14-09-2020, 04:27 PM
Geoffrey, you can increase your chance of success if you analyze something without any preconceptions. If you analyze an object with the idea in mind that you already know what the object is, you already interpret what you see and this way the patterns that you are able to find. This way it becomes incredible difficult to detect anything new and unexpected. It is much easier to detect new patterns if you start with the idea that you don't know anything.
This is also true for undeciphered scripts and it is especially true for the Voynich manuscript. The Voynich text looks like an ordinary text written in an ordinary script. But the text behaves differently than any other text we know. Moreover, there are more than 6,500 known languages with all types of different characteristics. Consequently, it is possible to find examples that even share some of the strange statistical features with the VMS text, like, e.g., the low entropy values or even languages that use many similar word types, and therefore also possess an almost binomial word-length distribution. If you start with the assumption that the text behaves like a specific language you will probably only discuss how to interpret a single word or a single pattern under this assumption. It is much more productive to discuss what the most typical patterns can mean. But before you can start to discuss the most typical patterns you have to find them. Therefore it is necessary to find what all words, what all lines, what all paragraphs and what all folios in the VMS have in common.
Most interestingly, there appears to exist an inherent relation between word similarity and context: when we look at the three most frequent words on each page, for more than half of the pages two of three will differ in only one detail (Timm & Schinner 2020, p. 3). There is no doubt that this relation exists. René Zandbergen has tried to deny this observation You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. times. But every time René tries to find a counter example he only provides additional You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. that words in the VMS are indeed related to similar ones.
This is also true for undeciphered scripts and it is especially true for the Voynich manuscript. The Voynich text looks like an ordinary text written in an ordinary script. But the text behaves differently than any other text we know. Moreover, there are more than 6,500 known languages with all types of different characteristics. Consequently, it is possible to find examples that even share some of the strange statistical features with the VMS text, like, e.g., the low entropy values or even languages that use many similar word types, and therefore also possess an almost binomial word-length distribution. If you start with the assumption that the text behaves like a specific language you will probably only discuss how to interpret a single word or a single pattern under this assumption. It is much more productive to discuss what the most typical patterns can mean. But before you can start to discuss the most typical patterns you have to find them. Therefore it is necessary to find what all words, what all lines, what all paragraphs and what all folios in the VMS have in common.
Most interestingly, there appears to exist an inherent relation between word similarity and context: when we look at the three most frequent words on each page, for more than half of the pages two of three will differ in only one detail (Timm & Schinner 2020, p. 3). There is no doubt that this relation exists. René Zandbergen has tried to deny this observation You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. times. But every time René tries to find a counter example he only provides additional You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. that words in the VMS are indeed related to similar ones.