or solutions.
I think the inductive method is much more scientific to do in the case of the VM, than one starting, for example, with statistical studies whose objects are not even yet established (do they represent letters, words, numbers, illustrations, procedures, etc.?).
To follow the method as proposed above, I’d like to present it in the fruitful way Omar Khayyam (1021-1123 AD) shared it in one of his treatises as I have studied in detail in my other works.
He was basically suggesting a similar procedure, one that was indeed both phenomenological and sociological, when studying something. First, he said, we ask, whether it exists (or, does it exist)? Then we follow by asking, what is it? And then ask, why is it?
In sharing this approach, he made a distinction between objects out there, and objects that exist in our own minds, or broadly subjectively.
If it is out there, we can begin with the first question, he said, but if the object is a creation of our own minds (such as a metaphor, for which he used the notion of the Phoenix) we need to reconsider the steps in favor of asking the second question first, since we cannot really know what the object is and stands for, if we have not yet defined it, or don’t know how someone defines it, say, in a poem.
If it is a mythical bird having this or that attribute, which may even be (and has been) culturally variant, we may say it does not exist as such, besides its existing in our minds, but if it stands for, poetically, a person, we could technically answer by saying he or she does not exist as a living person, though his or her memory may still exist in our minds.
There is a subtlety about the distinction made about objective and subjective realities, which I will not enter here yet, but Khayyam was very mindful of it and in fact wrote other treatises about it in his own condensed way. It has to do with the notion of a subjective reality existing objectively as well.
For example, we do not even know who, say, his neighbor, was when he lived. But we know Khayyam and have a memory of him perhaps more widely than many others, a thousand years past his time. And even this memory is socially constructed and who he was and what he wrote can depend on whom you ask.
The above point may even apply, and do so significantly, to the VM as an artifact to which certain memories and meanings may be associated that are trying to be passed on live on. But I will get back to this later in this study, if it is found to be needed and helpful.
The point here is that objective and subjective realities do not have to be treated in a dualistic way, as billiard balls, and must also be regarded as parts of a whole reality.
In any case, as far as the VM is concerned, I think the original procedure applies. First, because we are studying an object that does exist out there and needs to be studied. Second, in this case, we don’t even reliably know (yet) what it means substantively. So, I think we can regard the process of the usual inquiry (whether, what, why) as being still valid.
Still, a final methodological point is important also to keep in mind.
If we end up peeling the onion to its core from its whether, to its what, and to its why, we have only done half of the job of knowing what it is about. We have learned its essential core, but still, we need to return from its core to its whole, including also knowing its “how,” that is, how the onion was, is, and can be, put together, and that process usually implies learning it historically, in time and place, and understanding more how we have gone about knowing it.
This second reverse procedure implies being deductive, going from essence to appearance, so to speak—but we will now be deducing not from thin air, but based on the findings of the inductive stage preceding it. So, even Khayyam’s steps need to be understood as applying to the process of inquiry rather than also of presentation.
The inquiry-presentation procedure has been also referred to as the logical-historical method, so let us keep all the above in mind as we now go about studying the VM more substantively.
Does the VM exist? What is it? Why is it? How did it (and our efforts in knowing it, or not) come about historically?
RE: Elephant in the Room Solution Considerations - RobGea - 22-12-2025
Bro, i have read your 1285 word post and edited it down to 576 words and i still cannot find the point, i am too annoyed to continue the quest for your residuum.
AI summaries are really in vogue right now, perhaps you could try using one of them, ( don't forget to mention which one you used
)
RE: Elephant in the Room Solution Considerations - bi3mw - 22-12-2025
I would like to agree with @RobGea's opinion. I was unable to discern what this very lengthy text is actually about. Do you have a theory, yes or no? If so, what specifically does it entail?
RE: Elephant in the Room Solution Considerations - MHTamdgidi_(Behrooz) - 22-12-2025
Hi, I will await further feedback from others on the forum in the next few days and if it happens that they generally agree with the sentiments expressed by RobGea and bi3mw, which I find to be not considerate of the way I wished to present my contribution (since I believe at the heart of any new ideas I was planning to share are matters of method), I will not take more of anyone's time, and mine, on this forum and will try instead to share it on my own site in due course, if at all. In any case, the moderator(s) will be welcome to just delete what I shared so far.
I had of course been aware of the rules of this forum when I signed up, and I have no idea why and how anyone can suggest I used AI for what I shared so far, and more so, even accuse me of not having revealed it! If I ever use AI on this forum, I will surely state it, as the rules of this forum have required. But if this is the way my engagement will be perceived and received, I agree that it will be a waste of your, and my, times for me to continue further.
RE: Elephant in the Room Solution Considerations - nablator - 22-12-2025
A lengthy methodological introduction (prolegomenon) would be fine in a book or scientific essay, but we are on a discussion forum and some people have the attention span of a gnat.
I'm interested. Please continue, or post a link to your article when it is published.
No one accused you of posting AI slop.