9 Rosette Connecting Loops

[Mark Knowles]

I think it's very easy to read our own interpretations into every aspect of the semiotics of the VM.
But sometimes, a squiggle is just a squiggle. It doesn't have to be one great big code 

I absolutely agree with that. As an example, that is why, although I think Nick Pelling does an great job overall, in his book he argues that the slight variations in the lengths of the tails of certain Voynich glyphs constitutes part of a complex number system. Similarly Nick argues in some instances that I have seen that the greater degree of inking of certain part of drawings has a significance. (I am not picking on Nick, it is merely that having frequented his blog and read his book I am much more familiar with his worl than those of others.)

So I agree we have to be able to tell what is just squiggle and what is a function of deliberate thought and decisions; this can be hard, but I would argue not necessarily so hard. Obviously the as a whole is not a series of random squiggles even in the case that the text turns out to be meaningless and the manuscript a hoax; deliberate and conscious decisions were made. Now some small deliberate and conscious details may just be decorative patterns with little meaning even if deliberate and conscious. Putting one's self in the mind of the author is clearly hard, but I think identifying specific conscious choices is very possible. As an example I think drawing the two dots I have mentioned earlier constitute a specific and conscious decision; now identifying what that ring/loop illustration represents probably will not have a great effect on our understanding of the page, but I think we can say that ring/loop represents something.