What would you NOT LIKE to be the Voynich Manuscripts?

[Jimmy123]

I'm sorry, I am not very good with English. But... I wonder, everybody has a theory about the Voynich Manuscript, there are so many as grains of salt. But what is your anti-theory? What is it that CANNOT be the Voynich Manuscript?

Do you think it is impossible that some theory is correct? Do you think that one theory is impossible? Please share your thoughts

[ololololo]

A medieval forgery.
Because it's too meticulous, too statistically flawless, and too costly. The purpose is also unclear. It was most likely produced before the 17th century (based on the parchment, handwriting, and style), and was definitely not intended for Rudolf II.
Also it would be sad to realize that we've spent 600 years working on a meaningless book.

[Jorge_Stolfi]

Do you think it is impossible that some theory is correct? Do you think that one theory is impossible? Please share your thoughts.

"Impossible" is too strong a word.  I would say that an artifact from another planet or the diary of a stranded time traveler from the future are astronomically unlikely theories, but I cannot say they are absolutely impossible.  

More to the point: forgetting my own theory for the moment, I think that all theories that say it is gibberish are very unlikely, because they require methods that are unlikely to have been devised and chosen by someone in the 1400s, and the result seems extremely unsuited to whatever purpose the Author may have intended.

I also think it is very unlikely that the manuscript as a whole is a modern forgery. (However, I am increasingly leaning toward the possibility that Wilfrid Voynich tampered with the book in several ways, in order to sustain his claim that it was a Roger Bacon original.  Maybe even it was him who attached Marci letter to it.)

I also think it is very unlikely that the language is any "European" language - including Arabic, Hebrew, Turkish, and other languages that would have been known in Europe at the time.  That would imply that the manuscript is encrypted with a highly complicated method; which again is unlikely to have been devised and chosen by someone in that epoch.  Such heavy encryption (including a codebook-type cipher) would have made for slow and tiresome writing and reading. 

All the best, --stolfi

[ololololo]

astronomically unlikely theories, but I cannot say they are absolutely impossible.

We mustn't forget about logic.

However, I am increasingly leaning toward the possibility that Wilfrid Voynich tampered with the book in several ways, in order to sustain his claim that it was a Roger Bacon original.

It seems that Wilfrid Voynich did not have the opportunity to directly prove Bacon's authorship using any methods. The most he could do was to write "Roger Bacon" somewhere. Or am I missing something?

[Koen G]

Well, these are two different questions. I know that it CANNOT be Bigfoot's diary, but that doesn't mean that I don't want it to be Bigfoot's diary 

[asteckley]

...I know that it CANNOT be Bigfoot's diary...

Are you sure about that?
Granted, certain attributes of the manuscript may appear to rule out it being Bigfoot’s diary, but it has yet to be disproved that it is not a product of Bigfoot’s heavily encrypted botanical memoir, written during his misunderstood monastic phase.

[JoJo_Jost]

I can say with near certainty that this is not a hoax or a generator. Since there is a structure beneath the surface that is so “broad” that it can only originate from a language—because language, by its very nature, has a “broad” structure. But it is one that is not strictly logical within its broad structure. Recreating something like this artificially would require an enormous number of minute adjustments, leading to an extremely complex mechanism—and that is simply anachronistic.

But I also don’t believe that Voynich himself had such a broad understanding of linguistic properties to do this... Actually, that would only be possible today with computers. Which brings us back to time travel....

[Jorge_Stolfi]

It seems that Wilfrid Voynich did not have the opportunity to directly prove Bacon's authorship using any methods. The most he could do was to write "Roger Bacon" somewhere. Or am I missing something?

Indeed, the general premise of the umbrella Naughty Wilfrid theory is that there was absolutely zero evidence in the VMS itself that it was a Roger Bacon original.  So, the theory goes, Wilfrid manipulated things to make that claim seem more likely. Specifically:

• The Book Switch theory says that the VMS now at Beinecke is not the book that Marci sent to Kircher. Either Wilfrid could not get that book, or he got it but it was quite obvious that it was not Bacon. So he obtained somehow another book that roughly fit the description in Baresch's and Marci's letters and could pass for a Bacon Original. And attached the letter to it.
  
• The Forged Signature theory notes that, even with the letter attached, the only thing suggesting a Bacon authorship was Raphael's claim, quoted by Marci, that the Emperor had bough the book for a fortune believing that it was Bacon's.  But that claim was probably just a wild guess by Raphael, since he was still a student when that purchase supposedly took place, and he probably never saw that "Bacon's book".  Thus Wilfrid needed more palpable evidence that the book had been owned by the Emperor, and also an explanation for how such a precious book could have gone from the royal library to a nobody like Baresch.  So, the theory proposes, he chose Jacobus as a plausible enough intermediary, and forged what he thought was his signature on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. -- then erasing it almost completely with chemicals to make a forensics analysis of that "signature" impossible. 
  
• The Plastic Surgery theory says that some or all of the pages that are missing in the VMS were removed by Wilfrid because they clearly contradicted his claim that the book was a Bacon original.  (In particular, I have reason to believe that the Recipes (Starred Parags) section originally had  six consecutive parags containing the exact same sequence of ten words.  Anyone who noticed that quirk would have suspected that the book was a fake or meaningless gibberish. That may be why the central bifolio of quire 20 is missing...) 
  

I still give a rather low probability to these theories, but far from zero.  In fact, after looking closely at the images of f1r, I now believe that the Forged Signature theory is more likely than Raphael's Rudolf Ownership theory...

All the best, --stolfi

[Rafal]

My anti-theory is Voynich Manuscript being a simple substitution of some European language. Which means that same that it isn't European language written with invented script but without advanced ciphering.

I give 0% for that.
By that way, I give 0.1% for VM being created by angels or aliens and 1% for VM being a notation of songs of whales 

And unlike some people here, I find gibberish theory quite possible.

[JustAnotherTheory]

I also think it is very unlikely that the language is any "European" language - including Arabic, Hebrew, Turkish, and other languages that would have been known in Europe at the time.

I like to think that the VMS encodes several languages. Like Currier A section is in Alsacian German, while Currier B is in Hungarian (or whatever unrelated language). The encipherment method remains the same, however.

---

• The Book Switch theory ...
  
• The Forged Signature theory ...
  
• The Plastic Surgery theory ...
  

These are very interesting. I have a lot of reading to do now