Classifying False Voynich Decipherment "Solutions"

[Mark Knowles]

I don't think you can classify theories/false solutions, and so I'd disagree that there is a "Cheshire" type that is easily distinguishable from other theories.  

What we see is an array of symptoms that false solutions tend to display.  Every false solution has at least a combination of these.  Certain of the symptoms are seen in all theories; others may or may not be present, in varying combinations.  And as these combinations likely overlap, I don't think there is a way of making a clean distinction and saying "this theory has Combination A symptoms so is Type A theory", etc.   But it's probably true to say that the worse theories tend to have all or most of the symptoms; the better theories have fewer.

I think you have made a good point as far as the difficulty of classifying theories.

As far as your list goes I find some of your items much more interesting than others, namely the following:

As for the symptoms, a non-exhaustive list would include:  

1. Provides "translations" of isolated words, or at most sentences out of context
   
2. Searches a dictionary and picks the word they like the most to fit their system, even if it is a rare or odd word
   
3. No grammar:  any sentences are a "word salad", with words chosen for how well they fit the system rather than whether they fit into a grammatical sentence.  There is little or no attention paid to how well the "translation" matches up with the target language's grammar 
   
4. System has multiple degrees of freedom:  in a blind test, two users of the system would not arrive at the same translation.  The "translation" is not repeatable.  
   
5. Explains away difficulties by suggesting multiple languages are used, or says experts in the language are needed to provide a full translation.  Keeps adding excuses for why a longer translation cannot be provided and/or for why the system stops working when applied to longer phrases
   
6. Little or no thought given to how the author(s) would use this system in practice and whether the information is really recoverable 
   
7. Fails to explain certain or even all key Voynichese unlanguage-like behaviour (line start/end patterns, paragraph start/ends, letter positions, word break combinations, and this is not an exhaustive list).  Many don't even know of these patterns since they haven't done their research.
   

I would add that I think that when you say "incorrectly thinks the probability of finding a "matching" word in their target language is low; is unaware of how prevalent such coincidences are, and of confirmation bias" that is a good observation, although I see no problem in general of using the phrase "it cannot be a concidence"

I would say that "no cataloguing of any distortions or accommodations they make in order to produce a 'translation'" seems a like a good point to me. The rest of that item seems more general and broader in its scope and so less interesting.



The following items I find much less interesting as they are much more general and not theory specific in the way that I am trying to get at:

[*]Has not read the arguments provided by other theories, and so repeats their mistakes
[*]Reacts badly to criticism of the theory.  Spends all their time defending the theory rather than genuinely exploring whether criticisms are right.  Some may even turn abusive.
[*]Finds the "solution" in a matter of days or weeks but never asks the question "If the solution was this obvious, why hasn't anyone found it before?"  Focuses instead about how they are the one person to finally find the solution, to pull the sword from the stone. 

[*]

I think it is possible to have a good theory and not have read other theories or react badly to others criticism or find a solution in a short period of time that others have missed.

Nevertheless I appreciate your points as some get much closer to the subject I was trying to address.