Yes, Sam, ardor and enthusiasm in defending one's points are a good thing, but that should not transgress into the tone of disrespect which I somewhat noted in your post, so I join David in his kind request.
About the experts and their opinions.
First of all (just to make that clear for those who don't follow the discussion from its beginning in another thread), what we mean by "experts" here are not "experts in the Voynich Manuscript". In other words we are not speaking of those people who have dedicated much time studying the VMS and accumulated much knowledge/information about it (like e.g. Nick Pelling), but we are speaking of experts in specific fields of science which are (or might be) relevant to the VMS. Like e.g. "experts in cryptography" or "experts in paleography", or in botany, and so forth.
Now and then an expert (in the meaning described above) expresses his/her opinion or judgement on this aspect of the VMS or another. The question is: how should such opinions be treated? Should they be trusted blindly by way of "authority", since experts are people who know what they are saying? Should the further discourse be built on the expert opinions? Or experts generally are just the same people as the amateurs are, in that they are also prone to mistakes?
Yes and no.
The matter is most easily understood if you take your field or profession and imagine that you are an expert yourself. Actually, even if you are not a scientist, you most likely have a profession (or study for a profession), so you are much better acquainted with this field of human activity than most people are. In that sense of the word you may call yourself an "expert". Yes, you may be not the very best in your profession, but you are better than many, anyway.
So now, ask yourself: are you perfect in your profession? Do you not make mistakes? Have you mastered each and every aspect of your profession? Can each and every aspect of your profession ever be mastered by a single person in principle? If good self-criticism is your friend, then probably your answers will be in negative.
That's exactly the way with experts. There's no such person as an "ideal expert", except if we speak of people who laid foundations. (As an example, Marx can probably be considered as an ideal expert in Marxism). But that's not the case with the VMS.
First of all, everyone's expertise is limited. This is especially true with such sciences as history, archeology or codicology, because they are related to historical facts and artifacts, and our knowledge of historical facts and possession of artifacts is naturally limited - with the time, new facts are discovered and new things are found which can substantially change our ideas of the past.
Next, the expert's opinion largely depends on the context. One thing is a passing judgement. Another thing is judgement based on having learned the facts about the VMS systematically and having dedicated sufficient time to the study thereof. I am afraid that the opinion of many experts has been of the passing kind. Myself, I have noted quite a number of times that my advice (expressed in the course of my professional activity) was - I would not say wrong, but rather only partially adequate: that because i failed to, or was not able to, provide for all the circumstances of the subject matter.
Third, the expert's opinion often is either biased (to greater or lesser extent) by the "background" or suffers from the uncertainty in the related questions. A good example is carbon dating of the VMS, which I think ruled out some earlier propositions by good experts. Have those experts possessed the carbon dating results, no doubt they would alter their judgements.
To put it short, an expert's judgement should not be taken as 100% truth in advance. One should take into account that 1) everyone's expertise is limited; 2) the expert may have failed to account for all the relevant facts; 3) the expert's opinion may be biased.
That does not mean that experts' opinions are useless and we don't need them. On the contrary. What is most valuable in experts is that they save our time and effort of studying the subject field ourselves. An expert is a person who provides a response to the point. The response may turn to be right or wrong, but it will always be to the point and always useful.
When (and if) Friedman says "the VMS is not a cipher", this does not mean that the VMS is not a cipher, notwithstanding all the reputation of Friedman. As our professor of philosophy used to say in my university years, there is no such thing as "authority" in science. The moment when the argument of authority comes in, the science chokes. But if Friedman (to return to my example) says this and explains why he thinks so, you can then make your own conclusions, because Friedman served you with facts and with the trail of experiment and/or deduction which led him to this conclusion. You (let alone experts other than Friedman) are then free to analyze whether there are any flaws in his discourse or there are not.
***
As to the couple of points touched by Sam.
I don't think that Friedman et alii came to some mathematical or the like proof about the VMS being not a cipher. If I'm not mistaken, after their deciphering attempts failed, they just came to the opinion that the VMS is some kind of synthetic language. I have not read the reports of the study groups and do not know the methodology and the initial assumptions. Especially, whether the potentially abbreviated nature of the text was taken into account and whether shuffling was considered.
I do not know if Friedman and Tiltman were experts in medieval ciphers. And they were much limited in that they did not know the dating.
I do not think that Stephen Bax ever positively asserted that the VMS is a natural language stuff. As far as I followed his blog, Stephen is quite careful in his assertions and prefers to speak in terms of hypotheses. I think that he simply follows an assumption, applying his expertise to that assumption.
I join Helmut in his note about the possible abbreviated nature of the text. I think of it as of the "Gold-Bug" or telegraph style: "A good glass in the bishop's hostel in the devil's seat..."
Given the aror sheey wound into the string of Latin script in f116v, we just have to reconcile this in one way or another.
About the experts and their opinions.
