On purpose

[Mark Knowles]

What you have said surely just reinforces my point.

Well, being a musician, I know this. But what I've been trying to say for several posts is that intellectual curiosity and craft are not the same.

Reading books (intellectual curiosity) is not the same as writing books.

There is WORK involved in getting to the finish line or to the part that is pleasurable. In other words, there is, in a sense, a cost-benefit balance in what is pleasurable. How much pain and repetition and annoyance is a person willing to endure to get to the part that is pleasurable? This varies greatly from person-to-person and considering that most of the world consists of viewers rather than doers, consumers rather than creators, I would say that most people don't feel it's worth the trouble. Intellectual curiosity is more common than learning the skills to tackle a big project.

I understand that intellectual curiosity and craft are not the same thing, that's obvious, but my point is that the first can be, as sometimes it is, the motivation for the second; I am sure Copernicus would agree.

Basically, I don't disagree with what you have written and it doesn't contradict my assertion.

My assertion is that intellectual pleasure could have been the primary motivation for writing the Voynich. Of course, writing the manuscript was very difficult, but many people do very difficult things for pleasure. And if you are someone of means and intelligence choosing to write such a manuscript seems to me perfectly understandable.