New Post: "I Do Listen to the Experts. Do YOU?"

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[quote="proto57" pid='59191' dateline='1714223347']

Actually, Andrew is absolutely correct, and it seems both Mark, and now you, Rene, have missed a fundamental and very important distinction between how Mark describes my point on this, and what I actually believe is the case. I've just explained this, above, but will do it again at an attempt to end this misunderstanding on both of your parts, and anyone reading this thread.

I absolutely do NOT think there is a "fundamental problem with their [the expert's] datings". It is quite the opposite, I think their "datings" are fundamentally correct. That is the core point I actually make, not your straw man substitution for it. I posit that all the things they "saw" in the Voynich ARE there, that their widely varied dating opinions are correct for the content in the Voynich.

I do not reject their opinions, I do not think they were wrong, but right. And the fact that they were right, that all this contrary stuff is in there, strongly implies, to me, that this is a forgery.

If, on the other hand, I believed what you mistakenly thought (and no longer do, because I corrected you both), that there was a problem with their dating, this would not be an issue...  I would be able to dismiss them, as the 1420 Genuine European Paradigm needs to do to exist. And of course this is also core to the entire point of the blog post this thread is about: I do listen to the experts, I do think they were, to a major degree, correct, and by listening to these experts, come to what is to me the only logical conclusion: The Voynich is a forgery with varied age of contents.

I also fail to see how one can make the mistake you have both made, considering I explain this clearly (except for the horrible audio, sorry) in the VERY video you link. I've queued it to the time at which I describe my "Red Flag" #2:

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There is nothing in that description of my point that would remotely imply the error you both relate, nor in any of my other explanations of this point in writing, anywhere.

That brings me to another point that I often make is amply demonstrated here: In order to rebut my Modern Forgery hypothesis, one must misstate all or portions of it, or ignore them, or inadequately answer them. The first is of course a "straw man", frequently used to avoid discussion of the actual problems with the Voynich, which are evidence of forgery.

Rich.

Hi Mark: You've made some clearly demonstrable errors, which are easily dismissed, here, in your rebuttal:

Your presentation is very misleading. You don't think their datings are correct, as many of them make it quite clear that they don't think the manuscript is a modern forgery. You can pretend that they agree with you, but they don't. As just one example, how can the Voynich be written by Roger Bacon and at the same time be a modern forgery? It can't.

You conflate the dating opinions of the experts with a verdict of genuine. Yes, they very well may have believed the Voynich was authentic, and perhaps that can be implied by that dating. But there is nothing contradictory in anyone accepting that they dated the content correctly, which I do, while seeing in the circumstances of that dating (that is, the mutually contradictory dating opinions among experts), and coming to mine, or our, conclusions.

For instance, Singer saw the content as "Paracelcian", which would place the creation of the Voynich 100 years past the C14 dating of the vellum. I agree with him, I respect his judgment. Now, did he also think the Voynich was genuine? Maybe, it is irrelevant to whether or not is is genuine. Parcelcian content could have been put into the Voynich up to 1912. The same with Hugh O'Neil's sunflower and pepper identifications. One can accept his analysis and identities of these plants, while realizing that it is possible for those plants to have been applied to the vellum any time up to 1912.

Your desire to link the two is not supported. There is a difference with accepting and expert identification, and drawing a particular conclusion from it. They are separate. It is valid and ordinary, common, and even scientific to draw our own conclusions from expert opinions. The law parallel has been brought up here, and it applies: Both the defense and the prosecution bring forward experts, who give contradictory testimony about the evidence. That testimony is often mutually exclusive, and it is up to the jury... not, usually, experts... to decide what all that expert testimony means to the case. A perfect parallel to the Voynich... I listen to all the experts, agree with their observations and dating, and come to my conclusion as to what it means. Actually, you do, too, by throwing it all out, on the basis that their dating is wrong. Why is that any different?

In addition with the same data in many cases they come to different conclusions from one another, and so they are mutually contradictory and therefore it is impossible for even all their analysis to be consistent with your theory or anyone else's.

Well I'm surprised you actually didn't catch the problem with this sentence, before you sent it, and almost expect it to be gone when I post this answer! Obviously you have just totally supported my point, and in a very specific and exact way: Yes, "... they are mutually contradictory", that is the point I make, which is exactly WHY it is "... consistent with [my] theory" and no one else's. All other theories have to discard all or some of this expert opinion. Genuine/old has to throw out almost all of it, precisely because it is not consistent with their position, and arguable supports forgery.

You seem to be trying to co-opt, mostly dead, people who can't talk back to your theory despite the fact that they have made it clear that they don't endorse your theory.

But Mark, don't you see the irony in your stating this? It is you, and others who adhere to the 1420 Genuine European Cipher theory that discard almost all of the testimony of all these "mostly dead people", and no, they can't "talk back to you", either, about that. I do not discard their voice, as needed to support genuine. I listen to them, I value and use their input.

I can't say how they would react with the advent of the C14 results, but would, if I could, ask them what they now all thought, realizing that their dating observations were many decades, even centuries, away from the creation of the parchment. I can only wonder. Likewise, I could wonder what they would say to people today who say they are all wrong, based on that same C14. You say they are wrong, how do you think Charles Singer, Panofsky, O'Neil, et all, would respond to you?

Rich.