Solutions [discussion thread - moved]

[pfeaster]

when those theories are methodologically equivalent then they are really the same theory repeated again and again. And that is what we tend to see the same theory repeated albeit with different proposed languages.

Has anyone yet tried to develop an example of this type that applies the usual methodology, as persuasively as possible, to some solution that couldn't possibly be correct?

For example, unless we posit the existence of time machines, the VMS couldn't possibly be written in Lojban, since it's known to have existed before that a priori conlang was invented in the late 1980s (or the 1950s, if we factor in its predecessor Loglan).

But how much of the vocabulary of Voynichese could be mapped to Lojban anyway, given enough effort, flexibility, and open-mindedness?

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Grammar and syntax would be another matter, but such investigations rarely if ever get that far.

Or if not Lojban, maybe Klingon or Tolkien's Elvish?  This kind of project might require too much work for anyone to want to undertake it without the usual motivation ("I might really have cracked it this time!"), but it could be useful as a point of comparison for more earnest proposals.  Maybe it could somehow be handled as a group effort, so that it wouldn't place too much of a burden on any one person.  Since nobody would be invested in it as a true solution, it could provide a wholly neutral and non-confrontational case study for criticizing the methodology itself.