Hi JKP,
The intention of making this thread has been to eventually confirm or disprove the idea that image mnemonics are the key tool for Voynich plants identification and that the "weird" look of the plants is nothing more than the direct consequence of utilizing mnemonics at the expense of naturalism. Right now, the table embraces less than 5% of Voynich plants and, of course, does not allow us to make generalizing conclusions. The idea is that if the moment comes when that percentage is some tens of percents, then we may be more sure that we're on the right track. And, opposite to that, if the table is stale for a long time after many plants having been investigated from the mnemonics angle, that will indicate that mnemonics is not the key tool, but probably only a supplementary one, with limited significance.
This thread I would like to limit to technical/aggregation issues only, otherwise with ~120 Voynich plants out there it will turn into a mess within a month. So it's better to restrict plant-specific discussions to those plants' threads (feel free to create those, if not existing yet). Since I don't read each and every thread, it's better to drop me (or any moderator or editor) a line in PM focusing our attention on threads where wide consensus is observed as to the plant ID.
As explained above, the purpose of the table is to ultimately validate or invalidate the whole mnemonics approach. In this light, two kinds of identified plants can be distinguished: those which do not seem to exhibit any mnemonic (generic/naturalistic shape of flowers, roots etc.), and those which seem to exhibit some mnemonic (like weird shape of the leaves) but that mnemonic lacks satisfactory explanation. For the former category of plants, I would include them into the table (specifying "none" for all mnemonics). For the latter, I would not include them until the mnemonic is explained. When the mnemonic is explained, I would include them as regular entries if the mnemonic corresponds to the plant ID (e.g. it points to the plant name or usage), and as, say, entries highlighted in red colour if the mnemonic does not correspond to the suggested plant ID (which would highlight that something unusual is going here.
I think that if significant uncertainty is observed as to the plant ID and some components of the image do not "fit" the ID and that is not explained, it's better to abstain from including such plant into the table. For the plants already included, I did not re-read the threads, but I remember that I noted down (to my Excel file) only those plants on which there was general consensus in the thread. Of course, there will never be 100% consensus until we're able to read the text (and the very work of plant identification is ultimately to assist one in demystifying the text), so that's a bit "grey area" as you say, but the cases which are evidently undecided I did not include. For example, I do not include f2v, although we discussed it extensively, but something still did not fit (from the pesrpective of mnemonic and mnemonic-to-ID matching). After all, in the absense of formal criteria, someone must make a subjective decision on whether the plant is included, so if it were I who undertook to manage the table, I will make those decisions (with suggestions from the forum members of course), and I'll try to be careful in that. For doubts, I reflect those with question marks, as in the case of the supposed Dracaena. Any objections and comments (Pritzel errors, counter-suggestions etc.) are of course welcome in plant threads. My disadvantage in this respect is that I'm not a botanist at all (I did not like biology lessons at school
), so I don't have that quick eye of a botanist allowing them to discern essential from minor in the plant image. If a professional botanist joins our Forum and wishes to join this work, I will happily pass the table to him. Of course, one argument towards including the plant into the table is when the mnemonic-based ID matches one of the previous ID's which were not mnemonics based. For this purpose, the last column of the table is introduced.
As I suggest above, it's better not to include those until and unless the mnemonic is better explained. The size of the table shoudl serve as the evidence of success of the mnemonics approach, and we don't want any false positives here. The stricter the table is filled in, the higher the credibility.
The intention of making this thread has been to eventually confirm or disprove the idea that image mnemonics are the key tool for Voynich plants identification and that the "weird" look of the plants is nothing more than the direct consequence of utilizing mnemonics at the expense of naturalism. Right now, the table embraces less than 5% of Voynich plants and, of course, does not allow us to make generalizing conclusions. The idea is that if the moment comes when that percentage is some tens of percents, then we may be more sure that we're on the right track. And, opposite to that, if the table is stale for a long time after many plants having been investigated from the mnemonics angle, that will indicate that mnemonics is not the key tool, but probably only a supplementary one, with limited significance.
Quote:How do you want us to add to the list? As posts to this thread (which would allow space for explanations) or as messages to you (for you to add them at your discretion to the chart).
This thread I would like to limit to technical/aggregation issues only, otherwise with ~120 Voynich plants out there it will turn into a mess within a month. So it's better to restrict plant-specific discussions to those plants' threads (feel free to create those, if not existing yet). Since I don't read each and every thread, it's better to drop me (or any moderator or editor) a line in PM focusing our attention on threads where wide consensus is observed as to the plant ID.
Quote:Also, do you want only the mnemonic references in this chart, or all the plants?
As explained above, the purpose of the table is to ultimately validate or invalidate the whole mnemonics approach. In this light, two kinds of identified plants can be distinguished: those which do not seem to exhibit any mnemonic (generic/naturalistic shape of flowers, roots etc.), and those which seem to exhibit some mnemonic (like weird shape of the leaves) but that mnemonic lacks satisfactory explanation. For the former category of plants, I would include them into the table (specifying "none" for all mnemonics). For the latter, I would not include them until the mnemonic is explained. When the mnemonic is explained, I would include them as regular entries if the mnemonic corresponds to the plant ID (e.g. it points to the plant name or usage), and as, say, entries highlighted in red colour if the mnemonic does not correspond to the suggested plant ID (which would highlight that something unusual is going here.
Quote:And how does one handle differences of opinion about the ID?
I think that if significant uncertainty is observed as to the plant ID and some components of the image do not "fit" the ID and that is not explained, it's better to abstain from including such plant into the table. For the plants already included, I did not re-read the threads, but I remember that I noted down (to my Excel file) only those plants on which there was general consensus in the thread. Of course, there will never be 100% consensus until we're able to read the text (and the very work of plant identification is ultimately to assist one in demystifying the text), so that's a bit "grey area" as you say, but the cases which are evidently undecided I did not include. For example, I do not include f2v, although we discussed it extensively, but something still did not fit (from the pesrpective of mnemonic and mnemonic-to-ID matching). After all, in the absense of formal criteria, someone must make a subjective decision on whether the plant is included, so if it were I who undertook to manage the table, I will make those decisions (with suggestions from the forum members of course), and I'll try to be careful in that. For doubts, I reflect those with question marks, as in the case of the supposed Dracaena. Any objections and comments (Pritzel errors, counter-suggestions etc.) are of course welcome in plant threads. My disadvantage in this respect is that I'm not a botanist at all (I did not like biology lessons at school
), so I don't have that quick eye of a botanist allowing them to discern essential from minor in the plant image. If a professional botanist joins our Forum and wishes to join this work, I will happily pass the table to him. Of course, one argument towards including the plant into the table is when the mnemonic-based ID matches one of the previous ID's which were not mnemonics based. For this purpose, the last column of the table is introduced.Quote:what about plants that look like they MIGHT be mnemonic, but it's hard to tell? This one, for example... the root is reminiscent of a You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., but is that intentional or a coincidence (some plants do have roots like this, usually the ones that grow in wetlands or mud)? Does it belong on the chart if it's hard to establish if it's a mnemonic, or if it looks like a mnemonic, but it's not certain what it is?
As I suggest above, it's better not to include those until and unless the mnemonic is better explained. The size of the table shoudl serve as the evidence of success of the mnemonics approach, and we don't want any false positives here. The stricter the table is filled in, the higher the credibility.