Thread for all discussion about "genuine/meaningless/fake" etc

[proto57]

Now for me:

"genuine 15th century European cipher herbal" is a theory like any other.

is just rhetoric.

There are no "theories like any other". There are solid theories, i.e. based on solid information, there are those based on shaky information and there are those based on no information at all.

Just saying that one has a theory, and thereby it is as good as any other, doesn't work.

Of course I didn't come close to saying every theory "... is as good as any other". Clearly I was not referring to the relative merit of one theory over the other, nor that any theory is as good as any other. Every theory is valued differently by different people, and that is wonderful. My only point is that the "15th century European Cipher Herbal" is often NOT presented as a theory at all, but as a reality, as a known identifier for the Voynich, and is a problem which stifles discussion, and hinders progress in understanding the Voynich. And further, if one is not introspective about their own theories, is not skeptical about one's own ideas, they will stop moving forward and only look within their bubble of acceptance for validation, rejecting any alternate possibles. If the answer is not within that bubble... that paradigm... they will never see that answer, never acknowledge it.

In this specific case, "genuine 15th century European cipher herbal" is several things combined:

- genuine

- 15th century European

- cipher

- herbal

and this combination is certainly a theory, not more.


"Herbal" really only describes part of the book so it is probably the weakest part

One can quibble about the ingredients of the "1420 Paradigm", which is fine. But you know well what I mean here, Rene, and this is exactly the case I was referring to earlier in this thread: Semantics being misused to stop discussion in its tracks. An element of discussion is picked apart, in this case my general description of the given, baseline, [projected as] reality of the Voynich. One will say "herbal" is inaccurate, and should not be in there, another might say "genuine" because it could be an old fake rather than a new one. Someone else might end the discussion because I use, for convenience the date "1420", and claim it can be 1421 or 1407, therefore the reference is without merit. And so on, like above... and then the obvious premise of my point is not addressed, and is side stepped.

So to make it clearer, that thing you believe the Voynich to be, however you want to describe it, or whatever you want to include in it, or remove, is a theory. It is not fact, it is not proven. It is not, as nobody's theory, conclusions, speculations, ideas, hypotheses, what have you, are known. All are speculative, and should not be presented as or considered settled.... but often are. 15th Century is a theory. Genuine is a theory. European is a theory. Meaningful is a theory.  None of this is known.

However, and unfortunately, these unknowns stated as facts permeate, stifle and slow the entire Voynich discussion. An object or the writing or possible code or whatever is never seen in and of itself, as is done in other investigations, but in this instead: "What genuine 15th century European thing is this representing?" "What genuine 15th century genuine writing, hairstyle, zodiac, cylinder, animal, person, architecture, plant, constellation...", and so on, "... are we seeing here?".

If it is anything BUT 15th century genuine European, it is discarded, not properly considered. And that is my point, and yes it is arguably on topic, as it should be on topic for any discussion with anything Voynich.