First of all (just to make that clear for those who don't follow the discussion from its beginning in another thread), what we mean by "experts" here are not "experts in the Voynich Manuscript". In other words we are not speaking of those people who have dedicated much time studying the VMS and accumulated much knowledge/information about it (like e.g. Nick Pelling), but we are speaking of experts in specific fields of science which are (or might be) relevant to the VMS. Like e.g. "experts in cryptography" or "experts in paleography", or in botany, and so forth.
Now and then an expert (in the meaning described above) expresses his/her opinion or judgement on this aspect of the VMS or another. The question is: how should such opinions be treated? Should they be trusted blindly by way of "authority", since experts are people who know what they are saying? Should the further discourse be built on the expert opinions? Or experts generally are just the same people as the amateurs are, in that they are also prone to mistakes?
Yes and no.
The matter is most easily understood if you take your field or profession and imagine that you are an expert yourself. Actually, even if you are not a scientist, you most likely have a profession (or study for a profession), so you are much better acquainted with this field of human activity than most people are. In that sense of the word you may call yourself an "expert". Yes, you may be not the very best in your profession, but you are better than many, anyway.
So now, ask yourself: are you perfect in your profession? Do you not make mistakes? Have you mastered each and every aspect of your profession? Can each and every aspect of your profession ever be mastered by a single person in principle? If good self-criticism is your friend, then probably your answers will be in negative.
That's exactly the way with experts. There's no such person as an "ideal expert", except if we speak of people who laid foundations. (As an example, Marx can probably be considered as an ideal expert in Marxism). But that's not the case with the VMS.
First of all, everyone's expertise is limited. This is especially true with such sciences as history, archeology or codicology, because they are related to historical facts and artifacts, and our knowledge of historical facts and possession of artifacts is naturally limited - with the time, new facts are discovered and new things are found which can substantially change our ideas of the past.
Next, the expert's opinion largely depends on the context. One thing is a passing judgement. Another thing is judgement based on having learned the facts about the VMS systematically and having dedicated sufficient time to the study thereof. I am afraid that the opinion of many experts has been of the passing kind. Myself, I have noted quite a number of times that my advice (expressed in the course of my professional activity) was - I would not say wrong, but rather only partially adequate: that because i failed to, or was not able to, provide for all the circumstances of the subject matter.
Third, the expert's opinion often is either biased (to greater or lesser extent) by the "background" or suffers from the uncertainty in the related questions. A good example is carbon dating of the VMS, which I think ruled out some earlier propositions by good experts. Have those experts possessed the carbon dating results, no doubt they would alter their judgements.
To put it short, an expert's judgement should not be taken as 100% truth in advance. One should take into account that 1) everyone's expertise is limited; 2) the expert may have failed to account for all the relevant facts; 3) the expert's opinion may be biased.
That does not mean that experts' opinions are useless and we don't need them. On the contrary. What is most valuable in experts is that they save our time and effort of studying the subject field ourselves. An expert is a person who provides a response to the point. The response may turn to be right or wrong, but it will always be to the point and always useful.
When (and if) Friedman says "the VMS is not a cipher", this does not mean that the VMS is not a cipher, notwithstanding all the reputation of Friedman. As our professor of philosophy used to say in my university years, there is no such thing as "authority" in science. The moment when the argument of authority comes in, the science chokes. But if Friedman (to return to my example) says this and explains why he thinks so, you can then make your own conclusions, because Friedman served you with facts and with the trail of experiment and/or deduction which led him to this conclusion. You (let alone experts other than Friedman) are then free to analyze whether there are any flaws in his discourse or there are not.
***
As to the couple of points touched by Sam.
I don't think that Friedman et alii came to some mathematical or the like proof about the VMS being not a cipher. If I'm not mistaken, after their deciphering attempts failed, they just came to the opinion that the VMS is some kind of synthetic language. I have not read the reports of the study groups and do not know the methodology and the initial assumptions. Especially, whether the potentially abbreviated nature of the text was taken into account and whether shuffling was considered.
I do not know if Friedman and Tiltman were experts in medieval ciphers. And they were much limited in that they did not know the dating.
I do not think that Stephen Bax ever positively asserted that the VMS is a natural language stuff. As far as I followed his blog, Stephen is quite careful in his assertions and prefers to speak in terms of hypotheses. I think that he simply follows an assumption, applying his expertise to that assumption.
I join Helmut in his note about the possible abbreviated nature of the text. I think of it as of the "Gold-Bug" or telegraph style: "A good glass in the bishop's hostel in the devil's seat..."
Quote:But how do we possibly reconcile a 100% medieval Western European origin for the VMS with the fact that it is written in an otherwise unknown language?
Given the aror sheey wound into the string of Latin script in f116v, we just have to reconcile this in one way or another.
![[+]](https://www.voynich.ninja/images/collapse_collapsed.png)