-JKP-
When you say
I agree there is nothing to argue about in that. A drawing is NOT a plant. The drawings that are subjectively interpreted as representing plants may, or may not have been intended so.
The maker's intention is a reasonable subject for discussion, and for each individual to present his or her reasons (and evidence) for holding one opinion or another.
Of course we had far more high-handed attitudes a 100+ years ago. Wilfrid employed the 'Believe-it-or-else' style in saying the manuscript was an autograph by Roger Bacon.
What a pity people didn't insist on his presenting his argument, and evidence, in a reasoned and less autocratic way.
So many decades of wasted time by those who tamely nodded along could have been spent on less erroneous ideas.
The same is true for the 'I-say-so-there-and-i(unspecified) important-people-agree' style of O'Neill.
More decades of mis-directed energy and foolish acquiescence to his 'sunflower' nonsense.
I do not like to waste my time. I am not inclined to be a tame 'believer' - I much prefer to see the decent thing done: evidence and argument presented to me.
And when you say
I recognise the 'fanciful...' passage you are quoting, and I know its source. It has no valid source. It is some unacknowledged person's unsubstantiated assertion, repeated between 1962-1967 by members of the Friedman group and for which there is no reasonable argument to be found: neither in their writings, nor in the bald quotation of the same notion by Kennedy and Churchill (2002).
Your repeating the word 'fanciful' as you do shows that you have received an impression that this passing, unsupported notion is somehow 'fact'.
And that tells me something else - that you are not someone so arrogant that they would try to pass themselves off as a professional evaluator of medieval pictures. You are a genuine and hard-working amateur and the quality of your efforts certainly deserve the reputation you have earned by them in this forum.
I would urge you not to adopt 'meme' ideas either. And once more, my sincere thanks for that transliteration of the page from Sozomeno's notebook. I can count the number of such responses on one hand, and my thanks is as much for your attitude to the request as for your response. Truly.
When you say
Quote:do we have to argue over whether the drawings that look like plants are plants?
I agree there is nothing to argue about in that. A drawing is NOT a plant. The drawings that are subjectively interpreted as representing plants may, or may not have been intended so.
The maker's intention is a reasonable subject for discussion, and for each individual to present his or her reasons (and evidence) for holding one opinion or another.
Of course we had far more high-handed attitudes a 100+ years ago. Wilfrid employed the 'Believe-it-or-else' style in saying the manuscript was an autograph by Roger Bacon.
What a pity people didn't insist on his presenting his argument, and evidence, in a reasoned and less autocratic way.
So many decades of wasted time by those who tamely nodded along could have been spent on less erroneous ideas.
The same is true for the 'I-say-so-there-and-i(unspecified) important-people-agree' style of O'Neill.
More decades of mis-directed energy and foolish acquiescence to his 'sunflower' nonsense.
I do not like to waste my time. I am not inclined to be a tame 'believer' - I much prefer to see the decent thing done: evidence and argument presented to me.
And when you say
Quote:Some are more fanciful but, for the most part, they appear to be plants or inspired by plants
I recognise the 'fanciful...' passage you are quoting, and I know its source. It has no valid source. It is some unacknowledged person's unsubstantiated assertion, repeated between 1962-1967 by members of the Friedman group and for which there is no reasonable argument to be found: neither in their writings, nor in the bald quotation of the same notion by Kennedy and Churchill (2002).
Your repeating the word 'fanciful' as you do shows that you have received an impression that this passing, unsupported notion is somehow 'fact'.
And that tells me something else - that you are not someone so arrogant that they would try to pass themselves off as a professional evaluator of medieval pictures. You are a genuine and hard-working amateur and the quality of your efforts certainly deserve the reputation you have earned by them in this forum.
I would urge you not to adopt 'meme' ideas either. And once more, my sincere thanks for that transliteration of the page from Sozomeno's notebook. I can count the number of such responses on one hand, and my thanks is as much for your attitude to the request as for your response. Truly.