Voynich text generator

[Sam G]

@sam

> If you can only reproduce some features of the VMS, but not all of them

What does 'all' mean? With 'all' as definition you can always add a new feature to your 'all'-list as long as the algorithm doesn't produce the same text as in the VMS. Yes, you can argue that the algorithm doesn't produce the same text.

Properties found in all sections of the text would be a reasonable definition to start with, I think.  Then maybe differing sets of rules to get A language text vs. B language, etc.

But all I want to do is to demonstrate that with the auto copy hypotheses it is possible to generate a text with similar features.

Alright, well I don't think it demonstrates a whole lot.  You basically have a system for modifying the VMS that preserves some but not all of its properties.  It certainly does not show or even suggest that the VMS was produced by this method.  What does it prove?  

> Okay, but I think "words almost never begin with <e>" is also an important property of the text.

In the transcription such words exist:
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It would be an interesting question if all this words are transcription problems or not.

They're not all transcription errors, but some of them are, and in any case such words are very rare in the VMS but very common in your text.

Anyway, it would be no big deal to add a rule to the generator that prevents 'e' at the beginning of a word. But the question was if it is possible to generate a text with features similar to that of the VMS. Did you really think that for the answer to this question such a rule makes a big difference.

Well, it would be one more similar feature if "words almost never begin with <e>" were a true statement about your text.  If you were trying to show that your method was in fact used to create the VMS, then it seems like you would want to match as many features as possible, but I guess you're not actually trying to show that.  I actually don't understand what you're trying to do.

> Another thing is that your method requires some "seed" text to begin with, which you are taking from the VMS itself, but where does your VMS creator get his original text from?

The use of the script already requires that the scribe have practiced writing in that script before he started with the VMS. It was necessary to define all the characters used in the script before starting writing in that script. Therefore, I think that the scribe was starting on a page, which was later not added to the VMS. My guess would be that he started with a single word "daiin".

Well then it seems like text generated earlier should have different properties than that generated by later iterations of this process, right?  Have you attempted to show this for the VMS, or otherwise show which portions were used to generate which other portions, i.e. put them in order?